House, Senate Should Fully Fund Efforts to Save Right Whales

In a March 2023 letter to the House and Senate appropriations committees, The Pew Charitable Trusts and more than 30 other organizations asked Congress to include in the 2024 federal budget full funding for the Conservation and Mitigation Assistance Grant Program, which could benefit critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Congress authorized $50 million for the fund last year, but that money still must be appropriated in the final budget. If the grant program receives the full amount, it will support a transition to on-demand (also known as ropeless) fishing gear by funding research, development, and testing. Entanglement in traditional fishing gear’s many ropes is a chief cause of death for right whales.