"Feds Expand Critical Whale Habitat To Include Entire Gulf Of Maine"

"Over the past 35 years, the population of right whales in the North Atlantic Ocean has not expanded nearly as much as scientific understanding of the endangered species.

In February, acting on data compiled in recent decades, federal regulators will greatly expand the marine mammals’ designated critical habitat areas off southern and northern portions of the East Coast in the hope the whales’ population numbers might follow suit.

Only 500 or so right whales are estimated to exist in the North Atlantic, up from an estimate of 300 in the mid-1990s, according to federal officials."

Bill Trotter reports for the Bangor Daily News January 31, 2016.