NOAA today announced over $9 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds to support strategic partnerships designed to improve fishing gear and population monitoring to assist in the recovery North Atlantic right whales.
Funding will specifically support further development of on-demand (ropeless) fishing gear technology through funds to fishing industry partners to assess and provide feedback on technologies to prevent fishing gear entanglements ($6.9 million), as well as partner efforts to improve monitoring and modeling efforts ($2.8M).
Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo said that collective NOAA and partner actions “are key to conserving North Atlantic right whales and preventing their extinction,” with Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries Janet Coit adding that “[i]t’s imperative we advance our collective actions to help recover this species, and these partnerships will help the science and conservation community do just that.”
