Project 2025 is coming for marine mammals
How to defend the MMPA and ESA this week
I NEED YOU TO TAKE A TINY QUICK IMPORTANT ACTION THIS WEEK.
It would be difficult for me to overstate the role that the Marine Mammal Protection Act has had in my life. In my worldview there are horse girlies and dolphin girlies, and I’m a dolphin girlie. I do not remember a time before caring about and wanting to protect and defend and learn about dolphins was a guiding force in my life, and I intend to NOT know a time after.
When I tell you about gay male dolphin sex; the dolphin clitoris; dolphin learning and culture; the female dolphin that invented “sponging”; killer whales teaching each other to pick fish off longlines (and spreading the fad around)…the Marine Mammal Protection Act is ALWAYS implied. Because it has been SO DANG EFFECTIVE. Like, the thing really works. So does the Endangered Species Act. In a true sixth mass extinction event, in like a PROPER biodiversity crisis, my friends, these federal laws are the ones giving us ANY GLIMMERS of hope. I am not exaggerating.
Both of these laws are around 50 years old. 84% of Americans support them. In the time they’ve existed:
From NOAA: “Since it (the MMPA) was enacted, no marine mammal species have gone extinct in U.S. waters. The Act's protections have stopped the decline of many marine mammal populations and have led to the recovery of several, such as populations of humpback whales, gray whales, gray seals, and California sea lions.”
When I went to the US Dept of Interior website to look into how effective the Endangered Species Act is, do you know what? They told me the page had been archived as of January 20, 2025 and shan’t continue to be updated (during this dictatorship at least.)
But the website must admit, “In its first 50 years, the ESA has been credited with saving 99% of listed species from extinction thanks to the collaborative actions of federal agencies, state, local and Tribal governments, conservation organizations and private citizens.” The Act prevented the bald eagle from going extinct! Humpback whales! American alligators! Whooping cranes! Peregrine falcons!
BUT ALSO: In the last 50 years, we’ve lost 73% of all vertebrates worldwide. So these laws are URGENT today.
So my blood doth be boiling that some dodo birds intend to come for it next in their “efficiency” scourge. On Wednesday morning, Feb 26th, at 10:00AM, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold hearings on “implementation” of the MMPA and ESA.
It is unacceptable that a political party committed to being anti-science is putting itself in a position to review…science. It also doesn’t work for me because even if you were to be inclined to go after government inefficiencies…these laws have been highly efficient! It’s not the right target! Their implementation has had a LOT of bang for its buck (all 72 of you remaining Southern Resident Killer Whales and 370 North Atlantic Right Whales who are reading this and asking, but what about me, I hear you and yes we continue to f*** you over and that’s not working for me either.)
THE POINT IS: please please please call your reps this week and say, The Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act are very very important to me, I want you to defend them tooth and claw. Call YOUR reps, and the list of committee members below!
Fluke and fin, through thick and thin.
For animals,
Perrin
Love this and 150% agree!
I’m a Marine Science student graduating in December, and I’m on a path to find my next move, because it was going to be NOAA. But now NOAA is a target of the presidency to be dismantled. So I’m trying to find other ways to be involved in policy and protections. I do research with a team on how the media affects the views of people, specifically how they cause government to act in the creation and implementation of policy. We focus on the North Atlantic right whale, of which there are about 350 left, and they are continuously being killed or injured. The MMPA protects them.
In the summer of 2023 I participated in an internship with NOAA and was invited to attend the ESA 50 hearing held by the House Committee on Natural Resources, which was and probably still is Conservative-run. The goal of the meeting was to determine if the ESA should be abolished. The Conservatives had interns walking around with signs filled with utter lies about different species and what the Act has or hasn’t done for our country, extinction rates, you name it. It was ridiculous. The people shouldn’t be making these changes. They don’t believe our scientists and so they won’t rely on them for making these laws.
(Here’s a link to that hearing: https://www.youtube.com/live/DhIaIwtddR8?si=PAWuTalgSIDmPzhB).
The least we can do is call our officials. There’s a free app called 5 Calls. It’s on Android and iPhone. You add your zip code, determines who your representatives are AND gives you a script! It has multiple topics included. I can’t encourage people enough to check this out and take part.
Conservatives in power won’t protect our animals. We have to.
I contacted my representative and quoted the government websites and your substack. Thank you.