Human activities, principally ship strikes and fishery gear entanglements, account for approximately one-third of all known Western North Atlantic right whale mortalities. In an effort to reduce ship collisions with the critically endangered right whale, The Northeast Right Whale Early Warning System (EWS), presently called Right Whale Sighting Advisory System, was developed in late 1996. The System provides real-time right whale sighting

information to the commercial shipping industry and other marine traffic from aerial and shipboard surveys conducted by several agencies and organizations and from verified opportunistic sightings. In 1998, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Center for Coastal Studies, the MA Division of Marine Fisheries, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution , the International Wildlife Coalition, the Whale Center of New England, several whale watch companies, and a high speed ferry company, contributed sightings reports to the NE Right Whale SAS. In the years since it's inception, there has been a wide variety of reporting sources due to the expanding awareness of the plight of the right whale and their vulnerability to collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear.

Principally, the Cape Cod Bay (CCB) and Great South Channel (GSC) critical habitats are surveyed from January – early July (the peak period of right whale residency in these waters) by air and ship with right whale sightings information coordinated and processed by a NMFS coordinator. Sightings for each survey day (survey days are weather dependent) are plotted in an ARCINFO based GIS program and circled with a buffer zone greater than or equal to 5 kilometers around the right whale locations. Coordinates for the right whale sightings and geographic maps of the sighting locations are disseminated to cooperators by an automated fax system immediately after processing. Coordinates and a radius of the right whale sighting circles are broadcast for 24 hours by CG via Broadcast Notice to Mariners and NAVTEX, NOAA Weather Radio, and Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) Traffic

Controllers at Cape Cod Canal to target shipping traffic and to a lesser degree, other marine traffic. Additionally, shipping agents and pilots provide the most recent sighting information from the right whale faxes to vessel captains inbound or outbound from Boston and Portland ports. General right whale advisories are also broadcast to or given verbally to observed commercial vessels throughout the survey period.

Maps with right whale sightings are also posted on a timely basis to several web pages such as Whalenet, and the NMFS NER and NEC web pages which are cross linked to Whalenet. Additional cooperators, including but not limited to, the MA Environmental Trust, NOAA, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, New England Aquarium, Navy and Massport, the Boston port authority, are involved in supporting and planning network operations.

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