“Walls of death” – that’s what endangered sperm whales off the coast of California face. Mile-long drift gillnets are set out at night to “soak” and catch swordfish, yet sperm whales are not spared. Entangled in a drift gillnet, a sperm whale may easily exhaust itself, suffer cuts and infection, starve or drown.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) let emergency regulations expire on August 6, without issuing permanent conservation measures to protect sperm whales from drift gillnets. And now NMFS has proposed deviating from well-established methods of assessing fishery threats to marine mammals, preventing sperm whales from receiving much-needed protections.

Demand NMFS immediately create permanent protections for endangered sperm whales using established and accurate measures – we can’t leave sperm whales in such high risk of death."