Page 18 - Mark Baumgartner News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Biden wants to move energy offshore, but choppy seas are ahead Josh Partlow © Hannah Yoon for The Washington Post A liftboat at the Dorchester Shipyard in New Jersey on Friday. The ships help do drilling and cabling for offshore wind farms. DORCHESTER, N.J. — In his three decades servicing oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, boat captain Keith Piper rode out all manner of storms and gales. Still, he had never faced the elements that tested him last winter at a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Subzero temperatures. Snow. A nor’easter blowing 70 miles per hour....

Ropes that spring to the water’s surface when summoned and virtual buoys could hold the key to saving one of the world’s most endangered whale species, scientists and conservation groups have said. As the North Atlantic right whale nears the brink of extinction – amid reports of whales tangled in metres of thick fishing lines and findings suggesting 85% of the population have been entangled at least once – calls have grown for the adoption of ropeless fishing, using gear that does not involve any vertical lines. “Ropeless was seen as a kind of crazy idea before,” said Mark Baumgar...

Editor's note: This is part of a series of 10 stories on a variety of topics that take a look back at 2020 and forward to 2021. Many policies and practices were changed or adjusted because of the pandemic — or other disruption — and we look at how those changes will shape the future.  For North Atlantic right whales, the most endangered great whale — and marine mammal —  on Earth, the good news for the new year started early, with the birth of three calves in the fall. But a fourth calf washed up dead on a North Carolina beach in late November, believed to have died of natural...

One of the world's most endangered whales was spotted swimming with a newborn in the waters off South Carolina's Hilton Head island. A drone camera captured footage of a 50-ton North Atlantic right whale and her calf frolicking about four miles from shore. According to the boat captain who spotted the pair on Friday, the mother was 50 feet long and the calf was close to 15 feet. The North Atlantic right whale is among the rarest of marine mammals, with less than 400 left in the world. Collisions with boats and entanglement in lobster nets are the main reason they are critically endangered.