Marine Mammal Protection Act
Overview
The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) is under threat from attacks from Congress and the Trump administration, while at the same time the federal agencies that implement the law are seeing funding cuts. Join Oceana in fighting to protect and enforce this crucial law that protects whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals.
What is the Marine Mammal Protection Act?
Fact Sheet
The Marine Mammal Protection Act
The MMPA prohibits activities that “harass, hunt, capture, or kill” any marine mammal, or attempt to do so (referred to as “takes”). The MMPA also prohibits the possession and trafficking of marine mammals and their products.
Exceptions to the ‘take’ prohibition can be made in limited circumstances, with the number depending on the health and size of a given marine mammal population. Commercial fishermen may incidentally ‘take’ marine mammals but are required to minimize and report interactions. Researchers may apply for permits to study or tag marine mammals in service of conservation goals. People who engage in subsistence fishing in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and institutions such as aquariums, may obtain ‘take’ permits under strict standards.
In addition, the MMPA allows the United States to block the importation of seafood into the U.S. from foreign fisheries whose marine mammal protection standards are not “comparable in effectiveness” to those of the U.S.
Threats to Marine Mammals
Fishing Gear Interactions
A wide variety of gear, including nets, hooks, and the ropes used in fishing, can accidentally catch a range of marine mammals, from the smallest seals to the largest whales. These interactions can cause injuries or kill marine mammals. This can also happen from “ghost gear” — lost or abandoned fishing nets and lines that continue to trap and harm marine life for years.
One particular threat from fishing is vertical ropes in the water. These ropes are used to connect gear on the seafloor to a buoy at the surface, and can wrap around whales’ mouths, fins, tails, and bodies, making it difficult to swim, reproduce, and feed. Often, the result is eventual death from infection, malnutrition, and drowning.
Entanglements from trap and pot fisheries are seen most frequently in waters off California, New England, Alaska, and Hawaii. Most cases involve threatened or endangered humpback whales, but critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are also impacted. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in 2024, 95 large whales were confirmed entangled in U.S. waters compared to 64 in 2023, a number well above the historical average of around 71 per year.
Drift Gillnets
Drift gillnets, mile-long nets used to target sharks and swordfish, are responsible for a significant amount of bycatch, or unintentional capture of marine animals. Data from the NOAA Observer Program shows that from May 2007 to January 2013, drift gillnet fishermen operating off the California coast discarded 61% of all animals caught, including 309 dolphins, 268 sea lions and seals, and 22 whales. While some animals thrown overboard are alive at the time, it’s likely that many die later because of the trauma induced by net injuries. Thanks to years of campaigning by Oceana, large mesh drift gillnets are now being phased out of California, a significant victory for marine life.
Vessel Strikes
Collisions with boats are another leading cause of injury and death for marine mammals, including, but not limited to, humpback whales, fin whales, blue whales, Rice’s whales, and North Atlantic right whales. While NOAA has established voluntary slow zones across the U.S. for larger vessels, boats of any size can injure or kill marine mammals. Tracking the exact number of fatalities is difficult because many strikes go unreported, and often a whale will sink after impact. Limiting vessel speeds to 10 knots is the only proven effective solution in reducing whale casualties (boats smaller than 65 feet and U.S. military vessels are exempt).
Seismic Airguns
Marine mammals are also subject to trauma resulting from seismic airguns, devices that use sonic pulses to locate underwater oil and gas reserves.
Legislative Threats to the MMPA
Campaign Victories
Campaigning by Oceana and our allies is reducing harm to marine mammals and their habitats.
In 2025, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” dramatically cut funding to NOAA, limiting the agency’s ability to observe fisheries and conduct marine mammal stock assessments, and to fund local volunteer organizations that respond to strandings and entanglements. These actions and organizations are essential to verify that foreign seafood fisheries are complying with U.S. whale- and dolphin-safe fishing practices.
More recently, the Trump administration has proposed additional significant cuts to the NOAA budget; the Trump administration’s FY 2027 budget proposal would eliminate more than $1.1 billion from NOAA’s budget — a 17% reduction overall. A detailed description of that proposal includes cutting $77 million for fisheries management and science, which would be on top of 2026 reductions and the loss of more than 400 staff members in 2025, which has already undermined NOAA Fisheries.
Meanwhile, Congress is considering a new bill that would take a sledgehammer to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The proposed bill undermines three of the MMPA’s keystone principles in the following ways:
1. It Reduces Protections
Currently, the MMPA generally makes it illegal to harass, hunt, capture, kill, or injure marine mammals, including actions that disturb and disrupt their habitat. The proposed bill would narrow these protections and allow more activities that could harm marine mammals. It also allows activities that could cause harm to be approved automatically if agencies don’t act fast enough — a big problem when agency budgets and staff are already being cut.
2. It Allows More Death
Right now, fisheries are required to reduce incidental killings of marine mammals. This helps prevent, for example, dolphin massacres like what was happening before the MMPA became law. But the proposed bill significantly weakens these standards.
3. It Abandons Recovery
Today, agencies are required to use the best available science to maintain and recover marine mammal populations to healthy levels. This bill would downgrade the threshold from thriving to simply surviving.
Another threat from Congress is a bill introduced by Reps. Lawler (R-NY) and Golden (D-ME) that would delay needed protections for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglements in fishing gear. This proposed delay would add seven years to the timeline –a total of 12 years after these protections were first required by a federal court.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why was the Marine Mammal Protection Act created?
A: The MMPA passed over 50 years ago with broad bipartisan support due in part to a wave of public outcry. At that time, more than 400,000 dolphins were being killed annually in Pacific tuna nets, and the commercial whaling industry was still slaughtering whales at an industrial scale.
Q: When was the MMPA passed?
A: In response to public outcry, Congress passed the MMPA in 1972. The deaths of dolphins in tuna nets dropped dramatically in the following decade.
Q: Who enforces the Marine Mammal Protection Act?
A: The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a division of NOAA under the U.S. Department of Commerce, has jurisdiction over whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals and sea lions, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) under the Department of the Interior has jurisdiction over manatees, polar bears, sea otters, and walruses. Additionally, the MMPA created the Marine Mammal Commission, an independent committee that reviews marine mammal stock assessments conducted by NMFS and advises federal agencies and Congress on how to minimize harm to marine mammals and their environments.
Q: Is the Marine Mammal Protection Act international?
A: No, the MMPA is a U.S. law, but its reach is international in the sense that it applies to U.S. citizens and vessels anywhere in the world. The MMPA also mandates that federal agencies collaborate with global organizations like the International Whaling Commission and observe international agreements such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Finally, the MMPA allows the U.S. to prohibit the importation of seafood from foreign fisheries whose marine mammal protection standards are not “comparable in effectiveness” to those of the U.S.
Q: Which protected marine mammals are caught in drift gillnets?
A: Common bycatch includes the bottlenose dolphin, long-beaked common dolphin, shortbeaked common dolphin, northern right whale dolphin, Pacific white-sided dolphin, California sea lion, Northern elephant seal, Risso’s dolphin, short-finned pilot whale, gray whale, humpback whale, sperm whale, and minke whale.
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