whales

Two nonprofits filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries for government action aimed to reduce ships striking whales.

The state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement the closure is meant to reduce entanglement risk to the whales as they forage off the Golden State’s coast.

While multiple kinds of whales frequent the Pacific coast, the spring season’s focus is migratory gray whales travelling north from their winter breeding grounds in Baja California.

The state’s Fish and Wildlife Department says it will reevaluate the move later this month, depending on the risk fishing lines pose to the whales.