One question I have: why only specifically cetaceans? While a few seals do exist off the northeastern and eastern coasts of the region, and whales do exists along our Atlantic coast, why specifically cetaceans? Is it because they're cuter or something? I'm all for animal conservation, and I'm also all for protecting marine animals in Dixie, but while this bill does raise a good point, I don't particularly like the execution. It's too broad to protect any individual animal specifically to its needs, and too narrow to include all of the creatures who don't belong to this particular infraorder.
The intent of the bill, as far as I can recall, was to institute a variety of regulations on fisheries in order to reduce marine mammal bycatch, similar to the requirements that already exist in federal law for the use of turtle excluder devices in bottom trawling. As a practical matter, the effects would mostly be limited to dolphins and porpoises (there's not a lot of sperm whales getting caught in purse seines).
I'm sympathetic to the argument that dolphins deserve heightened legal protections on account of their intelligence, but I believe the bill is limited to cetaceans on more practical grounds — they frequently drown in fishing nets and the changes necessary to avoid that are relatively low-cost. I disagree with the assessment that the language is too broad to protect any particular animal; it's narrowly targeted to focus on the nets used in various fisheries and specifies which nets are and are not acceptable, with a couple additional provisions to address specific problems related to power plants and commercial tourism.
