The whale

Environmental scientists say Rice's whale, discovered in 2021, faces extinction unless the federal government sets tougher restrictions on oil and gas ...

[data](https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20220601-state-sales-tax-revenue-totaled-37-billion-in-may-1654109340274) from Texas Comptroller [Glenn Hegar](https://www.texastribune.org/directory/glenn-hegar/), Texas oil and natural gas producers are paying record amounts of production taxes to the state. Join thousands of readers who power The Texas Tribune’s nonprofit newsroom. The whales were hit hard by the 2010 [Deepwater Horizon oil spill](https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/deepwater-horizon-bp-gulf-mexico-oil-spill), which killed 11 workers when a British Petroleum drilling platform exploded and sank, spilling 4 million barrels of oil into the gulf over 87 days. The noise can confuse the whales, which rest at night within 50 feet of the gulf’s surface, and interfere with their communication, making it harder for them to find food, navigate and mate, according to NOAA. “It would be a tragedy to watch this whale species go extinct, so soon after we learned that it was there.” Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. … supporting the Tribune. It’s the only baleen whale known to live in the gulf, and Carden said its isolation led to it evolving into its own species. The endangered species — only about 50 are believed to exist — lives in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service, also called NOAA Fisheries, are conducting research to understand the whales’ migration patterns. [Center for Biological Diversity oceans program](https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/oceans/). “It’s not too often that we discover new species of whales.