It never gets any easier to kill a story idea because TNS just doesn’t have enough staff – there’s only five us steering this ship – to cover everything that deserves attention. Here’s another story that goes to the graveyard without a TNS investigation:

This week, the Humane Society of the United States and the Ocean Conservancy filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service "for failing to protect three endangered whale species: right whales, humpbacks and fin whales."

According to a press release from the Humane Society, the complaint argues that the agency "violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act by ignoring a congressionally imposed deadline to issue regulations to reduce whale entanglement and deaths."

As previously reported by TNS in June, the federal government was finally considering changing shipping routes to help protect the right whale. But even at that time, environmentalists were saying the changes didn’t go far enough, and criticized the government for dragging its feet.

See our previous related coverage: Environmentalists Urge Greater Right-Whale Protections