NOAA Redraws Shipping Routes.(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)(Brief article)

Federal officials say they took business interests and shipping schedules into account as they drew up new recommended East Coast shipping routes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave ship captains the redrawn shipping routes in an effort to reduce ship collisions with endangered right whales.

The routes are only voluntary, however. They apply to ships entering and leaving the ports of Jacksonville and Fernandina, Fla., Brunswick, Ga., and in Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay.

The idea is to have ships avoid areas where the whales, whose …