Deadly summer
Wildlife health co-operative releases report on deaths of right whales in Gulf of St. Lawrence this year
Experts say it’s the deadliest year for right whales they’ve ever seen.
Blunt force trauma caused by collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear are to blame for the deaths of right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since June.
Those were the findings released Thursday at a press conference in Charlottetown where the Canadian Wildlife Health Co-operative (CWHC) released a report titled “Incident Report: North Atlantic Right Whale Mortality Event in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 2017’’. The report, which includes findings from necropsies performed this summer on seven of the dead right whales, was
prepared and released by the Marine Animal Response Society and Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
In total, 12 right whales were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this season, a number experts have never seen before.
“This is a very serious event
and, frankly, it is quite alarming for the species,’’ said Matthew Hardy with DFO. “Government and non-government and academics have all acted with a sense of urgency to determine what is happening.
DFO documented 114 right whales in the Gulf this summer, about a quarter of the world’s population, which has been pegged at 458, making the right whale an endangered species.
The report indicates, of the seven necropsies, one death was clearly due to entanglement in fishing gear, four could be attributed to collisions with ships and one was inconclusive but suggested blunt force trauma. The report on a seventh necropsy is still pending, but early indications suggest entanglement. All of the entanglements were in snow crab fishing gear. Pierre-Yves Daoust, pathologist and professor at the Atlantic Veterinary College and co-author of the report, said the biggest challenge was dealing with the rapid decomposition of the whales.
“We did a necropsy of seven right whales in a bit more than two months (which) is probably a record, (one) that we should not be happy about,’’ Daoust said. “We did a complete necropsy – that is literally head to tail.’’
Daoust said one whale found to have died due to entanglement was especially thin, likely from poor feeding. They also based their findings on the presence of scar tissue, indicating areas where the fishing gear was particularly tightly wrapped.
In terms of the blunt force trauma, Daoust said signs don’t show up on the outside of the whales.
“(We) based that particularly of what we interpreted as severe bleeding in those animals.’’
Daoust said they ruled out emaciation due to starvation, acute or chronic intoxication by algae or biotoxins and infectious diseases.
Tonya Wimmer, director of the Marine Animal Response Society, said the report isn’t about assigning blame. “It’s very much from a point of view of learning, about trying to figure out where we focus conservation efforts,’’ Wimmer said. “The more we can focus and fine tune it, the more people will be able to figure out what to do.’’
In addition to the 12 right whale deaths in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there have been three right whale deaths in U.S. waters, Wimmer said. “The focus needs to be on preventing these things from happening . . . it’s up to us.’’