Whales and humans on a collision course

This appeared in the Summerside (P.E.I.) Journal Pioneer:

Experts estimate there are only about 525 North Atlantic right whales still swimming in the world’s oceans. At least they were until last month. That’s when six of those large marine mammals were found floating in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Dead. It’s the largest known die-off in decades.

Necropsies performed on three of the carcasses on a P.E.I. beach last week noted evidence of blunt trauma, consistent with collisions with ships, with two of the whales, and fishing gear entanglement for the other. It could be that ship strikes occurred after the whales died, but it’s unlikely a whale became entangled in fishing gear after it died. Human activity, such as shipping and fishing, have long being identified as major contributing factors in the deaths of right whales in the decades since harvesting of the gentle giants ended.

Right whales are relatively slow-moving — average speed is around 10 kilometres per hour — so they’re relatively easy to track. Some have satellite tags attached.

Affixing tags to more of the whales, and relying on the tags for even more information could help.

The right whales’ natural habitat is still on a collision course with human activity. We can’t expect the whales to alter their course, so it’s up to us humans to make some changes to our behaviour.