SEVENTH NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE FOUND DEAD

Another North Atlantic right whale

has been found floating lifeless in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, making it the seventh death of the endangered animals in recent weeks. Tonya Wimmer of the Marine Animal Response Society says the decomposed whale was found off the Magdalen Islands by the Canadian Coast Guard. She says it is a male, but that it wasn’t yet clear what caused its death. Robert Michaud of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals in Quebec says he is waiting to hear whether Fisheries will arrange for a necropsy. The latest case comes after six other North Atlantic right whales were found floating in roughly the same area last month. Necropsies on three of them suggest two may have been killed by ship strikes, while a third died after becoming entangled in fishing gear.