Right whale protection measures prove effective
HALIFAX — A year after the population of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales suffered devastating losses, Canadian officials say measures taken this season to protect the species have worked.
With the summer fishing season in the Gulf of St. Lawrence drawing to a close, the Fisheries Department said Friday that not one whale had died as a result of a ship strike or fishing-gear entanglement, the main causes for most of the deaths last season.
In all, 17 right whales died last year — 12 in Canadian waters — prompting concerns that the population might be on the fast track toward extinction.
The federal government responded with a series of protection measures, which included speed restrictions for boats, increased surveillance and a series of closures of fishing areas where right whales were spotted.
Some of the measures were unpopular with fishermen, but Fisheries Department spokesman Adam Burns said they were “extremely effective.”
“We know that the measures we put in place this year have had real economic impacts on some communities,” he said. “But this is an important step forward for the management measures we put in place.”
There are believed to be fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales remaining and, of those, only about 100 breeding females.
In all, 135 individual whales were spotted this summer in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, compared with 114 confirmed sightings last year. However, no calves were seen, a troubling development that has raised new concerns about the fate of the massive mammals.
The protection measures remain in place because some whales were recently spotted in the Gulf, as well as the Roseway Basin, off southwestern Nova Scotia, and the Grand Manan Basin in the Bay of Fundy. The restrictions won’t be lifted until the whales return to their wintering grounds farther south, Burns said.
In June, a fishermen’s group took aim at a fisheries closure in the Bay of Fundy, saying the move was an overreaction because only one whale had been seen in the Grand Manan Basin.
That closure and others affected fixedgear fishermen with licences to fish for lobster, crab, groundfish, herring and mackerel. Snow crab fishermen in the Gulf were also affected.