“Uncovering the Role of Fishing Gear in Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation”

FREDERICTON – Much can be learned about the evolving habits of endangered North Atlantic right whales by tracing pieces of fishing gear from which the animals are released, researchers say.

Equipment freed from a whale in January in United States waters has been traced to the south coast of Nova Scotia, Canada’s Department of Fisheries said in a recent news release.

“This is the first involvement of North Atlantic right whales in over five years confirmed to be linked to Canada’s lobster fishery,” the department said.

Andrea Morden, manager of the whale team at the Department of Fisheries, said fishermen have been required to tag their gear since 2020. Since then, the department has received 11,675 reports of lost equipment, she added.

Whale entanglements can be reduced by knowing what’s out there — even if no one knows exactly how much gear is floating in the oceans, Morden said in an interview on Monday.

“Commercial harvesting has been going on in Canada for as long as Canada has been around,” she said.

“It’s hard to say how much gear…was lost before the lost gear reporting requirement went into effect.”

Dalhousie University biology professor Boris Worm said that by tracking equipment, researchers can determine which parts of the ocean pose the greatest risk of entanglement – a leading cause of injury and death for the whales.

“Then we can redouble our conservation efforts in that particular region.”

He said he was interested to know the equipment was traced back to the south coast of Nova Scotia because conservationists hadn’t focused on those waters.

“We haven’t studied it as intensively as the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” he said. “As such, it’s really important to know where to direct our monitoring and conservation efforts.”

Michael Moore, a Massachusetts marine mammal researcher, agreed that tracking equipment is helpful.

“The labeling of the equipment certainly shows where risks are occurring now,” said Moore of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a nonprofit organization dedicated to marine research, exploration and education.

Worm says researchers noticed a shift in right whales’ summer foraging habitat about 10 years ago as the animals gradually moved northwest from the Gulf of Maine, which includes the Bay of Fundy and south of Nova Scotia, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

“It was like the whales were looking for a new supermarket,” he said.

Moore noted the asymmetry between the number of remaining North Atlantic right whales, which number about 340, and the thousands of tethers criss-crossing parts of the ocean.

“A fisherman can rightly say they’ve never seen a whale, but a whale can rightly say they’ve seen gear every day,” he said. “And that mismatch of perspective is what makes it so difficult.”

While tracking gear is useful, it doesn’t necessarily mean that animals won’t become entangled again in the same area. Entangled animals suffer from stress, an inability to eat and injuries that can even affect reproduction, he said.

Worm and Moore said the survival of the endangered right whales depends in large part on fishermen switching to ropeless gear.

Moore published a paper in the Journal of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea last month arguing that consumers should buy seafood that’s ethically sourced — including from fishermen using rope-less gear.

He said a balance is needed between the needs of the fishing industry and consumers and the survival of large marine life, as crabs, fish and other seafood may not exist in an ocean without whales.

“We have to think longer term,” Moore said. “If we realized that by killing large species of whales that are in danger of extinction, or by altering habitats so that animals can no longer live there, mankind will eventually realize that they are being left alone on the planet. “

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on February 6, 2023.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press

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