Endangered Atlantic right whales experienced their best breeding season since 2016 last year, but this good news nonetheless complicates the cohabitation of these marine mammals with fishermen, especially those from the of the Madeleine.
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From mid-November 2020 to mid-April 2021, 20 births were recorded on the southeast coast of the United States, compared to a total of 22 in the previous four seasons combined. However, with a third of their population of approximately 350 individuals now coming to feed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence from May to December, under the effect of climate change, fisheries management is giving the industry.
The problem is that since the record rate of 17 whale deaths in 2017, including 12 in Canadian waters, the Americans have tightened their protection measures for marine mammals. And they demand that Canadians do the same, or they will lose their access to the United States market, to which they export up to two-thirds of their fish and seafood.
COURTESY PHOTO / Corbo Inc.
“The whales are here to stay, admits the spokesperson for the traditional crab fishers of the Magdalen Islands, Paul Boudreau. And it’s going to be more and more difficult to maintain the fishery in their presence. So you have to be able to adapt.”
To limit interactions with the whales, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has successively adopted a series of measures, such as the early opening of the crab fishing season before their arrival in the Gulf and the closing of areas as soon as they are reported. The department has also invested nearly $25 million in research and development for the development of secure traps and the testing of low-mesh ropes to facilitate their breakage in the event of entanglement.
Scientist Lyne Morissette, director of M – Expertise Marine specializing in whales and interactions with fisheries, believes that Fisheries and Oceans must also be flexible with regard to fishermen. “Because what we are currently doing are management measures to protect right whales, which are going in the right direction and which seem to be promising, but these are not measures of coexistence with fishermen,” underlines she.
On the side of the ministry, in Ottawa, we are informed that we will have to wait until February to find out if new management measures will be announced for 2022, in order, in particular, to avoid a trade embargo. That said, the department is convinced that its measures concerning marine mammal bycatch are already comparable in effectiveness to those of our neighbors to the south. “On November 26, 2021, Canada submitted its final and comprehensive report to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to demonstrate that Canada’s measures meet or exceed US standards,” we were told by email. NOAA will publish its findings by November 30, 2022.