(Halifax) The latest official population estimate of the world’s most endangered whale species looks grim.
A group of international experts recently confirmed that there were around 340 North Atlantic right whales last year, up from 348 in 2020. Although the rate of decline has slowed, researchers say these huge marine mammals are still struggling to avoid completely disappearing from the planet.
Only 15 calves were born in 2022, well below the average of 24 reported in the early 2000s. And for the first time this season, no females became mothers, which which supports research showing a declining trend in the number of whales capable of reproduction.
But despite these grim conclusions, some remarkably good news emerged in October, just before the annual meeting of the Right Whale Consortium, which brought together researchers, fishing industry representatives and conservationists in New Bedford, Australia. Massachusetts.
Sean Brillant, a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Federation, points out that great progress is being made in using relatively new technology to prevent whales from becoming entangled in fishing gear – one of the main causes of right whale mortality.
While traditional lobster and crab traps are dropped from the ocean floor and then retrieved by hoisting long ropes suspended from floating buoys, the new gear does not use rope or buoys.
The cages are found by fishermen using an electronic guiding device – a kind of virtual buoy – and are retrieved using remotely inflated rope reels or lifting bags.
Lent ropeless gear
Removing floating gear could significantly reduce the risk of whale entanglement, which accounts for 82% of documented right whale deaths, according to the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Sean Brillant says his organization and a few others have had great success this year lending wireless gear to Canadian snow crab fishermen whose fishing grounds were otherwise closed when right whales appeared in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The Canadian Wildlife Federation provided equipment and training to 10 fishers from Tignish, Prince Edward Island, who eventually landed 167,000 kilos of crabs using gear without rope laid in enclosed areas.
Meanwhile, the Association des crabiers acadiens, of Shippagan, New Brunswick, had 20 fishermen with ropeless gear in closed areas. They brought back 181,000 kilos of crab.
“The involvement of fishermen is the cause of our success,” emphasizes Mr. Brillant.
“Fishermen say it works”
Moira Brown, senior scientist at the Canadian Whale Institute, finds it encouraging to see how many people are working on this ropeless technology.
While emphasizing that the population decline last year was not a trend, she said it has been three years since there have been confirmed right whale deaths in Canadian waters – although scientists estimate that a third of right whale deaths are never detected.
“All of this demonstrates that cordless is real,” said Mme Brown, who began working with right whales in 1985, when there were only about 200 left in the North Atlantic. “This population has already demonstrated that it can recover if we reduce human-caused mortality. »
Last summer, the Canadian Whale Institute, a registered non-profit organization, gathered a collection of ropeless gear from eight manufacturers and packed it into a utility trailer that was transported to 13 fishing communities in Maritimes.
“We just showed up at a port or at fishing association meetings, mainly in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick,” said Ms.me Brown.
“Fishermen say it works […] It’s the next solution to the problem of whale entanglement, which not only afflicts right whales, but whales in all of our oceans,” said Kristen Monsell, legal director of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. based in Tuscon, Arizona.
The right whale population is thought to have peaked at around 21,000 individuals before intensive hunting reduced their numbers drastically. By the 1920s, fewer than 100 remained. After a ban was imposed in 1935, the population increased to 483 in 2010, but then began to decline again.
Americans more reluctant
In 2018, the Canadian government introduced a series of measures to protect right whales, after 17 died in Canadian and US waters the previous year, mostly from entanglements and collisions. with ships.
This sudden spike came after researchers confirmed that many whales changed their spring and summer migration route by heading further north into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, instead of staying in the northern Gulf of Maine. in the Bay of Fundy and in the Roseway Basin in southwestern Nova Scotia.
The federal government has notably increased aerial surveillance of the Gulf, imposed slower speed limits for vessels in shipping lanes and temporarily suspended fishing in certain areas.
Despite these new rules and the increasing use of ropeless gear, it is clear that the fishing industry still has a long way to go if right whales are to survive. Five whales have been spotted this year entangled in fishing gear; four of these entanglements were new.
In late September, the New England Aquarium reported that a 17-year-old female, ‘Snow Cone’, first spotted entangled in long ropes in March 2021, was so ill that “her death is almost certain”. Her baby had disappeared in April.
In addition, difficult questions remain about the high costs associated with ropeless gear. There are no standards for tracking systems, and American fishermen have shown significant resistance to the use of ropeless gear and other technologies aimed at helping right whales avoid entanglements.
“In the United States, it’s much more polarized and divisive,” admitted Mr. Brillant. Fishermen, their associations and unions, are very reluctant to have to adopt ropeless gear […] They struggle with progress. »