Right whale. (Photo: www.mmc.gov)
Govt overreacts with fishery closure to protect right whale, fishermen state
CANADA
Thursday, June 21, 2018, 22:40 (GMT + 9)
A fishermen’s group claims that the federal government is ‘overreacting’ by deciding to close the Bay of Fundy fisheries following the sighting of a single North Atlantic right whale.
The presence of only one sea mammal has led the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to decide to close the area in Grand Manan Basin to fixed-gear fishing on Thursday until further notice. The measure will affect lobster, crab, groundfish, herring and mackerel licences, The Star reported.
Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association president Brian Guptill considered the government was too quick to act.
“A vessel ... sees one right whale that is moving, not stopped and feeding, and they shut the fishery down because of that. The airplane was up this morning and couldn’t find a whale anywhere,” he said.
Guptill said DFO should take a more measured approach. In Guptill’s view, the closure is costly for 30 to 40 fishermen who will lose the last week of the season in that area.
The leader explains that they have developed a right whale mitigation strategy since 2006 and that there has not been a known entanglement since that time.
So far this year, the government has closed a number of East Coast fishing areas, mostly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and fishermen have complained to Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc about lost opportunities.
Meanwhile, Federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he had told the Maritime Fishermen’s Union that he plans to open a harvesting zone in the last half of September to make up for the 15-day closure of a 1,400-square-kilometre portion of ocean.
The offer will go to about 62 fishing vessels in New Brunswick and 60 from the Gaspe Peninsula whose lobster harvest was largely shut down as the whales passed through.
To take the closure decision, officials considered necropsies on seven of the whales that died last year showed four died of blunt force trauma from collisions with ships, while two more appeared to die from being entangled in fishing gear, CBC News reported.
Since January 2017, there have been 18 deaths of North Atlantic right whales in the US and Canadian waters — 12 off the Canadian coast and six off the US. A whale carcass found last week in Virginia is the 19th.
To date, there are only 100 breeding females remaining in a population of about 450 North Atlantic right whales.
Up to 75 right whales have been spotted in the southern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence so far this year, officials said.
Since the beginning of the fishing season for lobster, snow crab and other species, the federal government has closed six fishing areas because of the presence of whales.
The fishery closure is just one of the measures taken by the department to try to save North Atlantic right whales. New rules also require ships to slow down in some areas.
Related article:
- Additional fisheries to be closed due to right whales presence
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