As of May 27, there were approximately 39 temporary grids (7,448 km2) and 43 season-long grids (9,670 km2) closed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to protect the North Atlantic right whales.
“These closures have had the most impact on the lobster and crab fisheries around the Îles-de-la-Madeleine. To help accommodate snow crab harvesters in crab fishing areas 12 E and 12 F, harvesters were able to finish their fishing season in area 12,” said Barre Campbell, media relations spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
“Due to an early opening of the snow crab fishery this year, most harvesters were able to catch their quota one month earlier. As this fishery is almost complete, there are now fewer risks to North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” said Campbell.
Since mid-April, North Atlantic right whales have been visually detected on 92 occasions by planes and ships representing an unknown number of distinct individual right whales in Canadian waters, said Campbell.
“In addition, we have now deployed specialized buoys that allow us to listen for the whales under the water. These reported visual or acoustic detections of North Atlantic right whales are verified and then displayed” on DFO’s interactive online WhaleMap in near real-time.
Campbell said as in previous years, DFO is working with multiple partners to detect North Atlantic right whales using a variety of tools, including aircraft surveillance, underwater hydrophones and glider technologies.
In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, if a right whale is visually or acoustically detected, a defined area around the position of the detection (approximately 2,000 km2) is closed to non-tended fixed gear fisheries for 15 days. If a whale is detected again in a closed area during days nine to 15, a season-long closure will be implemented; the area will remain closed until November 15, 2021. If a whale is not detected in a closed area during days nine to 15, the area will reopen to fishing. Two flights with no right whale detections are required before an area can reopen to fishing, said Campbell.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL) can be home for more than one-third of the right whale population in the North Atlantic between May and November.
“Our whale-directed aerial surveys photographically captured 153 individual right whales in the GSL over the course of three summers. This represents slightly over a third of the North Atlantic population,” reads the October 2020 scientific report North Atlantic right whale abundance, demography and residency in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence derived from directed aerial surveys by Cole, T.V.N., Crowe, L.M., Corkeron, P.J., and Vanderlaan, A.S.M.
According to the 2019 Science Advisory Report from the National Marine Mammal Peer Review Committee (NMMPRC), “In systematic aerial surveys from 2017 through 2019, the largest aggregations of NARWs (North Atlantic Right Whales) were observed in the southwestern GSL. Smaller numbers were observed in the northwestern GSL, with few observed in identified critical habitat areas in the Roseway and Grand Manan Basins.”
The report goes on to state the aerial survey sightings indicate that NARWs are present in the GSL in May and are still present in November, and “Although rare, there are sightings of NARWs in Newfoundland waters. Ongoing analysis of recent passive acoustic data from N.L. confirms that NARWs occasionally occur in these waters, particularly in Placentia Bay where there have been a few confirmed acoustic detections in 2017, 2018 and 2019.”
