January 24, 2018 — NEW BRUNSWICK, Canada — Canadian officials announced new restrictions Tuesday on the amount of rope that snow crab fishermen can use in an ongoing effort to reduce the effect of fishing on the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale.
“We don’t want meters and meters of rope floating on the surface of the water,” Fisheries and Oceans Canada Minister Dominic LeBlanc said.
With 450 or fewer right whales remaining, after the death last year of 16 in Canadian and U.S. waters, and a possible 17th death still under review, pressure is increasing on two ways that humans cause right whale deaths: fishing gear entanglement and ship strikes. Last week, U.S. conservation groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service to tighten restrictions on lobster fishing to protect the whales.
A roundtable on right whales, convened by LeBlanc last November, with fishing and marine business people, environmental groups, indigenous community members, scientists and Canadian and U.S. government officials, led to a more thorough understanding of the situation, according to a statement from the Fisheries Service and Oceans Canada.
LeBlanc’s announcement Tuesday was about four initial changes in snow crab fishing policy and practices to better protect right whales, 12 of which were documented as being found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. More initiatives to limit entanglement and ship strikes are likely to come, he said.