New system confirms population decline as another death is reported in Canada.
September 21, 2017 — NEW BRUNSWICK, Canada — Another North Atlantic right whale death in Canadian waters has brought further attention to the threat of fishing gear to the endangered marine mammals.
“It’s considered a severe entanglement,” New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse said of the dead female, believed to be around 3 years old. Fishing rope and gear, including a snow crab pot, entangled the pale, deeply cut carcass, estimated to be 36 feet long.
The right whales, which frequent Cape Cod waters in late winter and early spring, are among the rarest whales in the world, with 524 estimated in 2015 in a report by the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. The death brought the total fatalities this year to 14, representing about 3 percent of the population.
The carcass was spotted by airplane surveyors Friday off Miscou Island, New Brunswick. The dead whale was towed to the island Monday, and a necropsy was performed Tuesday.
“The key thing is that the animal was entangled,” said Tonya Wimmer of the Marine Animal Response Society in Halifax, Nova Scotia.