JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN: Current Projects

EDUCATION

Develop an Education Concept for schools, providing teachers with a resource educational kit and provide in- class presentations. Funding is required for this project.

STEWARDSHIP

A stewardship project with Transport Canada, DFO and marine stakeholders (shipping, fishing industries) to investigate more protection for right whales on the Roseway Basin, Right Whale Conservation Area. This area, located south of Nova Scotia, has a substantial level of domestic and international shipping traffic through the areas where right whales aggregate annually to feed and socialize. We would like to work toward an area to be avoided by large vessels to reduce the potential for ship collisions. Through our collaborations, we have the data in hand and a conservation strategy formulated, the next step is stewardship - implementing the science based conservation measure.

RESEARCH

Despite over 70 years of protection from commercial whaling, the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) remain critically endangered. Although protected internationally, the population has shown little sign of recovery, and an estimated 400 individuals remain. Analysis of over two and a half decades of data on individually identified right whales has clearly demonstrated that population growth is compromised by high levels of human-caused mortalities. These mortalities, primarily the result of collisions with ships and entanglements in fixed fishing gear, account for 50% of known deaths.
The New England Aquarium research team has been conducting right whale surveys annually in Canadian waters since 1980. Monitoring the status of and change in the right whale population is critical to monitoring the natural population and trends, and especially for evaluating whether management strategies are effective at reducing mortality. The lower Bay of Fundy is recognized as one of the five seasonally important habitats used by the North Atlantic right whale. The portion with the highest right whale concentrations in the Grand Manan Basin was declared a conservative area by the Canadian government in 1993.
The CWI has a long history of collaboration with the New England Aquarium for stewardship, research and conservation of right whales in Canadian waters. For example, data have been provided to Canadian and US government agencies and university researchers as well as shipping, fishing and whale watching interests to facilitate the development of recovery strategies and the implementation or important conservation measures designed to reduce the impact of human activities on this species in the waters of Atlantic Canada. Our goal is to continue this work and ultimately reduce the potential of extinction for the North Atlantic right whale.

SHIPSTRIKE:

A research and stewardship project to survey the area south of the Gaspé Peninsula in the mouth of the Baie de Chaleur. These surveys will help us determine if right whales are indeed using the area annually as a seasonal habitat. We plan to spend our bad weather days speaking with representatives of fishermen's groups and the shipping industry to increase their awareness of the right whales in this area and our awareness of other marine activities. We will be collaborating on stewardship with colleagues that work in Tadoussac Quebec since occasionally right whales have swum that far inland up the St. Lawrence Estuary.

ENTANGLEMENT:

There has been little effort in Canada directed toward reducing entanglements in fixed fishing gear and the last three right whales disentangled in US waters were carrying Canadian fishing gear. There is interest in the fishing community in working with biologists to reduce the risk of entanglement in Canadian waters. An analysis is underway at Dalhousie University to examine the overlap between right whales and fixed fishing gear in the Bay of Fundy and around southern Nova Scotia. Innovative solutions are urgently needed to reduce the conflicts between fishing gear and right whales. The Canadian government has not undertaken any efforts to reduce the probability of entanglement; rather they have equipped a couple of teams with disentanglement equipment. While disentanglement can help, not all entangled right whales are found (75% of the population bear scars from gear entanglements), and the ones that are found are notoriously difficult to disentangle. Solutions that minimize the chance for entanglement and the effects of conservation actions on the fishing industry will only be found by whale scientists and industry working together over the next 3-5 years.