Right whales are turning up dead off of Canada’s east coast, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a vast area rich in sea life, where fresh water draining from the Great Lakes and much of eastern North America mingles with the cold salt water of the North Atlantic. It is the world’s largest estuary.[teaserbreak]
They call them “right” whales because they were the “right” whales to be killed by whalers, as they were rich in valuable fats and oils, and floated to the surface when dead, making processing relatively easy.
Now, they are critically endangered, with only an estimated 525 remaining. Ten dead right whales have been found in recent week. It appears some were either killed by entanglements with fishing gear, or struck by boats. The cause of death of others can’t be determined.
The same thing has happened in the Bay of Fundy, where regulations have been enacted to curtail risks, with boats slowing down in areas where the whales occur. Fishing gear can be somewhat modified, and some fishermen have worked hard to protect the whales. That included Joe Howlett, 59, who, with fifteen years of experience rescuing whales entangled in fishing gear, accidentally and suddenly lost his life on July 5. He was a lobsterman and part of a marine animal rescue team, and his abrupt death as result of saving a whale underscores the dangers of trying to aid these huge—but otherwise harmless—animals.
Federal fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc, whose ministry had supplied the boat Howlett used, immediately suspended whale-rescue operations, but has since promised to bring “absolutely every protection to bear” to protect northern right whales from further slide toward the eternal abyss of extinction.
LeBlanc’s government, far more progressive on environmental issues than its predecessor, fails to deliver on many environmental promises. We still have the Alberta tar-sands, the slaughter of nesting birds by Parks Canada, and far more talk than movement on climate change. It was, not surprisingly, the previous government—the Stephen Harper Conservatives—who allowed exploration and the possibility for offshore drilling in the Gulf, a nearly enclosed area where an oil leak could be utterly catastrophic for hundreds of species, including the right whale.
Even without that, exploration that includes seismic testing has been roundly condemned by whale biologists and conservationists, and yet the current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has done nothing so far to prevent such exploration. This contrasts with the province of Quebec’s cancellation of oil and gas exploration on Anticosti Island, in the middle of the Gulf.
What is posing horrific risk to our own future—global climate change significantly derived from use of fossil fuels—needs to stop, as it can wipe out not only this magnificent species of whale, but seriously damage the very important seafood and tourist industries in the region. Joe Howlett understood all of this and lost his life trying to mitigate damage that is far less harmful than that which can occur as a result of the government’s current inaction on oil and gas exploration and future extraction in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry