March 6, 2020 — Canada has announced new protection measures for North Atlantic right whales, which face severe threats to their survival due to human activities off the Atlantic Coast of North America.
With just around 400 individuals believed to be left in the world, the North Atlantic right whale is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Right whales were once common on both sides of the North Atlantic, but have been effectively wiped out in the eastern North Atlantic. Members of the western population of North Atlantic right whales migrate between calving grounds off the coasts of Florida and Georgia in the United States to their summering grounds in the Gulf of Maine, Bay of Fundy, Scotian Shelf, and Gulf of Saint Lawrence. This migration is proving especially dangerous, as the most serious threat to the whales is death or injury from entanglements in fishing gear and collisions with ships off the east coast of North America, according to the IUCN.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared an “unusual mortality event” in 2017, a particularly bad year for North Atlantic right whales in North America that saw 17 deaths as the result of entanglement or ship strike. 12 of those deaths occurred in Canadian waters.