Canada, U.S. launch investigation into right whale deaths

Canada and the U.S. are launching a joint investigation into the deaths of 13 endangered North Atlantic right whales, after the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared the die off an “unusual mortality event,” or UME.

According to the NOAA, a UME is triggered when there is a significant die off in a population that requires a quick response.

The investigation will focus on finding the cause of the deaths of the right whales. The final report will be used by both countries to focus their energies on correcting what caused the deaths.

“The North Atlantic right whale recovery is fragile and is one of (NOAA’s and DFO’s) most difficult conservation efforts,” said David Gouveia, branch chief of NOAA’s protected species monitoring program, during a phone conference last Friday.

This week, another whale was found entangled off of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. The male, known by the number 3245, was born in 2002. Fisheries and Oceans Canada is “assessing the situation and monitoring extremely closely,”  Vance Chow, a Fisheries department spokesperson, said in an email to CBC News. The government is upholding its pause on disentanglements, which went into effect in July after the death of New Brunswick whale rescuer Joe Howlett.

Before this unexpected mortality event occurred, deaths of right whales were fairly uncommon with only 3.8 deaths per year on average.

Necropsy results still weeks away

The two PEI pathologists working to determine what killed six of the whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this summer say it will be weeks before their final report is complete.

Atlantic Veterinary College pathologists Pierre-Yves Daoust and Laura Bourque have been working on finding out what killed the endangered whales since late June, when they led the necropsies of three of the six right whales discovered dead at the time. They said there is still a lot of writing, research and discussion that needs to take place.

“This is not straightforward, and we don’t want to rush into anything,” Bourque told the CBC. “If we get it wrong, it affects many communities and peoples around the Maritimes. If we say something isn’t right, and all of a sudden we have to close down the fisheries for whatever reason, that would be awful. We want to make sure that what we see is correct.”

Preliminary necropsy results showed some of the dead whales suffered blunt trauma and had signs of entanglement, likely from fishing gear. But Bourque says that experts still can’t definitively say what killed any of the whales. “We know entanglement is an issue right now, and we’re wondering about boat strikes. But it’s going to be a while before we can say anything definitive.”

The team is still waiting on the results from samples of tissue taken from the whales. Those results may help rule out biotoxins or chronic diseases as possible causes of death. Daoust added that even once all of that information is known, they will still need to complete six individual necropsy results, along with a document that will summarize all the findings on each whale to see if there are common factors among them.

What can you do?

Join us in writing the Hon. Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, to say thank you for the actions his department has already taken, and ask the minister to keep going strong in his pledge to protect and restore this critically-endangered species. We’ve made it easy for you and have already written an email that you can add to or simply sign and send. Click here to do it now.

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