The Sierra Club Canada Foundation is calling for “emergency actions” to be taken to protect remaining North Atlantic right whales.
In a news release on Wednesday, the environmental advocacy organization cited the four right whales confirmed dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this spring.
“Over the last three weeks, we have seen the death of one per cent of the remaining right whale population and the summer has only begun,” wrote Gretchen Fitzgerald, national program director for the organization.
“One of the whales found dead, Punctuation, was a female whale that had herself been entangled five times and her children and grandchildren had also been victims of ship strikes and gear entanglements. The impact of losing one reproductive female could be devastating to the population.”
A necropsy was performed Tuesday by staff from the University of Prince Edward Island and Fisheries and Oceans Canada on the whale dubbed Punctuation at Petit Etang, near Cheticamp.
Management measures put in place after numerous right whale deaths in 2017 were already in effect this year before the recent spate of deaths. A portion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where right whales are frequently spotted, has been closed to fishermen and whenever a whale is spotted during regular flyovers by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, fishing is temporarily suspended in the surrounding area.
Speed limitations have also been placed on vessels transiting through certain areas of the Gulf.
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