Enviros sue for North Atlantic Right Whale protections from ship strikes
Four conservation groups filed an injunction in a Washington, D.C., court last week asking the National Marine Fisheries Service to expand its efforts to protect right whales and their calves from being hit by ships. Although entanglement in fishing lines gets a lot of headlines, ship strikes have emerged as a prime killer of the right whales, whose numbers have dropped from a peak of 481 in 2011 to 356 this year. Eleven calves, including two that were spotted Wednesday off Amelia Island, Florida, so far this calving season are not accounted for in that estimate. >click to read< 09:50
Of the six entanglements found in the USA many were from heavy Canadian crab gear. One whale carried a crab trap as far as Virginia.
None of the entanglement deaths were from lobster gear. The lobstermen who this megalomaniac Strahan has a gripe with are responsible for 1 death every 2 years, hardly a dent in the population.
We have 14 new calves in the last couple months and there is hope for even more this year. We need to step back. The three major causes of diving whale numbers have now been eliminated.
#1 Cruise Ships in GSL 6 per year
#2 Heavy crab gear 2 per year
#3 birth rate
2020
Canada creates the Shediac Valley ship restriction zone rerouting ships north away from the feeding area. 0 deaths
Crab closures in some areas closed. 0 deaths
Birth rate increases dramatically. Two months to go in the calving season and on 1/26/21 we have 14 already!
Things are looking really good.
Jim O’Connell