The United States has further committed to getting the right tools for the job when it comes to saving North Atlantic right whales and it’s likely Canada will have to follow suit.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the U.S. government has committed $10 million to “ropeless” fishing gear, which sits on the ocean floor until the gear is ready to be retrieved, eliminating the unattended vertical lines and buoys, which have been the leading cause of death and serious injury for right whales since the 1990s.
A total of $7 million of this funding, according to NOAA, will be used to allow harvesters and other fishing industry members to access ropeless gear to provide feedback on the technology. The remaining $3 million will go towards modeling efforts to try to predict the distribution of right whales along the east coast.
Most Canadians know to keep an eye on the U.S. as a bellwether for these sorts of things. Any industry standards our larger, more powerful neighbour is likely to adopt, Canada is likely to not be far behind — whether that be on our own volition or through a regulatory stranglehold. One only needs to look at the coinciding of the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act and the decline of the Canadian sealing industry as a prime example of their legislative power over our own economic actions.
To Canada’s credit, the government has tried to help the beleaguered North Atlantic right whale in its own way, investing $20 million over two years to assist harvesters in adopting “whale safe gear” with weak breaking points and lower breaking-strength rope by 2023.
However, 2023 came and went and whale safe gear in Canadian waters never took off, nor was it set into regulation. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) about-faced on the issue, announcing that the adoption of whale safe gear will be on a voluntary basis going forward.
“The feedback and the reporting from the $20-million whale-safe gear project from harvesters, Indigenous and non-Indigenous and also whale experts, was that more time is needed to determine and develop data that low breaking-strength gear is going to work,” said Brett Gilchrist, DFO Director of National Programs for Whales.
“The feedback from harvesters and whale experts was that there’s really no evidence that it’s working for whales, yet. There are safety issues, and potential that we’re going to lose a lot more gear.”
Ropeless fishing gear, on the other hand, works in many fisheries. There are some, such as the Newfoundland and Labrador crab fishery, where depth becomes an issue. Like any technological issue, it is likely human innovation can surmount the problems a few fathoms of water present.
The remaining challenge for ropeless gear, however, is the upfront cost of converting one’s gear to this new technology. The solution to this issue likely lies in the hands of government, whether that be through grants, interest-free loans or tax credits to ease the financial burden on harvesters.
DFO pays a lot of lip service to right whales. At least a few times a year, DFO releases a flurry of notices about whale sightings or whale entanglements, with a fishing area closure often not far behind. But avoiding these giants of the deep is only part of the solution.
If the government truly cares for the plight of the right whale, maybe they should follow suit with the United States and put their money where their mouth is.
