A number of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Bay of Fundy weren’t looking too good this latest survey season with “dramatic, fresh” entanglement wounds and lesions on their head and backs.
That’s according to Philip Hamilton, a research scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England. He tells us entanglements from commercial fishing are of growing concern to them and that they’re seeing an increasing number of them in the right whale population, which is currently around 500, and within a 38 day period recently there were six new entanglements.
“Directly [entanglements] can kill them quickly, or over a grueling period of a year or two as they carry the gear around, causes infections or impairs their feeding,” says Hamilton.
FDR is a six-year-old right whale who was disentangled in 2014 and again this summer. Photo: Brigid McKenna/Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium
Both reproduction and survival has been found to decrease if a whale has been entangled—escaped— but was severely hurt.
Meantime, the cause of the lesions found on these animals during the July to September survey season is unknown but in the past have pointed to very poor health and many of the whales who had these didn’t survive.
“In the past all the whales that have had the [swath lesions] had been entangled either while those lesions developed they still had rope in their mouth or around their body or they had been entangled previously, we don’t know if that’s the case with the whales that were seen in the Bay of Fundy this summer,” says Hamilton.
“We know one of them actually was still entangled with some line through their mouth.”
Velcro, a 33-year-old male who has a piece of line in his mouth and lesions. Photo: Amy Knowlton/Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium
When it comes to dealing with the entanglement issue, Hamilton says they need everybody at the table, including the fishermen, sorting out what can possibly be done to improve the situation.
“I think if people saw how much these animals suffered, they would be pretty shocked,” he says.
Top right picture is of Polyphemos, a 30-year-old male. Photo: Amy Knowlton/Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium
