Endangered Right Whale Population is Growing

From Teaching Kids the News

North Atlantic Right Whales are one of the most endangered whale species in the world.d

Q. Are there many Right Whales in the world?

But now their numbers are growing again, thanks to a plan to keep large ships away from the whales’ nursery and feeding grounds.

Q. What do you think "nursery and feeding grounds" are?

Whale hunting in the year 1850 (approximate date)

For many years the whales were hunted for their oil. Hunting was banned in 1937, but by the 1990s there were only a few hundred North Atlantic Right Whales left.

Q. Why were Right Whales hunted? What was this product used for?

The whales live in the Atlantic Ocean, off the eastern coast of Canada and the United States. They spend the winters in warm southern waters, where most calves are born, then migrate north in the spring.

Many Right Whales spend each summer and fall in the Bay of Fundy, a large inlet of the Atlantic Ocean between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The water there has large amounts of plankton – tiny organisms that are an important part of the whales’ diet.

Q. Why is the Bay of Fundy important for the whales?

However, the Bay of Fundy is also a very busy shipping area. About 1,700 ships travel through there each year, heading to and from ports in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or the United States.
Between 1986 and 2005, more than a third of all Right Whale deaths were caused by collisions with ships.

Q. What is the problem with the Bay of Fundy?

Right Whales spend a lot of time near the surface of the water – resting, feeding or nursing their young. Because they are low, black and slow moving, it’s hard for the crew of a large, fast ship to see them in time to stop.

About 15 years ago, scientists from the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts, and employees of Irving Oil, a company that uses ships to transport oil from its refinery in Saint John, N.B., began looking for a way to prevent collisions.

In 2002, they asked the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to move the shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy away from the whales’ feeding grounds. Shipping lanes are the official routes all large ships are supposed to follow.

The new routes, adopted in 2003, are about six kilometres away from the whales’ feeding grounds. It was the first time shipping lanes have been moved to protect an endangered species.

Atlantic (East Coast) Canada

  Q. What was done to help whales in the Bay of Fundy?

There have been no recorded collisions between ships and Right Whales in the Bay of Fundy since then.

In addition, more calves are being born. In the past 10 years, the total number of right whales in the region has grown from about 350 to 450.

Q. What has been the result?