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Are These Whales Doing Better? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  For the first time in years, the North Atlantic right whale
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  population has stopped shrinking.
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  Scientists have estimated about 372 individuals that remain up
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  slightly from previous years.
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  It's this fragile sign of hope for one of the ocean's, most endangered giants.
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  But before we celebrate too quickly.
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  We need to ask ourselves, what does this mean?
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  The small increase mean for this population?
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  Are right whales finally rebounding, or are we just
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  buying them a little more time?
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  We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the
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  ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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  And on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the endangered population
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  of the North Atlantic white whale, which sits in the North Atlantic.
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  in the winter, it goes down to Florida in the summer, it goes all the way
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  up to the northeast coast of the US and now into the southern part
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  of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence.
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  We're gonna talk a little bit about that and why that is partly contributed to
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  their decline in the 2010s, but we're gonna talk about a population, think about
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  whale populations before whale hunting existed, like real whale hunting existed.
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  'cause you gotta remember, whales were hunted for oil.
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  They were hunted for energy.
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  That's how we got oil and that's how we were able to light candles and have
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  basically light at night, essentially.
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  So whales were a big part of that energy.
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  That's how we kept warm, all that kind of stuff.
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  And so before that, the populations of the North Atlantic right whale was between
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  9,000 individuals and 21,000 individuals.
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  Imagine that.
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  9,000 and 21,000.
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  Here we are celebrating 372 individuals.
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  So think about that when you look at the entire context.
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  Now as whale hunting happened, a lot of whales decreased.
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  Like to the point, some went extinct, some near extinction, and some almost right.
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  And then we have a rebound.
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  We have the moratorium on whale hunting.
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  And then in the 1980s there was like low hundreds and
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  recovering from the whale era.
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  So like, you know, you're looking at a couple hundred, which we
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  don't know the exact number 'cause they're really hard to find.
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  They're really hard to monitor.
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  They like to stay just below the surface.
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  And so it makes it really difficult to see if there's an animal there or not,
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  especially when you're doing in the 1980s, you're not using radar, you're
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  not looking at heat signals and so forth.
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  Or we're not doing aerial surveys as much.
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  And so in the 1990s we saw growth.
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  We saw 200 to 400 somewhere in that region.
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  So growing slowly, the population increasing a little bit more
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  similar to what it is today.
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  You know, growth rate about two to 3% from 1990 to 2007.
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  Then around the 2010s, we were looking at 480 to 500 individuals.
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  The peak estimate before the decline that we have been seeing over
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  the last, you know, 10, 15 years.
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  Then in the 2010s, we had another decline period, so about 25 to
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  30% decline from 2010 to 2020.
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  Essentially going down to below, you know, the three fifties.
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  And that's obviously not good.
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  And the reason that happened is we started to see a shift in the population.
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  Now, before we go that, let's talk about why these animals are declining.
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  When decline happened, or pre 1980s during the whale hunting, it was whale hunting.
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  That's what was killing these animals.
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  Now between 2010 and 2020, it was a decline due to two things.
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  It was ship strikes, or it was traps, like got caught in lines
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  because of lobster traps, crab pot traps, whatever it might be.
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  These are fishing devices that were getting bottom dwellers,
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  you know, bottom invertebrates, like crabs and lobsters and such.
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  And so what happens is they take these pots, right, these traps, they stick
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  lines to them, and then they put 'em in the water and they sink 'em.
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  And then the lines will be attached to buoys.
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  And the buoys will kind of give away the position for the fishermen to come
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  back and grab the buoy and then be able to bring up the pot or the trap when
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  it's time to get 'em and you get all the animals that are in it and you can
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  take 'em back and you can sell them.
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  Especially on the northeast coast of the US that's a huge thing.
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  Even in Canada, lobsters, crab, that's a big part of the fisheries.
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  There's big unions for it.
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  There's a big fishery for it, and you know, it's a lobby for
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  it as well because they wanna protect their interest in fishing.
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  And especially after the cod dropped and the moratorium on cod
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  happened, and we saw haddock fall.
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  We saw a lot of other fish fall.
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  It was very difficult to find something that was good.
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  So having these invertebrates, these lobsters were just boom because
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  less fish that would eat them.
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  You're starting to see a boom in population, especially
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  lobsters, crabs and so forth.
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  So they were fishing for them.
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  Now with that said.
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  You have two destructive things that are happening to these animals.
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  You get ship strikes, which it basically means these animals are coming in.
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  And remember when I said the whales stay right below the surface for
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  the North Atlantic right whale.
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  The boats can't see them.
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  They come in, they hit them, either they have a big cut on them or they're
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  bruised really badly or hit really badly.
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  Think about getting hit by a boat.
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  You know, just imagine that.
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  And some of these are major, major ships, like these are transport vessels.
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  So they're like, four or 500 feet.
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  They're moving quite fast and they're not gonna be able to move last minute
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  to be able to avoid a ship strike.
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  And so these animals either end up dying of their injuries or they die right away.
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  You've seen some images of ships coming in and the whales still being
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  on the ship which is devastating.
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  Nobody wants to see a whale pass away that way.
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  Nobody wants to see anything pass away that way, let alone a whale.
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  So, there's that problem, Then you have the crab pots, they're swimming
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  through the lines and they get the lines.
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  Caught on their fins, and that line digs in.
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  They can't take 'em off.
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  They don't have the appendages to take them off.
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  And they can't get their mouth over there to take 'em They have these
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  cuts along the lines where their fins attached to their body, and they start
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  to get cuts and infections and they eventually die from their wounds, or
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  they just get entangled where they can't move and they end up drowning.
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  It's, again, not a good way to go.
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  And so there have been mitigation measures for both of these things.
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  Now in the summer of 2017, we really saw a decline.
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  We saw about 17 individuals die up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
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  not all 17, but most of them were, those are the only 17 that we found.
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  We found over the summer that 17 animals died, there's a huge monitoring
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  program that's been out since the 1980s and maybe even before to monitor
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  this populations, 'cause it's been on the endangered species list.
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  And so when they saw the decline again, they were worried.
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  They remapped the shipping tracks so that ships wouldn't get into them.
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  And this is in the northeast.
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  And then we saw, you know, changes in where you can fish
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  based on where the whales are.
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  As I said, monitoring programs know where these whales go.
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  They know their migration patterns.
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  If you stay away from that and the shipping lanes stay away from those areas,
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  then we should be okay, for the most part, should decrease the amount of strikes.
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  In 2017, though, we saw a shift in the migration and the distribution
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  of these whales into the Gulf of St.
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  Lawrence where these animals started to pop up.
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  Now, with that said, is.
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  These ships were not ready for these animals to pop up.
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  They're moving at 20 knots.
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  And when you're in these shipping lanes or you're in these areas where
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  these animals are supposed to be the North Atlantic right whales, you
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  should go down to about 10 knots.
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  And so before we even discovered that there were a good number of these
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  animals, a few got tangled in crab pots or lobster lines unfortunately.
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  And so they weren't ready for that from a management perspective.
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  So mitigations went in temporarily and we saw a decrease of these
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  strikes and these entanglements that we saw, that we discovered.
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  You have to remember that a lot of these North Atlantic white whales.
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  We don't see what they could be.
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  So like, just as much as the estimates could be low or the fact that
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  there could be a higher death rate.
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  Also back before 2010 when we saw the 400 8500 numbers, there could have been more.
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  We just didn't see them.
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  They're a little bit elusive when it comes to a massive animal, believe it or not.
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  And so it's difficult to find out how much there actually are, but
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  we kind of know the overall trend.
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  And we've hit the low point in the early 2020s, around 356 to 358.
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  With new studies, we're starting to see that this population is
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  up a little bit slightly to 372.
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  We've seen a slight increase doesn't mean that the population is rebounding.
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  It just means what we're doing in terms of mitigation works right now, for now.
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  This is what we've discovered.
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  It could just be a summer.
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  We haven't really found them.
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  If animals have died or they've sunk down to the bottom of the ocean,
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  so we may not have found them.
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  The fact is we just found more of them.
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  There's more effort to find them.
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  Who knows?
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  Right?
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  So now we have slight increase, which is a good news.
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  This is positive news.
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  It should be celebrated, but also we shouldn't rest here.
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  This is just the beginning.
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  Just like I talked about the green sea turtle last week a couple of episodes ago.
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  You know, this is great.
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  It was great news to see that they're not endangered, They're just vulnerable.
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  At least vulnerable, I think is what their level is.
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  And that's great to see.
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  But, we still have a lot of work to do because they could just go back down to
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  endanger just as easily if we slightly lift some of the mitigation factors or
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  mitigation measures, like things that we do to protect them up a little bit, or
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  we don't go full throttle on protection.
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  We need to continue the protection so that we see that trend
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  get more and more positive.
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  That's what we're looking for here.
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  So we'd like to see even higher numbers next year in the estimate.
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  Luckily, there are great research programs that are going on.
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  There's a lot of nonprofit organizations, the government's involved in the US
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  and Canada to monitor these animals.
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  There's a lot of private consulting that are monitoring these animals
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  because we wanna make sure that we are protecting them.
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  That is an important aspect to what we are doing here for these animals.
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  And so the monitoring programs are in, hopefully the money remains in.
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  For monitoring these animals.
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  We're gonna see what happens in the states.
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  We know there's a lot of cutbacks.
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  Hopefully Canada can make up for it on the north side of the border.
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  But this is what we're looking at.
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  This is a celebration that there has been a first year in a while where there's been
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  an increase and not a decline, and that maybe these things are starting to rebound
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  into something a little bit better.
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  Monitoring needs to stay.
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  We need to continue to make sure that we are doing all the
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  mitigation measures that we have to.
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  We are looking at lobster pots and crab pots, traps, whatever you want to call
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  them to be mindless, meaning that they go down in the water without any lines.
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  They catch their lobster or crabs, and then the fisher just kind of
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  presses a button and it blows up these balloons and they float to the top.
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  Is it perfect?
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  No.
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  But is it starting to get better and better?
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  The technology's starting to get better and better.
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  Yes.
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  And we're starting to see more experiments and, more fishers are
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  getting involved and trying these things.
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  Now.
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  I know the initial experiments didn't go the way the fishers want.
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  It's very difficult.
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  Sometimes they didn't work and all that kinda stuff.
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  But as we continue to improve the technology, we'll get better and
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  better and hopefully we'll never lead lines again and we don't have
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  to worry about entanglement for a lot of these whales and other animals
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  like sea turtles and so forth.
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  And we'll see better protections with those and increase phishing yields if
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  that's needed, hopefully managed well.
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  but provide the fishers with the income that they need to survive.
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  That's essentially what we're looking here for the better compromise.
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  So, we can mitigate shipping lanes, we can change those up as we need, but
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  we also need the monitoring because climate change is one of the factors in
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  changing the distribution of these whales.
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  We're gonna see that in fish.
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  We're gonna see that in plankton, which is why probably these animals, these
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  North Atlantic white whales have probably shifted north ' cause the plankton have
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  shifted north and what they like to eat.
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  And so we're gonna see animals shift and we need to continue monitoring
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  that so that we can mitigate
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  any kind of disasters, like a disastrous summer from 2017.
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  We don't want a repeat of that.
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  So we have to act fast.
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  We have to adapt to the distribution.
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  We have to monitor, monitor and adapt.
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  That's the big thing.
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  And continue to manage these animals and hopefully we'll see a bigger
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  increase next year and then the year after that, and the year after that.
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  And we just continue, even if it's slight every time I'll be happy with
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  that as long as it goes in the positive.
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  These animals are slow growing.
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  They don't reproduce very much over the summer.
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  It's one calf per female every summer.
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  If we can get that, if that, probably not, it's probably a lot
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  lower than that at this point.
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  But if we can get to very close to that, that would be great.
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  We're not gonna get close to that anytime soon, but as the animals
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  get healthier and as there's less indirect or direct effects on them.
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  Then maybe we can see that growth even better.
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  There's a probably, I think it's under 90, maybe even 80 reproductive females,
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  so that needs to increase as well.
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  So I think there were 12 calves this year, which is great.
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  Which is great to see.
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  I feel like they're still alive so far, so that's great.
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  That's great news.
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  Great news all around.
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  I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this North Atlantic Right whales.
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  What are your thoughts?
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  Big increase or slight increase?
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  What do you think we're gonna see next year?
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  I would love to hear your thoughts.
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  Let me know in the comments in the video.
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  But love if you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening to this
• 12:06
  on your favorite podcast app, you can go to speak up for blue.com/contact.
• 12:10
  Just fill out the form.
• 12:11
  It goes right to my email.
• 12:12
  I'd love to hear from you.
• 12:12
  Or you can just DM me on Instagram at how to protect the Ocean.
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  That's.
• 12:16
  At how to Protect the Ocean.
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  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True North Strong and Free.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.