MAINE PUBLIC • February 28, 2020
Canadian fisheries regulators are taking new steps aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes. These steps include temporary closures of certain lobster and crab fishing areas. Most of the right whales found dead over the past four years have been found off Canada — likely because climate-driven shifts in their prey's abundance have led them to new feeding grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where managers were initially unprepared for their arrival.