P.E.I. Fishermen's Association monitoring after entangled right whale prompts fishing restriction
CBC
The P.E.I. Fishermen's Association says it is closely monitoring the situation after Fisheries and Oceans Canada restricted a fishing area off P.E.I. waters due to the detection of an entangled North Atlantic right whale very close to the Island's coast.
DFO issued a notice to fishers Tuesday that included a large area of Lobster Fishing Area 24 that lies off Naufrage, near P.E.I.'s northeastern tip.
The restriction came after officials spotted a right whale, identified as whale number 5132, entangled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near Morell, P.E.I., on Monday.
Melanie Giffin, a marine biologist with the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association, said the group is paying close attention to DFO's online whale tracking tools.
"We keep an eye on where it's going, keep harvesters up to date, and harvesters are working together to figure out and make sure they understand where they can and can't go," Giffin told CBC's Island Morning Wednesday.
She added that the area won't reopen for at least seven days, but with the spring lobster season ending on June 25, they're not focused on reopening this area. Instead, the association is watching for other potential closures to keep fishers informed.
Boats fishing in indicated areas off Naufrage that are deeper than 20 fathoms, or around 36 metres, need to have all their equipment out of the water by Sunday, June 22, at 5 p.m. AT.
Giffin estimated that about 75 boats fishing off Naufrage would be affected, with some others in the Morell and North Lake areas also likely impacted.
However, some of the affected area is shallower than 20 fathoms, so boats with lobster traps set there can continue to harvest as long as they have whale-safe gear to deploy. They would just have to remove a buoy line to reduce the chance of the whale becoming entangled.
Giffin said about 800 members of the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association have that kind of gear, also known as low breaking strength gear, which is designed to release under pressure of more than 1,700 pounds or 771 kilograms.
She added the closure does not extend all the way to shore, and the closure stops at around the 10-fathom line, or 18.3 metres.
"So anybody fishing inside of 10 fathoms can continue to fish as normal. They don't need the whale-safe gear. They can fish as normal," she said.
"Normally, at this time of the year, the fishers start to move their gear into shallower water anyway."
This is the second closure in less than a week for P.E.I. boats. Last Friday, boats based off the northwestern point of P.E.I. were told to take their gear out of the water for 15 days when an earlier DFO notice affected a deeper fishing area where they had set traps.
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