Canada: mobilization to save a whale entangled in ropes

New concern for a right whale in Canada, where six of these mammals have been found dead in June. This whale, a young male, was spotted Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence entangled in ropes.

A team hopes to find and deliver it when the weather improves, the Grand Manan Aquatic Research Center in New Brunswick announced on its Facebook page.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans said on Sunday night it was "aware of the presence of a North Atlantic right whale entangled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence" and take "this situation very seriously."

The ministry adds working closely with a team specializing in this type of rescue "to evaluate the options of disentanglement".

The animal was observed for the first time late Saturday afternoon by a Canadian Coast Guard vessel in an area closed to most fisheries since April. The ministry said in a statement that "the state of the whale and the duration of its entanglement are unknown at the moment."

Six deaths, two of which at least in shocks with ships

In June, six right whales were found dead in the waters of eastern Canada, and two of them likely succumbed to a shock with a ship.

A necropsy was carried out on Comet, the third whale found dead this year in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Preliminary results "are highly consistent with a death caused by blunt trauma, which is a collision with a ship," the ministry said Saturday night. Detailed results should be made public in the coming months.

Analyzes have already been carried out on the first two whales found dead. The first, a 40-year-old female named Punctuation, also died as a result of a collision with a ship, according to experts. However, they could not determine the circumstances of the death of a nine-year-old male named Wolverine.

The carcass of the sixth whale that died in June, a female named Clipper, was towed out of the water on Sunday in Gaspésie, where her necropsy is scheduled for Monday. The authorities are studying ways to carry out carcass examinations of the other two dead whales.

These are the first right whale deaths reported in Canada since the summer of 2017. Twelve of these mammals were found dead in the eastern waters of the country.

These deaths bring to about 400 the estimated population of this endangered species worldwide, according to Canadian authorities. They led the authorities to limit speed for vessels of 20 meters or more at 10 knots (19 km / h) in the western Gulf of St. Lawrence.