A remarkable photo essay has just been published in the March/April issue of Canadian Wildlife Magazine. It is the work of wildlife photojournalist and biologist Nick Hawkins, on assignment for the Canadian Wildlife Federation in the Bay of Fundy to document whale entanglements and the work of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team. (see more of Nick’s photographs on the whales)
Nick Hawkins is from New Brunswick and takes great pride in being able to put a spotlight on the wonders of nature and its protection in this part of Atlantic Canada. The whales of the Bay of Fundy are no exception.
“When I took the assignment I didn’t realize how big of problem whale entanglement really is – it is certainly one of the most pressing marine animal welfare issues of our time,” says Nick Hawkins on his Facebook post for this story. “For the sake of these magnificent animals, I hope that there is an increase in the will of government and industry to find solutions to this problem.”
Fishing gear loss is a major mortality factor to whales in the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine. The pieces of fishing gear silently move through the water and can travel for large distances.
Some whale entanglements are resolved with a happy ending. A successful rescue of a North Atlantic Right Whale on August 13, 2016 and was reported by CBC New Brunswick.
But many others are lethal to the whales. “From 2009 to 2013, an average of 4.3 right whales died each year from entanglements,” says Nick Hawkins. “That is very significant in a species that numbers only 500 individuals with only a handful of births annually. Right whales need immediate and significant management intervention to reduce mortalities and injuries from fishing gear. Furthermore, disentanglement teams like Campobello Whale Rescue need more support to better respond to entanglement cases.”
This above issue will be available in magazine stores or through a subscription. Canadian Wildlife Federation and Nick Hawkins are to be commended for raising this issue in such a powerful article. It will be an effective information tool to raise this issue with the general public at our information tables.
Energy East would lead to a significant increase in whale disruption and entanglements
This fishing gear entanglement will be the fate of many more whales if Energy East is approved and the proposed 281 supertankers per year navigate the Bay of Fundy to export tar sands bitumen. Increased tanker traffic will adversely affect whales through increased noise/disturbance, ship strikes, and increased fishing gear loss leading to whale entanglements.
These tankers will use existing navigation routes in the Bay of Fundy that run between Grand Manan and the mainland of Nova Scotia – the very same area where Nick photographed the whales for this article.
The Grand Manan Basin in the Bay of Fundy is one of two federally-designated ‘critical habitats’ for endangered North Atlantic right whales because they congregate in their rich feeding grounds. (The other area is Roseway Basin on the Scotian Shelf, just off the east coast of Nova Scotia.) The massive tides of the Bay of Fundy concentrate large amounts of copepods in the upwelling and circulating currents of the Grand Manan Basin. The Grand Manan Basin is also the location of one of two nursery grounds for the North Atlantic right whale. A great scientific paper on this topic is Davies et. al, 2015.
These are the very waters where the oil tankers enter in the Outer Bay of Fundy on their way to Saint John.
Colin Sproul, a fifth-generation lobster fisherman and spokesperson for the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fisherman’s Association, spoke of the danger of Energy East at a Press Conference organized by the Council of Canadians. This August 8, 2016 event was held on the waterfront of Saint John, New Brunswick to coincide with the first National Energy Board panel session held in Saint John.
Colin’s concerns about Energy East and whales are compelling and can be viewed on YouTube. “The massive increase proposed for tanker traffic will have a huge impact on lobster fishers in the Bay of Fundy,” explains Colin Sproul. “They already suffer greatly from uncompensated gear loss caused by oil tankers and cargo ships having interactions with their fishing gear, in contravention to maritime law.”
“This huge proposed increase would also contribute to increased gear loss which will result in more marine mammal entanglements with that lost gear.” adds Colin Sproul. “It’s a very unrecognized danger of the Energy East Pipeline and it could have a huge effect on the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale which needs to feed in these waters each summer.”
“This huge proposed increase would also contribute to increased gear loss which will result in more marine mammal entanglements with that lost gear.”
Colin stressed the inescapable reality of their fishing waters, “A surface oil spill in the Bay of Fundy will travel faster than any other place on earth. The fastest tides in the world mean the fastest spreading oil spill in the world, with no means to mitigate it or stop it in a quick fashion.”
“The prospect of a Post-Panamex supertanker loaded with Alberta Tar Sands bitumen running aground in the treacherous, very unnavigable waters of the Bay of Fundy is a worst-case scenario for fishers of the Bay of Fundy,” warns Colin Sproul. “It would truly be the end of our way of life.”
National Energy Board is not an acceptable body to review the plight of whales in the Bay of Fundy
Unbelievably, the above concern raised on behalf of over 1000 fishermen in Nova Scotia was struck from the official record by the National Energy Board. The 3-member review panel made this decision after the Association’s concerns were read aloud to them at the National Energy Board panel session on Energy East held on August 8, 2016 in Saint John, New Brunswick. I documented this unacceptable decision by the review panel in my blog article entitled ‘1000 fishermen are thrown overboard by the NEB on Day #1 Energy East hearing’.
These 3 panel members are the same NEB Board members that stepped down from the Energy East review panel only one month later. The entire Energy East review process is now on hold while all past decisions are redone and a new Terms of Reference is finalized.
The above failure is one more example why the entire environmental review process for Energy East must be brought back into the Federal Environmental Assessment process. The bias and roadblocks to public participation exhibited by the National Energy Board have shattered the public confidence that they can resume this review process in an open and fair manner.
And TransCanada has failed to consult with the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fisherman’s Association, opting instead to conduct closed-door meetings with municipalities and business groups in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I wrote about TransCanada’s failure to gain social license in my commentary ‘The Right Whale and The Wrong Company’.
Council of Canadians is expressing these concerns to the NEB moderization panel. Our Energy and Climate Justice Campaigner, Daniel Cayley-Daoust, made his presentation to the panel last Feb. 22, 2016 in Ottawa, Ontario. I am scheduled to make a presentation to the panel on March 21, 2017 in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The whales of the East Coast need our voices to speak up for them
Here on the East Coast of Canada, we are privileged to have these magnificent creatures frequent our waters. It is important to talk about their vulnerability in my campaign work and that of local Council of Canadians chapters when opposing the proposed Energy East tar sands pipeline.
The concern for the Bay of Fundy and these whales is prominent at our information tables.
And the concern for the Bay of Fundy and these whales is prominent at the marches we attend.
Long live the whales. Long live the Bay of Fundy. We must reject this tar sands export pipeline. #NoEnergyEast
NOTES:
NICK HAWKINS
Nick Hawkins is a photojournalist from New Brunswick, Canada and a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers. He is a BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice prizewinner. He has produced feature stories for Canadian Geographic, Canadian Wildlife Magazine as well as the BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Portfolio: www.nickhawkinsphotography.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nickhawkinsphotography
E-mail: nick@nickhawkinsphotography.com
SUMMARY OF CONCERNS BY THE BAY OF FUNDY INSHORE FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATION
The Bay of Fundy is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world; a bitumen spill in the Bay of Fundy could end their multi-billion dollar fishery industry which significantly contributes to the food security of Canada; further industrialization with tanker traffic will increase uncompensated fishing gear loss and threaten the critically-endangered North Atlantic Right Whale; the extreme tides of the Bay of Fundy is an unsafe place to navigate Post-Panamex supertankers; question how a bitumen spill could ever be cleaned up from the seafloor or the surface of the sea of the Bay of Fundy; surface oil spills in the Bay of Fundy would spread faster than almost anywhere else in the world and enter it’s critically important estuaries in a very short period of time; flow through a single tide cycle is greater than all of the river systems in the world combined and this would carry any spill with it.
