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Closure in Roseway Basin will impact start of commercial lobster fishery

KATHY JOHNSON TRI-COUNTY VANGUARD kathy.johnson @saltwire.com

For the first time, there is a North Atlantic Right Whale closure on the fishing grounds in southwestern Nova Scotia at the start of the commercial lobster season.

A portion of the Roseway Basin Critical Habitat area was closed on Nov. 26 by Fisheries and Oceans Canada after several acoustic detections of an endangered right whale.

“The last time they saw the whale was Nov. 22 and it's usually a 14-day closure, so we're looking at Dec. 6 before it's opened up,” said Bernie Berry, past president of the Coldwater Lobster Association.

While portions of Roseway Basin are usually closed at least several times a year when the presence of a right whale is detected, this is the first time there's been a closure on the grounds during the LFA 33/34 lobster season.

“Last year, it looked like there was going to be one on Roseway Basin,” said Berry, when a whale was spotted 10 or 11 days before the season opened.

However, when the whale wasn't seen again after 11 days, they cut the closure short somewhat, Berry said.

“A couple of years ago, we avoided it again in Roseway Basin," he said. "There was a closure the first part of June just after we closed. Grand Manan has had a closure in the fall, but it didn't cross over to our area, so we've dodged the bullet a couple of years.”

The closed area is pieshaped, running along the LFA (lobster fishing area) 33/34 line and into LFA 40, which is a closed zone anyway, said Berry, estimating it would cover several hundred kilometres.

LFA 34 is 8,500 square kilometres. The closed area doesn't impact LFA 33.

Berry doesn't think many boats fish in that area at the beginning of the season.

“I think they start further inside the first couple of weeks,” he said. “Hopefully, it doesn't affect a lot of fishermen.”

Dan Fleck, executive director of the Brazil Rock 33-34 Lobster Association, said from researching captains' logbooks over the past several years, “there appears to be limited fishing activity in that immediate area during the first two to three weeks of the lobster season.”

Fleck said most of the closure is within LFA 40 – the closed lobster conservation box where no fishing is permitted.

“We question the veracity of an autonomous craft drifting around the North Atlantic reporting alleged 'recordings' of a whale," said Fleck. "Visual confirmation should be provided prior to any closures being implemented.”

An acoustic glider is one tool used by DFO in collaboration with other government departments and non-governmental organizations to monitor North Atlantic Right Whales in Canadian waters.

It's not just in Canadian waters where whales are a concern. In November, a United States appeals court reinstated a ban on lobster harvesting in hundreds of miles of fishing waters off the coast of Maine to protect the rare North Atlantic right whale.

It was reported in the media that the Maine Lobstering Union had initially been able to stop the closure of the affected lobster grounds through emergency relief, however, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the closure was back on. Fishermen had to remove gear and were prohibited from setting or resetting gear in the restricted area.

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2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281724092828617

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