Winning the fight for the lives of whales
Massachusetts has officially declared that today, April 24, is Right Whale Day to raise awareness about the endangered North Atlantic right whales, the state's official marine mammal.
Right whales have been coming to Cape Cod Bay in April for as long as there has been a Cape Cod Bay. These sandy shoaly waters warm faster than deeper, dark-bottom ocean realms. In the Gulf of Maine, a sea beside the Atlantic Ocean, seawater rotates counterclockwise most quickly in April, driven by river water coming off the land.
Nutrient-rich waters are upwelled on the threshold of Stellwagen Bank defining the East boundary of Massachusetts Bay and drift into Cape Cod Bay, where phytoplankton blooms feed zooplankton feeding right whales and sei whales. Forage fish, including sand lance, herring, and mackerel, eat zooplankton and are then scooped up by gaping-mouthed minke, fin, and humpback whales.
Sadly, this has already been a terrible year for whales, with 23 dead whales found along the East Coast since early December. Most of the whales lost were humpbacks (16) and minke whales.
From March 1st to April 30th, ships were required to reduce their speed to prevent collisions with whales, which have been severely impacted by vessel-related deaths. During the spring season between 2008 and 2016, no whales died due to vessel collisions.
However, after a right whale calf died on May 5th, 2016, the speed restrictions were expanded from January 1st to May 15th. As a result, the New England Aquarium will offer coastal wildlife tours instead of speeding out to Stellwagen Bank until after May 15th, when the right whales will have moved north.
It is crucial to note that boat collisions are the primary cause of whale deaths, and the National Marine Fisheries Service needs to take action to prevent this by slowing down all vessels to 10 knots or less.
The secondary cause of whale deaths is entanglement with lobster and crab trap lines. Developing lineless traps is more complex than non-lobstermen think. However, two years of research have found that floating a trap to the surface is a lesser challenge than retrieving pots gone adrift in all types of wind, waves, and weather.
More time is needed to figure this out, perhaps with retrieval lines that spool out when the lobster boat arrives.
Diminishing food sources are the third force quelling whale populations. Phytoplankton, tiny plant-like organisms, are about 65% less productive than two decades ago. With warming seas and plenty of nutrients washing off the land, this makes no sense. These are the conditions for harmful algal blooms and episodic events of ocean dead zones.
Over the last two decades, developments have increased on the land, more impervious surfaces with more surface runoff following more extreme rainfall. 2013 was the infamous year when surface ocean temperatures rose 4 degrees. It was a sweltering summer, 1.3 to 1.6 degrees above average. At 172 percent of average rainfall, the summer was very wet, the third wettest since 1895.
More suburban lawns and powerlines with more herbicides applied have come with more developments. To restore the growth of phytoplankton, we need to slow the waters flushing poisons into the sea. If we can retain water when it is in great abundance, there will be more water in the landscape during droughts. More water in the ground to keep rivers flowing during the summer. During the summer months, less fresh hot water stretching out across the surface of the sea will also cool the ocean.
To win the fight for whale lives, we slow all boats to ten knots in the presence of whales, use "lineless" lobster and crab traps, reduce the amounts of pollutants and warm water discharged into the sea, and become better stewards of land, sea, and whales.
More soon,
Rob