Reducing the Mortality and Serious Injury of North Atlantic Right Whales in the Gulf of Maine
Abstract
The North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) is one of the most critically
endangered baleen whales. The most pressing threat to this declining population is
entanglement. The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team recommended measures to
reduce the entanglement risk to right whales in fixed gear fisheries in the Gulf of
Maine. The central recommendation was to reduce the breaking strength of vertical
lines used in these fisheries. We collected data on the breaking strength of unmodified
line and lines modified with weak points to develop options for Maine fishermen to
reduce entanglement risk to right whales. Our study had three goals: (1) develop a
baseline dataset of breaking strength for ropes used in Maine; (2) determine the efficacy
of five weak point options in reducing the breaking strength of line to the breaking
strength target of 1700 pounds of force (lbsf); and (3) examine if a time tension
line cutter (TTLC) could be used as a physical weak point. We tested 140 pieces of
straight line and 950 weak point samples. As expected, straight line samples were
stronger than those with a weak point. All weak points reduced the breaking strength
of each type of line, but no weak point option was successful in reducing all samples
to 1700 lbsf. The TTLC could be used as a physical weak point in the fishery, but
further studies should be conducted on its ease of use for fishermen. Two of the weak
points tested effectively reduced breaking strengths across all rope types, but our
results suggest the Maine lobster fishery will require a variety of solutions to reduce
risk to right whales.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22606Citation
Stoni, Taylor (2021). Reducing the Mortality and Serious Injury of North Atlantic Right Whales in the Gulf
of Maine. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22606.Collections
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