HALIFAX - An area off the East Coast that teems with endangered North Atlantic right whales will be given special protections against container traffic if a unique Canadian initiative is adopted by an international marine agency.
Transport Canada, Environment Canada and scientists who study the rare animals have submitted a proposal to the International Maritime Organization recommending that container ships divert around the Roseway Basin southwest of Nova Scotia.
If accepted, ships would have to steer clear of an area that measures 1,780 square nautical kilometres and literally bubbles with whale fins and spray as the massive mammals frolic on the surface.
"For those of us who work really hard to keep the right whale around, I will feel really good knowing that there aren't container ships going through Roseway Basin at 22 knots,'' Moira Brown, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium who worked on the proposal, said in an interview Friday.
"When you see 30 animals and you think about the chance of a container ship going through there, it makes me feel a lot better that those animals can do what we need them to do to propagate without any disturbance.''
The area about 80 kilometres off the coast is a key conservation ground for the North Atlantic right whale and attracts about 10 per cent of the population, which has plunged to about 350 worldwide.
Historic whaling records show that the lumbering giants have travelled to the basin from their breeding grounds off Florida since the 1960s as they seek out the area's abundant source of plankton.
But it's thought many have been killed by container ships as the slow-moving animals loll on the surface, unable to get out of the way before being struck.
"In the end, I think we'll see a lot less ship strikes from this initiative,'' said Russ Renaud of Transport Canada. "They are an endangered species, so hopefully this will help the conservation effort. I don't think we can be complacent.''
Brown and federal officials presented their case in July to the IMO, an agency affiliated with the United Nations in London that deals with marine safety regulations.
It was adopted by one subcommittee and will be given to the Maritime Environmental Protection Committee for final consideration in October, something Renaud believes will pass easily and make it one of the only such measures in Canada.
Roseway Basin would be deemed an Area to Be Avoided and a notice would be issued to mariners recommending that ships steer clear of it, while nautical maps would be altered to include the designation.
It would not be mandatory and would only apply seasonally from June to December, when right whales are thought to be in the area.
One official with Canada Steamship Lines said they don't often have vessels passing through the area, but would likely comply with the directive when needed.
Brown, a senior scientist at the aquarium whose work focuses on right whales, said the diversion would be minor for ships transiting the area and cost little since it might only tack on a few extra kilometres.
"What we're trying to do is create a better situation for right whales, but work with industry to figure out a solution that is not too economically detrimental to them,'' she said from her research station in Lubec, Maine. "It is negligible reroute.''
Brown said the group has been working for years to reduce the number of ship strikes, one of the greatest threats to the animals. The momentum grew last summer when a right whale washed up in Yarmouth, N.S., after it was hit by a large ship.
Researchers did drift modelling and determined that it had likely come from Roseway Basin. A sailing vessel had also spotted the whale in the basin, lending proof to the idea the whale had been struck there.
The initiative comes after the IMO approved a proposal by Ottawa in 2003 to amend shipping lanes and force vessels to divert several kilometres around feeding grounds in the Bay of Fundy.
The move was "hugely precedent setting'' at the time, Brown said, and has helped reduce the rate of mortalities for a population that is slowly gaining ground but is still in danger of collapse.
"We've been able to do a really good job of reducing the risk of ship strikes to right whales in Canadian habitat areas,'' she said. "I don't think when we were doing it that we realized the enormity of it. We just don't have big ships running through a nursery area anymore and it's cool.''
There were 22 North Atlantic right whale calves born this year, continuing a trend that has seen more than 20 born every year since 2001 and giving scientists hope that the species can avoid extinction.
"It sort of gives you confidence that this population can turn it around,'' she said. "If we can reduce the mortality, the numbers should go up.''
