In the News | November 2025

Right whale numbers continue to increase

The number of North Atlantic right whales increased slightly last year, continuing a four-year trend of slow growth that indicates the critically endangered species is heading in the right direction, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. The estimated population increased from 376 in 2023 to 384 in 2024. Scientists have logged no deaths so far in 2025 and only one new entanglement injury and one vessel strike, federal records show. However, in 2024, 50% of entanglements occurred at the end of the year.

Maine Sea Grant photo.

Let it rain

A P.E.I. seafood company has come up with a new way to store lobsters and it credits students at the University of P.E.I. engineering department. Mark Prevost, one of the owners at Bait Masters, said the new rainfall storage tank can store 260 crates or 26,000 pounds of lobsters. Traditionally, lobsters are stored in tanks of water. With this new system, the crustaceans are put in a tank and constant rainfall keeps them wet and healthy. The rain is recycled at the bottom of the tank and reused. “Now, we’ve tripled our capacity with the same amount of labor,” Prevost said. “This new tank isn’t going to take any more man hours to operate.”

Following the food

Researchers have been working on a new tactic to track right whales. Researchers at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Bigelow Laboratory and the University of Maine Researchers outlined a modeling approach that focuses on zooplankton copepods, tiny floating crustaceans that right whales consume in mass quantities. “You can’t protect whales if you don’t know where they are — and they go where the food is,” said Dr. Damian Brady, an oceanography professor at the University of Maine who worked on the study, “This study helps us map that more precisely than ever before.” Improving tools that can predict where the right whales will be can help in protecting the endangered animals.

Too many striped bass, say Maritime fishermen

Multiple fishermen’s organizations in Canada’s Maritime Provinces are petitioning for government intervention in controlling the striped bass population. Ian MacPherson, president of P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association said that for the past six to seven years, fishermen in the Gulf of St Lawrence have been finding striped bass in lobster traps and fishing nets. Striped bass is predatory in nature and preys upon small fish, like silverside, herring, gaspereau, smelt, and eel. Michael Coffin, Department of Fisheries and Oceans biologist and section head of salmon and diadromous fish, said the striped bass population currently is 340,000, and that the number is normal and corresponds with historic data.

Big and hungry

A massive great white shark, considered the largest ever recorded in the Atlantic, has been detected off Canada’s Labrador Peninsula. He was tagged in January near the Florida-Georgia border by OCEARCH, a non-profit organization that studies large marine animals.

The shark, named Contender, measures roughly 14 feet and weighs more than 1,650 pounds. His satellite tag only transmits when his dorsal fin breaks the surface, and in early October it pinged from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, making Contender one of the northernmost great whites ever recorded. Researchers believe he is feeding heavily on seals in preparation for his migration south in winter.