In the News: Surge of right whale deaths in Gulf of St. Lawrence

Reprinted in Landings, July, 2017

Scientists are trying to figure out what caused the recent deaths of six endangered right whales in the waters off eastern Canada. A fisheries official says six North Atlantic right whales were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in late June near Quebec’s Magdalen Islands. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans dispatched aircraft and Canadian Coast Guard vessels to locate, tag and get biological samples from the dead whales, and was considering towing one of the carcasses to land so a post-mortem can be conducted. The Department is working with partners Canada and the U.S. to discover what happened in order to prevent further deaths.