Page 13: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2023)

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Diorama of commercial whale slaughter. Bahrs collection.

more dif? cult to hunt with traditional rowed whaleboats. But and expensive measures. especially after WWII, they became fair game with the use A single humpback whale death is a different story. It is of high-speed motorized whale hunters and compressed air probably fair to say that nobody would like to see a humpback to keep them a? oat. In 1960 the worldwide population was whale die for no good reason, but it is not inherently a disaster. estimated at only 5000 whales, but with the cessation of com- Since there is no evidence that offshore wind will have a mercial hunting, the population has recovered to well over signi? cant impact on either right or humpback whales with the 100,000 and probably many more. (Although there are still a mitigation measures imposed by BOEM & NFMS, the best few struggling local populations.) way to reduce whale deaths is to prevent vessel strikes and hu-

With regard to human interest, the humpbacks are the stars man commerce entanglements. This is quite similar to how we of the game. They are the whales that sing so well and are fun deal with wildlife management ashore, and quite frankly there to watch. Whale watching relies to a very large extent on these are many land animals such as deer, moose, cougars, wolves whales. Bottom line: Humpback whales are an international and turtles that get in the way of transportation and commerce. win win success story. We have both preserved a wildlife spe- A dead deer or wolf along the side of the road is factually no cies and created a new industry. Who can argue with that? different than a dead entangled whale on a beach. Although in

And it is a big industry, estimated at over $2 billion per year the US North East, a dead wolf may be cause for great con- worldwide and, with increasing whale stocks, can be expected cern, while we would probably try to ignore a dead deer.

to grow in the years to come. Regardless, wild animals, and occasionally even humans,

But what about these whale deaths? It depends, any North will die and the trick is to manage that downside as humanely

Atlantic right whale death is a near disaster and if we want to as possible. (And hunting (culling) may even be the most hu- preserve the North Atlantic right whale population, we will mane solution). Human/wildlife interactions are a reality, and have to be extremely vigilant and it will require extraordinary if that is the case, the only solution is to make the interaction www.marinelink.com 13

MR #6 (1-17).indd 13 6/5/2023 12:25:10 PM