Lobsterman Mike Lane uses on-demand fishing gear off the coast of Massachusetts in 2025. A new government strategy proposes using specialized gear as standard practice in some zones to protect endangered whales.LAUREN OWENS LAMBERT/The Globe and Mail
Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans department launched a five-year program to give coastal economies a boost, while protecting endangered whales that are at risk of getting caught in fishing lines.
The Whalesafe Fishing Gear Strategy, released on Tuesday, aims to reduce entanglements in vertical buoy lines – the ropes connecting surface markers to traps or trawls on the ocean floor – and lessen the harm when entanglements occur.
The strategy will keep designated areas open to harvesters using ropeless or weak rope gear in areas where entanglement risk is highest.
In the past, fishing area closures to protect endangered whales from deadly entanglements have cost Maritime harvesters access to prime fishing grounds – sometimes for weeks at a time. Snow crab and lobster – among Canada’s most lucrative fisheries – are particularly high-risk, relying on the vertical buoy lines most likely to entangle whales. Whalesafe gear removes entangling lines, allowing harvesters to keep fishing when whales are present, protecting livelihoods and endangered species.
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“We believe this is going to be part of a modern fishery going forward. It’s a tool critical to allow harvesters to fish while whales are present,” said Brett Gilchrist, director of national programs at DFO.
The Whalesafe Fishing Gear Strategy identifies two main categories of whalesafe gear: on-demand or ropeless systems that use acoustic releases instead of the vertical buoy lines that entangle whales, and weaker or low breaking-strength ropes that allow whales to break free from entanglements.
Currently, harvesters can use on-demand gear under scientific permits, but they typically only do so after right whale detections trigger closures. The strategy would flip that approach, pro-actively designating fishing areas where the gear is standard practice, not a last resort.
SMELTS on-demand acoustic technology was tested in Massachusetts last year.LAUREN OWENS LAMBERT/The Globe and Mail
The priority is Canada’s East Coast, where critically endangered North Atlantic right whales overlap with fishing seasons. DFO will use this year to plan and it will establish pilot areas in 2027, expand risk assessments to other whale species and parts of Canada in 2028, and make it nationwide by 2030.
“The long-term is not more closures, it’s finding ways for fish harvesters to fish sustainability and properly in a way that’s safe for whales,” says Mr. Gilchrist.
Entanglement is a primary cause of death for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales – 86 per cent have been entangled at least once, some up to nine times. Yet right whales represent just a fraction of the problem according to DFO: of 209 entanglements observed in Canadian waters between 2020 and 2025, humpbacks accounted for nearly three-quarters (154 entanglements), followed by right whales (16), Killer whales (15), Minkes (11) and grey whales (6). These figures likely undercount the true toll, since not all incidents are reported – and for transboundary species such as right whales and grey whales that migrate outside of Canadian waters, entanglements observed within this country are not necessarily caused by Canadian gear.
An endangered North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing gear is seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, northeast of New Brunswick's Acadian Peninsula.Robert F. Bukaty/The Canadian Press
Alden Gaudet, a PEI snow crab fisher, was resistant to using on-demand gear – until it saved his season. In 2022, when right whale closures hit the island’s fishery for the first time, he found himself pushed 90 nautical miles from his home port, burning double the fuel, with most of his quota still in the water.
He switched to the ropeless gear mid-season, borrowed from the CanFISH Gear Lending Program – the first lending program for adaptive fishing gear which launched in Canada in 2022 – landing his full quota.
“Now I see things in a different light,” he says. “Without this gear, I’m nothing.”
Snow crab harvesters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have collectively landed roughly one million pounds in one fishing area between 2022 and 2024 using on-demand gear in areas otherwise closed to conventional fishing. While that’s about 0.5 per cent of Canada’s annual catch of 185 million pounds, it was invaluable to the livelihoods of fishers in that area, says Sean Brillant, senior conservation biologist at Canadian Wildlife Federation.
Last year, for the first time, lobster harvesters in the Bay of Fundy landed catch using the technology.
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“This strategy is a game changer,” Dr. Brillant said. While harvesters say whalesafe gear requires on-boarding that initially slows down fishing effort, extensive gear trials in Canada and the U.S. show whalesafe gear works.
“This isn’t a fringe tool. This is an effective tool. Harvesters feel they can use this stuff to continue to make a living. And that’s a very encouraging result,” says Dr. Brillant, adding that he hopes the strategy’s launch will encourage greater harvester uptake.
The Globe and Mail reported last fall that fewer than 10 Canadian harvesters currently use ropeless gear in regular operations, though that number grows to about 200 when including those who borrow equipment or are preparing for potential closures.
Whereas on-demand gear eliminates entangling lines, low-breaking strength rope is designed to break at 1,700 pounds of force, allowing whales to free themselves.
“I consider 1,700-pound rope whale safer but not necessarily whale safe, as entanglements would still occur,” says Amy Knowlton, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium.
Using ropeless gear, crab fishers affix multiple traps to an on-demand device that deploys a buoy or balloon when they’re ready to haul in the traps.Alden Gaudet/Supplied
Ms. Knowlton also urges DFO to develop clear metrics for success in undertaking risk assessments, a process that DFO plans to define with stakeholders, starting with right whales, then expanding to other whale species and areas in Canada.
The strategy pledges that DFO “will not impose on-demand gear on fish harvesters where viable alternative options exist,” language that signals flexibility for industry.
The strategy will also give whalesafe gear manufacturers the predictability they need to invest, which should bring down the price point – a key barrier to adoption.
The strategy arrives as entanglements continue to threaten the species’ survival.
“Each case adds to the urgency,” Mr. Gilchrist said. “But that urgency is already there. That’s why the strategy is moving along.”
There are currently an estimated 384 North Atlantic right whales.
There has been an ongoing investigation into the deaths of right whales, mostly due to entanglements and vessel strikes in the U.S. and Canada since 2017.
“It’s really about getting harvesters out safely and allowing them to succeed on the water while protecting these important species,” says Mr. Gilchrist.
This story is produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network.