Areas shut to protect endangered whales ready to re-open Friday in western P.E.I.

The P.E.I. Fishermen's Association has been told areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence closed to lobster traps after sightings of North Atlantic right whales last month will re-open at 5 a.m. AT on Friday.  

The news that the section of LFA 24 in western P.E.I. will re-open is being met with relief from those in the lobster fishing industry. 

On May 19, Fisheries and Oceans Canada ordered all lobster fishing gear be removed from waters deeper than 10 fathoms — about 18 metres — in the lobster fishing area east of Northport in western P.E.I. in order to protect the whales. 

The measure was to end after 15 days, as long as there were no new sightings of whales. In the meantime, crews removed their traps from deeper waters and placed them among the traps that other crews had already set in shallower zones. 

Melanie Giffin, a marine biologist and program planner with the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association, said DFO confirmed that no whales were spotted during two scheduled fly-overs between days 9 and 15.

She said the re-opening 12 hours earlier than expected is likely due to windy weather in the forecast. 

"With all of that gear condensed within the 10-fathom line, with this kind of weather coming in, fishers would prefer to move their gear into some deeper water to avoid the gear shifting and possibly getting tangled with other gear and possibly getting lost," Giffin said. 

Charlie McGeoghegan, the chair of the Lobster Fishers of P.E.I., said the re-opening is good news. 

"They were fishing in 80 to 100 feet of water, a lot of them, and the lobster had just started to come on in that area. And then they were forced to pull all the gear out of that area and move it into 60 feet of water or less," he said. 

"There's basically 400 boats in that area or close to it. If you take all those boats and put them in a little narrow strip between the shoreline and 60 feet depth of water ... it's an over-congestion of gear."

McGeoghegan said losses over the past two weeks could be significant for some crews. 

"They were just starting to get really good catches at 80 feet and deeper of water, and they were forced to move all the gear in inside of 60 feet. So yeah, it's affected them greatly."

McGeoghegan said it will take fishermen a day or so to put their gear back out in the deeper locations. 

"I don't feel it's been fair, really," he said of the 15-day closure. "I mean, the whales were just swimming through and there's never been whales entangled with P.E.I. lobster gear."