Today in Dartmouth on behalf of Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, I launched the Marine Environmental Quality Initiative as part of Canada’s Oceans Protection Plan!
Our endangered North Atlantic right whale, Southern Resident killer whale and the St. Lawrence Estuary beluga are vulnerable and matter to Canadians.
We’re investing $26 million in a number of projects aimed at better understanding the impact of ecological stressors on marine ecosystems and identifying and taking actions that would reduce their impacts on whales and other marine species. Underwater noise, collisions with ships and other disturbances, scarcity of food and contaminants all threaten their very existence!
We know that understanding the location and movements of the North Atlantic right whales is key to knowing their environment – so Dalhousie University will receive $635,000 to monitor North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence and in Roseway Basin, off southern Nova Scotia.
If we’re going to help these endangered marine mammals, we need to understand the pressures they face in order to take the right action. I’m so proud that our Government is taking steps to help us do that!
