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Review of the Effectiveness of Recovery Activities for North Atlantic right whales

Methods for Assessing Effectiveness of Recovery activities

Review of the Effectiveness of Recovery Activities for North Atlantic right whales

Review of the Effectiveness of Recovery Activities for North Atlantic right whales (PDF, 1.69 MB)

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4. Methods for Assessing Effectiveness of Recovery activities

The interim recovery goal for North Atlantic right whales is:

“To achieve an increasing trend in population abundance over three generations” (DFO 2014).

In the context of this review, assessing the effectiveness of recovery activities is to be understood as examining the degree to which activities currently underway as well as those proposed in existing recovery documents have, or will, directly contribute to abating threats to North Atlantic right whales to reduce further population decline and help achieve the recovery goal for the population. Recovery activities already completed or underway since 2005 (the year of the SARA listing) will be considered; however, important activities prior to 2005 are also presented as historically significant actions contributing to the assessment of mitigation measures, and in some cases demonstrate previous actions that were ineffective for reducing the impact of threats on the North Atlantic right whale population.

North Atlantic right whale generation time is estimated to be approximately 20 years thus three generations spans approximately 60 years (DFO 2014). This review assesses if the recovery of North Atlantic right whales is on track to reach the interim recovery goal within this longer timeframe, in approximately 50 years.

The recovery objectives included in the recovery documents (DFO 2014, 2016a, 2016b) were developed at a time when the understanding of SARA was different than it is today and did not take into consideration the 2016 tri-departmental Proposed Policy on Survival and Recovery (Government of Canada 2016); therefore, neither does this review.

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