Tonya Wimmer has gotten used to being the bearer of bad news. Every time someone spots a dead right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence—which has happened eight times this year alone—her Halifax-based organization, the Marine Animal Response Society (MARS), gets the call. Then it’s Wimmer’s job to notify scientists, government officials and conservation […]
right whales
Posted inNews + Opinion
SCIENCE MATTERS: When does plant and animal species loss become a societal crisis?
It’s heartening, in the midst of the human-caused sixth mass extinction, to find good wildlife recovery news. As plant and animal species disappear faster than they have for millions of years, Russia’s Siberian, or Amur, tigers are making a comeback. After falling to a low of just a few dozen in the mid-20th century, the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Watch Us Vanish
Exhibit 315, Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design, 1096 Marginal Road The average right whale weighs between 54 and 72 tonnes; at Nocturne you’ll be given a pound of clay to make your own. It’s not much, but it’s what Andrea Puszkar and Marla Benton landed on as a tribute to the endangered mammals […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
What’s causing all the (concern about) right whale deaths?
When Fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc recently took the podium and described the “absolutely majestic sight” of witnessing 15 right whales during an aerial tour of Miscou Island off the northeast tip of New Brunswick, you had to be impressed. He shut down the lucrative snow crab industry early and committed “all the resources necessary” and […]