Table 2. Recovery Planning Table
| Priority |
Obj. No. |
Threats addressed |
Recommended approaches to meet the population and distribution objective |
| Broad Strategy: Threat Monitoring |
| Necessary |
2, 4, 5, |
All five |
- Assess mortality rates due to these threats and consider cumulative effects
- Contribute to and collaborate on, global threat assessments for humpbacks (e.g. vessel strike, entanglement)
- Model spatial and temporal risk for threats
|
| Necessary |
4, 5 |
Prey Limitation |
- Analyze catch reporting data for fisheries on known prey species, in the context of potential impacts on prey availability for humpbacks in B.C.
|
| Broad Strategy: Management |
| Necessary |
2, 4, 5 |
All five |
- Continue to support and promote the Marine Mammal Incident Response Program and associated network of responders
|
| Necessary |
2, 4, 5 |
Entanglement |
- Mandatory reporting of entangled marine mammals in fishing and aquaculture gear
|
| Necessary |
5 |
Entanglement |
- Determine fisheries management mitigation measures (e.g. of fishing and gear-types)
|
| Beneficial |
5 |
Acoustic
Disturbance |
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada to continue to review project proposals with potential to impact humpbacks in B.C. Provide advice for mitigation or avoidance with respect to habitat needs and direct impacts to individuals.
|
| Beneficial |
5 |
All five |
- As new information becomes available, consider separate management options for northern and southern regional feeding aggregations within B.C.
|
| Beneficial |
5 |
Vessel Traffic |
- Determine appropriate measures for shipping corridors within the identified critical habitat
|
| Beneficial |
CH |
All five |
- Contribute data on Humpback Whale occurrence for inclusion into Parks Canada Agency Marxan analysis for the proposed Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) to support management of the identified critical habitat
|
| Beneficial |
5 |
Prey Limitation |
- Implement DFO’s Policy on New Fisheries for Forage Species
|
| Broad Strategy: Research |
| Beneficial |
n/a |
n/a |
- Determine whether available genetics data can contribute to additional clarification of pre-industrial whaling abundance in B.C.
|
| Broad Strategy: Monitoring and Inventory |
| Beneficial |
1 |
All |
- Continue supporting sightings network(s), and management of sightings data for Humpback Whales
|
| Beneficial |
4 |
All |
- Continue outreach and communications to promote submission of sightings data by mariners to the B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network
|
| Broad Strategy: Legal Protection & Enforcement |
| Beneficial |
5 |
All |
- Continue to enforce protection measures for marine mammals in the existing Fisheries Act, Marine Mammal Regulations
- Complete amendments to Fisheries Act, Marine Mammal Regulations and implement the amended regulations
|
