Images are unavailable offline. A North Atlantic right whale surfaces in Cape Cod bay off the coast of Plymouth, Mass in this 2018 file photo. Michael Dwyer/The Associated Press

The Liberal government said on Thursday it plans to enhance measures to reduce risks to North Atlantic right whales, a species that is endangered largely due to human activity.

About 400 North Atlantic right whales are left in the world, prompting the government to announce changes that include what are called dynamic closures in areas where whales gather. The animals are unpredictable, but may be present in the spring, summer and fall in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence.

Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said this means that starting this spring, a protective area of about 2,000 square kilometers, or about the size of Ottawa, will be closed to fishing around a single whale after its presence is confirmed by aerial monitoring or underwater acoustics.

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Fixed-gear fisheries such as crab and lobster must remove their gear from the area for 15 days, she said, adding the area will be closed to fishing until Nov. 15, the end of the fishing season, if another whale is detected in that area during that time.

The federal government also said on Thursday it plans to expand temporary fishing closure areas into the Bay of Fundy and impose new gear-marking requirements to help officials determine where entangling occurred.

It said it plans to work with the fishing industry to implement other gear modifications to be phased in starting next year.

Some environmental groups south of the border have called on the United States to ban snow crab imports when new standards take effect in 2022 through a U.S. marine mammal protection act.

Ms. Jordan said Thursday on Parliament Hill that her department officials are working with U.S. counterparts to protect access to the seafood market.

“We know the measures we’ve put in place are very similar to what they have in the U.S. and we continue to work hard with them to make sure we can keep access to the export market,” she said.

Transport Canada also said it plans to re-implement a mandatory speed limit of 10 knots per hour in the western Gulf of St. Lawrence and continue to allow vessels to travel in parts of shipping lanes north and south of Anticosti Island when no North Atlantic right whales are detected in the area.

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The department said new measures include two seasonal management areas, including a restricted area in the Shediac Valley, that vessels will have to avoid or reduce their speed to eight knots, and a trial voluntary speed limit of 10 knots for the Cabot Strait for parts of the season.

Oceana Canada, an advocacy group focused on ocean conservation, said the right whales use the straight to enter or exit the Gulf of St. Lawrence and it is disappointed this reduction is not mandatory.

Since 2017, the government said it has introduced measures to protect the North Atlantic right whale.

Ms. Jordan said there is no way of knowing what the whale migration pattern will look like this year.

Canada is using the best science available to have a minimum impact on the fishing and ship industry, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said, adding the “number one focus” is trying to bring to zero the risk to the whales.

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“In 2017, when we put this in place, it was as a result of 12 deaths of whales either from entanglement or from collisions,” he said. “In 2018, there were none. We thought maybe we’ve done the right things in terms of our measures. In 2019, last year, it was eight, and some were in collisions, some were entanglements.”

In response to Thursday’s announcement, Kristen Monsell, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which focuses on protecting endangered species, said it is good that Canada’s taking action, but she stressed the new measures “don’t go nearly far enough to truly protect these desperately endangered whales from dying in fishing gear.”

“Canada should move quickly to embrace ropeless gear, which eliminates entanglement risk,” she said. "Both the U.S. and Canada need to do much more to ensure the survival of this amazing species.”

Oceana Canada said what is “notably missing” is an emergency response plan in the event of a right whale death.