Each spring and summer, North Atlantic right whales migrate from U.S. waters to the rich feeding grounds of eastern Canada, where many remain until late fall and even into early winter. Their deaths have outnumbered their births in recent years, and so to protect this critically endangered species, marine biologists monitor them through various methods. Scientific aerial surveys are particularly crucial, covering vast ocean areas efficiently.
But following a fatal plane crash in late summer during one such survey, all of them were grounded, having only recently resumed after a nearly two-month hiatus.
On August 9, while three Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) employees took to the air in a small aircraft to survey marine mammals, including right whales, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, they collided with terrain in the Blow Me Down mountains in western Newfoundland.
The next day, DFO shared the tragic news that the crash had resulted in a death, later confirming the identity of the scientist to The Globe and Mail as Sarah-Maude Gagnon, a 24-year-old marine mammal observer who worked at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute in Mont-Joli, Que. Three others (whose names are not publicly available) were treated and sent home. They include two female DFO employees, aged 23 and 28, who sustained moderate injuries, and a 26-year-old male pilot working with the plane company contracted by DFO, who sustained critical injuries requiring hospitalization.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation – a process that could take until next spring to report, says Hugo Fontaine, a spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board. According to the agency’s investigation summary, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft began flying in a valley at a lower altitude, resulting in a collision with the rising terrain at the end of the valley.
On June 25, the plane that later crashed was able to give air support to this rescue-team vessel, taking this photo as it freed an entangled yearling. Such work would halt temporarily after the disaster.DFO Science Aerial Survey Team
At the time of the incident, DFO suspended all scientific aerial surveillance, and gave no date when it might resume. Now, after a nearly two-month gap, DFO has confirmed to The Globe that the science surveys have resumed. However, the single-pilot Cessna 337H aircraft previously contracted by DFO to carry out these surveys remain grounded. “DFO Science resumed Twin Otter flights on October 4, 2024,” said DFO spokesperson, Tomie White, in an e-mail, adding that these are co-piloted flights.
In the U.S., all marine mammal aerial surveys require two pilots – a policy change that took effect two decades ago as an enhanced safety measure, following a fatal plane crash – but Canada has no such requirement.
Over the next year, The Globe is looking at Canada-U.S. cross-border measures to protect North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), which are the most endangered large whales in the world today, and are protected as a species at risk in Canada and endangered species in the U.S. Should these measures fail, the species could become functionally extinct in the next two decades. As of 2023, the known population is 372, including only an estimated 70 reproducing females. But these figures do not yet include the nine deaths already recorded in 2024, which is the deadliest year on record since 2019.
Entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes are the leading causes of North Atlantic right whale deaths – and aerial surveys are the primary means for detecting the animals in order for Canada to enact fishing area closures and shipping lane restrictions to protect them.
An extended gap in scientific aerial surveillance has limited the government’s ability to identify and protect right whales from danger this year. And yet, as the science community grieves the loss of one of their own, the August plane crash also raises safety questions about whether the government’s aerial-surveying policy adequately protects scientists – and whether, in the future, we need to further establish safer means of detection altogether.
On both sides of the border, marine biologists survey the whales, which can travel nearly 1,600 kilometres a season, from calving grounds off the southeastern shores in the U.S. to the feeding grounds in northeastern Canada and the U.S.
While drone-, satellite- and AI-assisted technologies are in development, scientists currently depend on surveys from seagoing vessels, acoustic feeds from hydrophone-mounted buoys, autonomous gliders and, most importantly, the aerial surveys.
Scientists in planes are the most effective method for tracking the presence of right whales but also the riskiest.
“One of the most dangerous things a biologist does is get on a survey plane,” says Moira Brown, a leading North Atlantic right whale researcher at the Canadian Whale Institute in Campobello Island, N.B.
Two decades ago, Dr. Brown lost a close friend and colleague, Jacqueline Ciano, in a plane crash. On Jan. 26, 2003, a Cessna 337H, conducting North Atlantic right whale aerial surveillance about 11 kilometres off Amelia Island, Fla., went down into the ocean, killing all four people aboard, including three whale researchers – Emily Argo, 25, Jackie Ciano, 47, and Michael Newcomer, 49 – and pilot Tom Hinds, 42. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined pilot failure to be the probable cause of the accident, according to the official report.
Previous to that incident, on Jan. 26, 1987, a single-pilot Cessna 337H aircraft undertaking right whale aerial surveillance ditched in the ocean off the Carolinas and Georgia. The pilot and four observers survived, but the plane was never recovered. The NTSB determined the cause of the crash to be mechanical failure.
DFO observer Leila Bennour looks through the bubble window of a NOAA Twin Otter. The U.S. agency overhauled safety practices in the 2000s after a deadly crash off the Florida coast.NOAA
After the 2003 crash, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) temporarily suspended aerial-survey flights to track right whales along the east coast of the U.S., issuing a warning to the maritime community to be especially vigilant for the animals while the planes were grounded. By early February, NOAA had resumed limited aerial surveys using a co-piloted plane.
By year-end, following extensive community consultation, the department had drafted enhanced safety protocols for aircraft flights chartered by NOAA, including right whale surveys.
These safety measures included: co-pilots present for all survey flights; marine radios, life rafts, survival suits and life jackets for all on board; training to escape a plane that has ditched into water; more stringent maintenance requirements and pilot certification; and regular radioing to the Coast Guard.
“All the teams in the U.S. follow the enhanced protocols,” says Andrea Wasilew, a NOAA Fisheries spokesperson. In addition to NOAA, that includes the New England Aquarium, the Center for Coastal Studies, Azura, Tetra Tech and Clearwater Aquarium, which comprise the primary right whale survey teams in the U.S., and operating under state or federal contracts.
“We use two pilots for our flights. One is flying the aircraft (left seat) and the other (right seat) is monitoring systems, communicating on the radio, and backing up the pilot flying as needed,” wrote Jonathan Shannon, a spokesperson with the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations in the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center.
“The North Atlantic right whale survey flights are at around 1,000 feet with steep angles of bank, so having two pilots is beneficial for safety.”
NOAA aircraft, like this De Havilland DHC-6-300 Twin Otter, come with marine radios and survival equipment, and strict expectations for how personnel should use them.NOAA/The Associated Press
In the wake of the August crash in Newfoundland, The Globe asked DFO whether it follows the same enhanced safety protocols for marine mammal science aerial surveys as NOAA – from using planes to accommodate co-piloted missions to the kinds of safety and survival gear on board and more – but the department did not directly answer the question.
“DFO employs Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) helicopters as well as contracted external pilots as part of its aerial surveillance program,” said DFO spokesperson, Axel Rioux, in an e-mail, adding that “the specific type of plane used for each aerial survey can vary, and is dependent upon the operational requirements of the mission in question, supported by relevant codes and regulations.”
While NOAA has not relied on single-piloted marine mammal surveys in two decades and makes the models of its planes publicly available, DFO did not confirm the number of pilots or models of planes for its marine mammal surveys.
The specific planes used in the DFO’s surveys can be seen, however, on its Whale Insight map, which shows near real-time detections of North Atlantic right whales in eastern Canadian waters, and displays the paths of the platforms – planes, vessels, buoys and gliders – tracking them, including plane tail numbers and models.
At the time of the crash, DFO science operated three contracted single-pilot Cessna 337H models for its marine mammal surveys. That includes the plane with tail number C-GZWF, which the Transportation Safety Board confirmed to The Globe collided with terrain on August 9 while travelling with another Cessna 337H aircraft, both of which were registered to Quebec-based Sasair Inc. and contracted by DFO.
In addition to the plane models and number of pilots, NOAA makes its Aviation Policy (NAO 209 - 124) and the corresponding NOAA Aviation Safety Policy Handbook publicly available – and the policy covers aircraft operated by public or private entities on behalf of NOAA.
When DFO ramped up aerial surveys for North Atlantic right whales in 2017 – the same year NOAA reported an “Unusual Mortality Event,” when 17 North Atlantic right whales turned up dead in Canadian and U.S. waters – the Canadian department could have adopted NOAA’s enhanced policies, which were already law in the U.S., but they did not.
In the absence of a similar, overarching policy of its own, DFO relies instead on safety measures followed by the plane companies it contracts. Those companies are “responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining a Safety Management System (SMS) as per Transport Canada regulations, to improve safety and minimize risk to fishery officers and all those onboard the aircraft,” said DFO spokesperson, Axel Rioux, in an e-mail, adding that contractors also comply with a range of policies including the Canada Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, Canada Labour Code and Canadian Aviation Regulations.
Given the urgency to protect the right whale population, Transport Canada (TC) and DFO Conservation and Protection (C&P) – both of which operate co-piloted aircraft – provided aerial support while DFO’s systematic aerial surveillance program for North Atlantic right whales was grounded.
But there was a loss of coverage during that period as not all aerial missions are created equally, says Canadian Whale Institute researcher Delphine Durette-Morin. The difference comes down to two factors: training and mandate. “Mandate is a big one,” says the Halifax-based researcher, who previously participated in aerial surveys with NOAA.
She notes that while DFO science marine mammal observers devote themselves to understanding large whale distribution, including of right whales, in Canadian waters, TC surveillance officers primarily monitor shipping lanes, and DFO C&P fisheries officers are tasked with monitoring illegal fishing and enforcing maritime security. Neither TC nor C&P carry out the extensive types of surveillance, including the two-plane missions, that DFO science planes operate.
As well, the right whale visuals provided by TC and C&P, are almost exclusively video, rather than the high-quality still photography from DFO science.
“Videos are harder to work with to get good IDs and other photo-identification information,” says Philip Hamilton, a senior scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium (NEAq) in Boston.
Photos of whales are included in the North Atlantic Right Whale catalogue to keep track of individuals over time. This one, sighted in July of 2021, is catalogued as whale #5120.Gina Lonati, UNB, taken under DFO Canada SARA license
High-quality photos are critical for understanding how the whales are faring health-wise and where protection measures are needed. This information is, in turn, critical for informing the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog – which is maintained by the NEAq and includes all photographed sightings of right whales from the North Atlantic – and the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium’s annual “report card,” which catalogues population, mortalities and entanglement events.
As well as the importance of the images being high-quality, it’s crucial that countries share data – and that’s something Canada has fallen short on.
While flight paths for all planes running aerial surveillance in Canada (except C&P, given their enforcement mandate) are uploaded to Whale Insight, DFO never shares that survey coverage with the NARWC survey and Sightings Database, maintained and curated by the University of Rhode Island. To get around that lack of sharing, once a year, the database curator, Robert Kenney, an emeritus marine research scientist, cross-references sightings in the database with catalogue records.
“The bottom line is that DFO’s sightings of right whales that are photographed get into the database via the ‘back door,’ but unphotographed sightings do not. And neither do sightings of any other species,” Dr. Kenney says.
Protecting North Atlantic right whales – a species that cannot afford a single human-caused death if it is ever to recover – demands the sharing of systematic and comprehensive information across the U.S.-Canada border, where these whales migrate.
In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, August and September are particularly busy months for aerial-survey teams tracking North Atlantic right whales. Using Whale Insight, The Globe compared aerial surveillance over a month-and-a-half to the same period in previous years, and found a gap in the 2024 coverage, which can be attributed to the grounded science aerial surveys during that time.
Between 2017 and 2022, DFO steadily increased its right whale science aerial surveys – from covering 18,746 kilometres of transect lines in 2017 (its first year of operations), to 122,575 km in 2022 (the last year for which this information is available). The Globe asked DFO to share similar coverage data from 2023 and 2024, but the department instead offered that 2023 was “generally in line with previous years” and would only speak to what was planned – as opposed to executed – in 2024.
“At the onset of this 2024 season, plans were to undertake similar levels of NARW aerial surveillance,” DFO spokesperson Mr. Rioux said in an e-mail.
This season was especially important for carrying out the North Atlantic International Sightings Survey (NAISS), the third large-scale, systematic science effort, and the first in eight years, to survey the continental shelves along Labrador and Newfoundland, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Scotian Shelf for marine mammals, sea turtles and other large species, including many species at risk. DFO confirmed that some of this work was carried out by its marine mammal aerial science teams, including in early August, but did not clarify whether they planned to complete the survey.
Even when its science planes were grounded, DFO says Canadian management efforts could reliably detect right whales and respond, enacting fishing-area closings and shipping-lane speed restrictions.
“The science surveillance planes are absolutely critical for the purpose they play, but the department does have the ability to continue detecting whales,” says Brett Gilchrist, DFO’s director of national programs.
That includes, he says, at-sea surveillance by marine mammal observers aboard vessels, and the use of acoustic technologies such as hydrophones attached to scientific buoys or autonomous acoustic gliders. Additionally, fishing-area closings in Canada operate with an abundance of caution, Mr. Gilchrist says.
Before a closed area can reopen to fishing, DFO’s 2024 fishery-management measures state: “2 flights with no right whale detections are required.” If flights are unable to go out, the area will remain closed “until 2 flights can safely take place to indicate whether whales are likely no longer in the area.”
Either visual or acoustic detection can prompt a closure. But acoustic buoys and gliders have inherent limitations – they cannot identify individual whales or their health status, detect an entanglement or provide valuable assistance during a disentanglement operation, nor can they detect any whale that is not calling.
Meanwhile, both the U.S. and Canada have moved toward these uncrewed platforms, in part, to remove the risk to human observers.
Acoustic devices, like this autonomous glider being deployed by the Ocean Tracking Network near Halifax, can listen for whale sounds better than planes or ships, but are ineffective at telling individuals apart.Nick Hawkins
Nearly two decades ago, the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission reported in its 2006 annual update to Congress a “clear desire” to reduce the frequency and eventually phase out marine mammal aerial survey flights, replacing them with another method, such as passive acoustic monitoring. Doing so, the commission reported, would allow real-time monitoring, remove concerns about human safety in offshore aerial surveys, and reduce the high and rising costs of aircraft use. While the U.S. and Canada have made significant progress in implementing acoustic buoys and gliders since that time, these methods currently do not effectively replace science eyes – be it on the water or in the sky.
More recently, Canada and the U.S. are adopting more drone-, satellite- and AI-assisted technologies. In May, DFO announced funding support for the Quebec-based Whale Seeker and Newfoundland-based Edgewise Environmental, which develop these types of technology to simplify and facilitate marine mammal observation in real time. And last June, the U.S. announced funding for its own program called ASTER3 – Advanced Sampling and Technology for Extinction Risk Reduction and Recovery.
This wave of AI-assisted, uncrewed equipment should allow 24-hour surveillance that can provide early warning systems and alert marine mammal observers. But until these tools are fully tested and deployed, DFO and NOAA remain dependent on existing survey tools.
For the Canadian Whale Institute’s Ms. Durette-Morin, balancing the safety of scientists with protecting the whales is a continuing challenge.
“Aerial surveys are crucial. You get really integral data, but they’re not the one-all-be-all. They’re very high risk for humans and they’re very expensive,” she says.
But she adds that the scientists do it because it’s hard to watch the whales struggle. “It’s a lot of risk, but at the same time, if we don’t do it, then who will?”
In the meantime, the loss of a young scientist continues to weigh on the minds of this community.
At a publicly broadcasted ceremony of life last month, family and friends honoured the young biologist from Saint-Marcellin, a community in Bas-Saint-Laurent, formerly of Authier-Nord, in western Quebec.
“You, Sarah-Maude Gagnon, biologist, will always be a source of inspiration, a friend, of whales, animals, insects, trees,” said Ms. Gagnon’s cousin, Debbie Larouche, speaking in French to a packed chapel on September 21 at the Québec funeral co-operative of Abitibi. “Your element was clearly the earth in all its splendor, and count on all of us to say it, to shout it, to mourn it.”
This story is part of a series produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network.
Nick Hawkins
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