A decision support tool for assessing entanglement risk to protected species from fixed-gear fisheries with applications to North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in the Northwest Atlantic Frontiers in Marine Science

Entanglement is one of the primary anthropogenic threats to the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis; right whale) whose habitat overlaps fixed-gear fishing grounds in the Northwest Atlantic with entanglements representing around half of the mortality and serious injury incidents. Right whale mortality has reached levels that require intervention under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, creating the need for a tool that can compare the relative benefits of risk reduction management measures under consideration. To address this need, National Marine Fisheries Service developed a Decision Support Tool (DST) which has undergone continued development since 2019 and is introduced here as the Woods Hole Analysis of Line Entanglement (WHALE) DST. This tool calculates relative risk as the product of (1) the density of endlines associated with fixed-gear fishing at a given location and month, (2) the entanglement severity that endlines pose based on the specific configuration of the gear, and (3) the estimated density of right whales at the given location and month. The model is novel in its capacity to quantify reductions in entanglement risk by simultaneously assessing a variety of overlapping management actions such as time/area closures, weakening of rope, and other adaptations of gear configurations that reduce endlines or make them less dangerous. We demonstrate the functionality of the WHALE DST by applying management actions implemented in 2021. While originally developed for right whale conservation, the WHALE DST is adaptable for evaluating spatiotemporal entanglement risk reduction for other protected species management and marine spatial planning activities.