Water Worlds

Canadas marine protected areas offer new hope for marine life and coastal communities.

- Boris Worm

IT’S AN UNUSUAL DAY for the outer Bay of Fundy. The place that boasts the highest tides in the world is often made inaccessible by raging currents, thick fog and unpredictable weather, yet today it’s sunny, clear and calm. The conditions are ideal for spotting one of the last remaining North Atlantic right whales or maybe even an elusive basking shark. Both come here in the summer to feed on a thick soup of plankton. They gorge on superabundant fat-rich crustaceans called copepods. Herring schools, also feeding on copepods, are seen glittering below, while storm petrels dance over the surface.

The Bay of Fundy is a globally important feeding ground for migratory birds, mammals and fish. As such, it’s an outstanding candidate for establishing a marine protected area, or MPA, a “park in the sea” designed to safeguard the world’s most special marine places, as well as some vast inland waters, such as areas of the Great Lakes. Protecting the outer Bay of Fundy, in fact, has been proposed by scientists, Indigenous leaders and community groups numerous times, yet local opposition has stalled the process.

I’m here with a group of researchers and filmmakers to photograph and identify right whales and to document them in their preferred habitat for an educational program called Ocean School, which provides Canadian educators with audiovisual resources to help them teach children about oceans. Armed with a special research permit that allows me to photograph individual whales from a safe distance, I slide into the water with a specialized 360-degree camera. I hang there motionless as a whale passes by, its giant eye locked onto mine. I’m gently rocked in its wake. Then, it’s gone.