Endangered whale's feeding grounds gain protected status

The federal government is enhancing protections for endangered North Atlantic right whales by adding two important feeding grounds to the Species at Risk Act.

The Roseway Basin off Nova Scotia and the Grand Manan Basin in the Bay of Fundy have been listed as critical habitats in the Act.

The measure means Ottawa is obligated to legally protect the areas from activities that might harm them.

The feeding grounds are important for the massive mammals as they migrate from breeding grounds in the southern United States to Canadian waters, where they feed in the summer.

There are only about 400 of the animals left in the world, with ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear posing the biggest threats.

David Millar of the federal Fisheries Department says Ottawa has 180 days to put the legal protections in place.