Whale scholars, lobstermen, conservationists and government officials converge today in Nova Scotia to save right whales.

“Everybody is running out of adjectives,” Defenders of Wildlife attorney Jane Davenport said of the death of 12 North Atlantic right whales since June in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and another three off the U.S., totaling 3 percent of the total population. “It’s apocalyptic. It really is.”

At the annual North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium meeting in Halifax, right whale researchers will release their latest population tally of 451 for 2016, typically counted with a year’s lag. But it’s easy to see where next year’s number is headed given the 15 known deaths and only five known births, said consortium chairman Mark Baumgartner, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist.

“2017 will be another year of decline,” Baumgartner said.

In early October, the Defenders of Wildlife and three other conservation groups sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for failure to protect North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear entanglement, believed by researchers to be one of two primary right whale killers, along with ship strikes.

With prior litigation, the conservation groups already have obtained speed and route restrictions on ships, said Sharon Young, of The Humane Society of the United States. Although more future litigation may be needed regarding ship strikes, the four groups are concentrating on fixed-gear fishing, particularly the American lobster fishery, due to the “overwhelming” number of mortalities related to entanglement, Young said.

On Friday, National Marine Fisheries Service issued its five-year review of the North Atlantic right whale population as required under the federal Endangered Species Act. Apart from continuing to list the animal as endangered, and acknowledging a decline in population since 2010 as well as below-average calving rates and poor body condition of the population overall, the federal agency proposed part of what the four conservation groups want: to re-examine scientific opinions that underpin the agency’s commercial fishing regulations to prevent harm to right whales.

Among the faults of the current biological assessment of lobster fishing, the four groups say, is that it fails to consider new research on the “sublethal” effects of entanglement on right whales, such as females who are depleting their energy by carrying fishing gear on their bodies.

“If they’re not in good enough condition because they are dragging gear around, they might not have the fat reserves to reproduce,” Davenport said.

Just as the conservation groups are considering the recommendations laid out by National Marine Fisheries Service in the five-year review, the federal agency is considering the conservation groups’ threat to sue.

“They have it under internal review,” said Rhode Island resident David Borden, a member of the 15-state Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and chairman of the subcommittee for American lobster.

Massachusetts Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, also a member of the commission and the American lobster subcommittee, called on the four conservation groups to focus their energy on the right whale deaths that occurred in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Of six whale necropsy results announced in Canada so far, one said the animal died because of chronic entanglement with fishing gear while the others suggested ship strikes. Five entanglements of live whales, primarily with snow crab gear, were also documented.

In Massachusetts, the lobstermen fishing in Cape Cod Bay and near the coast from Provincetown to Chatham already follow strict state guidelines that start Feb. 1 and extend through at least April when they pull their gear and vertical lines out of the water, Peake said. “Massachusetts is really ahead of the curve in our right whale protection,” she said.

That belief was echoed by Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, representing 720 commercial fishermen.

“The whales leave Cape Cod Bay in great shape,” Casoni said. “Now the environmental groups come back and say we need to do more. It’s very frustrating.”

Among the commercial lobstermen at the right whale symposium today is John Haviland, of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association, who is opposed to more litigation and more research. He said it annoys him to no end that “some type of resolution cannot be found in modern technology.” Haviland is attempting to obtain an exemption from the February through April no-gear mandate in Cape Cod waters through the use of rope mechanisms that break more readily if caught up with a right whale.

The four conservation groups did send a similar letter to Canadian officials at the same time as the Oct. 2 letter was sent to the National Marine Fisheries Service, but with no legal mandates cited because of limitations on the reach of U.S.-based nonprofits into Canada, Davenport and Young said.

Disparities do exist between U.S. and Canadian government efforts to protect right whales from fishing gear entanglements, but some progress is being made, according to the five-year review. A 2016 “import rule” under the U.S.’s Marine Mammal Protection Act could reach Canadian fisheries because it requires that by 2022 fish imported into the U.S. must be harvested with conservation measures comparable to those in the U.S.

Also, the U.S. has declared an “unusual mortality event” for North Atlantic right whales throughout the animal’s range, including Canada, releasing more resources to investigate the causes. In response to the deaths in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Canadian government also closed a snow crab fishing area and implemented temporary slow-down zones for larger vessels.

Further, the five-year review calls for the U.S. to continue to develop a partnership with the Canadian government to reduce human interaction with right whales.

“We definitely think those efforts cannot come too soon,” Davenport said.

— Follow Mary Ann Bragg on Twitter: @maryannbraggCCT.