Right whales giving birth a cause for excitement, but not enough to save endangered species
Sherri McConnell rushed to the balcony of her oceanfront condo in Daytona Beach, Florida, last week after a neighbor texted that she’d spotted a North Atlantic right whale mother and calf.
Anytime McConnell and her neighbors spy one of the 60-ton, critically endangered mammals so close to shore that they can see their v-shaped blows misting into the air, it’s an occasion for snapping photos to share on Facebook.
“It’s very exciting,” she said. “Everybody is always looking; we just have to be lucky to see them.”
Each of the 13 calves born so far this winter have been greeted with joy, the news shared along the whales’ migration route from the waters off New England and Canada to the calving grounds off Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
But with an estimated population at 336 and falling, there’s no escaping the math, or the impact of human activities on the world’s most endangered large whale.
An estimated 30 whales die each year, according to federal officials. Vessel traffic, commercial fishing gear and a warming climate all threaten the whales.
An average of 11 calves were born each season over the past decade. It would take four times that many over a number of years to bring the whales back to a sustainable population, said Barb Zoodsma, large whale recovery coordinator for the Southeast for the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We’ve never seen that many calves.”
The whales are “doing what they can to survive and reproduce,” Zoodsma said.
“But the scary part is these animals, they’re just not capable of calving themselves out of this predicament that we’ve put them into,” she said. “That emphasizes the importance of reducing the number of injuries and mortalities to these animals. It’s going to take everybody.”
Though the situation is dire, “it’s not hopeless," said Philip Hamilton, senior scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center at the New England Aquarium.
“They’ve come back before,” Hamilton said. Fewer than 100 North Atlantic right whales remained when a League of Nations whaling ban was adopted in the 1930s. Before a rapid decline that started around 2010, the estimated population was more than 500.
The whales live 45 to 65 years. And females can produce calves throughout their lives, Hamilton said. “We just have to stop killing them, and they’ll do the rest.”
Documentary filmmaker Nadine Pequeneza was first attracted to the whales’ story in 2017. That year 17 whale deaths were confirmed, 12 in Canada and 5 in the U.S. Many of the deaths were attributed to boat strikes and fishing gear entanglements as the whales were forced to move to new locations in search of food after their prey shifted in response to warming water temperatures.
“A species was facing extinction because we were responsible,” said Pequeneza, whose new film, Last of the Right Whales, will premiere on Feb. 16 at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
During the three years she and the crew were filming, they experienced joys and sorrows.
“This was the first time I’ve been that close to great whales. It was incredible,” she said of their work on a boat with a federal permit for approaching the whales. “They came over to the boat and then dove beneath our boat and never even rocked us. Just to hear them breathing, I thought, was the most spectacular sound.”
But during the filming, the population continued to fall.
A complex combination of circumstances are to blame.
The whales need immense quantities of microscopic crustaceans to survive and will swim great distances to find them. They swim through clouds of this zooplankton, filtering it through the massive baleen plates in their mouths.
After the catastrophic summer of 2017, scientists said warming waters in the Gulf of Maine and other surrounding waterways were moving the zooplankton and forcing the whales into new feeding habitats, some of which didn't share the same protections as their traditional feeding grounds.
“The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost any other body of water on the planet,” Hamilton said. Its surface water temperatures rose at seven times the global average between 2003-2018, a rate of about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit every 10 years.
Fall 2021 was the hottest on record, following the second warmest summer on record, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute reported. Before 2010, the gulf’s fall sea surface temperature had been above 57 degrees only one time since 1982. Since then, it hasn’t fallen below 57.
Scientists attribute the rapid warming to three things: location; overall ocean warming as greenhouse gas emissions rise; and melting ice in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean. The gulf sits at a key intersection between a current of cold water flowing south and the Gulf Stream, a current of warm water flowing north. Pulses of fresh water from melting ice can alter larger ocean circulation patterns. Several studies indicate the Gulf Stream and a larger related circulation in the Atlantic may be slowing and pushing warmer water toward Maine and the Bay of Fundy.
All of this has occurred in and around the whales’ primary feeding grounds off New England and Canada. As a result, Hamilton said they’ve seen whales moving from those areas to other locations, such as Cape Cod Bay and an area south of Nantucket.
More whales also moved into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they encountered fisheries and shipping traffic without the protective restrictions in place on other feeding grounds.
Difficulty in finding food is also thought to be a reason for the drop in calves, from a high of 39 in the 2008-2009 season to zero in 2018. The intervals between calving for many females have grown longer, leading researchers such as veterinarian Michael Moore at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to conclude female whales need to be fat and well fed to get pregnant and nurse a calf.
To give birth, the whales migrate along a busy coast dodging freighters, Navy ships and recreational vessels of all shapes and sizes.
Officials have worked for years to create more safe passage for the whales. Aerial surveys take place in the Southeast. Sightings are reported and relayed to ships, and posted to a Whale Alert cell phone app for mariners. But deadly vessel strikes continue.
One of last year’s calves was killed near an inlet in St. Augustine, Florida, where a fishing boat returning to port plowed into the calf. The boat started taking on water and the fishermen had to be rescued, but it was too late for the calf. It floated up nearby the next morning, disappointing right whale watchers who had just welcomed its arrival. The calf’s mother was later found suffering from similar injuries.
On their feeding grounds, whales share the waters with fishing gear for snow crab and lobster, as well as abandoned gear. As they’re feeding, fishing ropes get caught in their baleen and wrapped around flippers and tails.
In rare footage, Pequeneza filmed a right whale newly entangled in rope. The animal thrashed madly, blood oozing into the ocean as the line cut into its flesh.
Scientists at the New England Aquarium say an estimated 83% of the whales bear evidence of entanglements. Hamilton said entanglements can interrupt feeding and foraging and may affect growth, reproduction and longevity.
The aquarium curates a photo catalog used to identify the whales and is one of the organizations using a broad array of research to better understand the whales and how additional protections might help.
Moore, the Woods Hole veterinarian, is raising money with fishermen and scientists in government and private organizations to expand the development and use of buoyless systems in lobster fisheries.
In his new book, “We Are All Whalers,” Moore writes two things are needed: widespread vessel speed restrictions and removal of rope from the water column. “These measures have to become the norm over months, years, decades and centuries if this species is to survive, recover and thrive.”
Moore also calls for greater individual recognition of how actions such as seafood consumption and using goods transported by container ships have an impact.
To those who treasure their whale sightings, the measures seem worth it.
Floridian Joe Will was out for a Sunday drive on Jan. 30 when he noticed a group of people with cameras pointed out toward the ocean near Flagler Beach. Sheer joy welled up when he pulled over and saw right whales frolicking in the waves.
“It was really exciting,” said Will, who hadn’t seen a whale from the beach since 1985. “We ought to drop everything we are doing and do whatever is necessary to insure their safety.”