October 24, 2017 — CAPE COD, Mass. — The discovery Monday of another dead North Atlantic right whale off Cape Cod escalated the already fevered concern among Canadian and U.S. marine scientists and fishery managers on the imperiled state of the highly endangered species.
The discovery of the severely decomposed whale brings the 2017 death count to at least 16, with the majority of the mortalities — attributed exclusively by researchers to ship strikes and gear entanglements — occurring in Canadian waters.
Four of the right whale deaths have occurred off the coast of Massachusetts.
“Our research and data have shown us that ship-strike or entanglement are the only definitive cause of death,” said Mike Asaro, NOAA Fisheries’ Gloucester-based marine mammal and sea turtle branch chief for the Atlantic region. “There’s nothing else we’re aware of.”