June 26, 2019 — Four North Atlantic right whales were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada in the last three weeks, representing about one percent of the remaining population that is closely watched.
One, named Punctuation, was a breeding female who had mothered eight calves and then gone on to have several grandchildren, making her death a significant loss for a dwindling population. She had been sighted as long ago as 38 years.
Another, known as Comet, was roughly 33 years old and well known to whale-watching experts, who also said that he had become a grandfather.
Two others were a younger male named Wolverine that died earlier this month, and an 11-year-old female that was found dead along with Comet near New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula on Tuesday night.
The New England Aquarium, which tracks the endangered population, said in a statement: “The loss of sexually mature females is biologically a major loss to this species that has seen a precipitous population decline over the past several years.”
The aquarium noted that hundreds of the right whales had migrated northward into the Gulf of St. Lawrence as warming waters reduced their food source, mainly copepods in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine.