April 23, 2023 — Massachusetts officially declared April 24 as Right Whale Day to raise awareness about the endangered. North Atlantic right whales, the state’s official marine mammal.
Right whales have been coming to Cape Cod Bay in April for as long as there has been a Cape Cod Bay. These sandy, shoaly waters warm faster than deeper, dark-bottom ocean realms. In the Gulf of Maine, a sea beside the Atlantic Ocean, seawater rotates counterclockwise fastest in April, driven by river water coming off the land. Nutrient-rich waters are upwelled on the threshold of Stellwagen Bank, defining the east boundary of Massachusetts Bay and drift on into Cape Cod Bay where phytoplankton blooms, feeding zooplankton feeding right and sei whales. Forage fish, including sand lance, herring, and mackerel eat zooplankton and are then scooped up by gaping-mouthed minke, fin, and humpback whales.
It’s time for the National Marine Fisheries Service to slow down to 10 knots or less the speeds of all vessels. Ships were slowed down from March 1 to April 30. There were no vessel-related right whale deaths during the spring season from 2008 until 2016.
On May 5, 2016, a right whale calf was found dead off Morris Island in Chatham. It was the first right whale fatality by ship strike since speed restrictions were implemented in 2008. The 30-foot-long calf weighing about 10,000 pounds was the eighth right whale born to a whale named Punctuation. Mother and calf were observed swimming together in Cape Cod Bay on April 28. As a result, speed restrictions were extended in the Race Point area after April 30.
On April 13, 2017, a juvenile female right whale was found dead off Barnstable, where speed restrictions were in effect from Jan. 1 to May 15. This second right whale death was the first ship strike death documented in or near a seasonal management zone since the speed rule was enacted.