September 1, 2021 — Climate change is the quiet force behind a sudden decline in the population of North Atlantic right whales, according to a new study that bolsters a growing body of research into why the critically endangered animals have veered from slow recovery to alarming decline.
An analysis of data on plankton, oceanic conditions and whale sightings, published Wednesday in the journal Oceanography, showed that the whales abandoned their traditional feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine in 2010, the same year that warming water caused the fatty crustaceans they eat to plummet in the area.
Many of the whales eventually followed their food north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but the protections from fishing gear and ships that had safeguarded them in their previous habitat did not exist in their new one. Entanglement in gear is the leading cause of death for North Atlantic right whales, followed by collisions with vessels.
“They moved so fast that our policies didn’t move with them,” said Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, a quantitative marine ecologist at the University of South Carolina and one of the study’s authors. “The environment is just not as predictable as it used to be, so I think that we all need to think on our feet more.”