January 23, 2019 — Local North Atlantic Right Whale researchers are hearing some good news from their colleagues off the southeastern coast of the United States.
A third right whale calf was recently spotted during the current birthing season in waters off Florida.
The critically endangered species has an estimated population just over 400.
Center for Coastal Studies Researcher Charles “Stormy” Mayo said the three births are excellent news but female right whales need to reproduce more.
April 20, 2018 — PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — The crew of the research vessel Shearwater has been out on the water for six frigid hours with almost nothing to show for it.
On deck, two coverall-clad observers brace themselves against the biting wind and snow, alert for the white plume of a spout or the fleeting wave of a tail.
On the bridge, marine biologist Charles “Stormy” Mayo searches, too, his brow furrowed in a deepening frown. It is early April, and these plankton-rich waters should be full of hungry animals. But all he can see are dark gray waves and dull, cloudy sky.
“Where the hell are the whales?” he demands.
For years, spring has signaled the return of North Atlantic right whales — one of Earth’s most endangered species — to Cape Cod Bay.
Read the full story at the Washington Post
April 3, 2018 — Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a biologist who has dedicated her career to saving right whales, is cleaning out a file cabinet from the early 1990s, and the documents inside tell a familiar story — the whales are dying from collisions with ships and entanglements in commercial fishing gear, and the species might not survive.
Fast forward through a quarter-century of crawl-paced progress, and it’s all happening again.
“It’s a little scary to think if we hadn’t been working on this all these years, would they have been relegated to history instead of Cape Cod Bay?” said Asmutis-Silvia, of Plymouth, Massachusetts-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “We’re standing on the cliff and going, ‘It matters, they’re still here, they’re still something to fight for’.”
Despite eight decades of conservation efforts, North Atlantic right whales are facing a new crisis. The threat of extinction within a generation looms, and the movement to preserve the whales is trying to come up with new solutions.
The whales are one of the rarest marine mammals in the world, numbering about 450. The 100,000-pound animals have been even closer to the brink of extinction before, and the effort to save them galvanized one of the most visible wildlife conservation movements in U.S. history.
But the population’s falling again because of poor reproduction coupled with high mortality from ship strikes and entanglement. Scientists, environmentalists, whale watch captains and animal lovers of all stripes are rallying to renew interest in saving right whales, but many admit to feeling close to defeated.
Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, and other scientists have said the species could be extinct as soon as 2041. Mayo, a ninth generation resident of Cape Cod whose ancestors harpooned whales in the 18th and 19th centuries, now leads expeditions to find the animals and try to learn how to save them.
“There’s a fair amount of sadness, dealing with these creatures. They are on the brink of extinction now, and their future is truly in doubt,” he said. “I don’t think any of us are discouraged, but many of us are fearful. I certainly am.”
The decline of right whales dates back to the whaling era of centuries ago, when they were targeted as the “right” whale to hunt because they were slow and floated when killed. They were harvested for their oil and meat, and might have dwindled to double digits until international protections took hold in 1935.
Preserving the whales became an international cause, championed by environmentalists, scientists and the U.S. government, and their population grew to about 275 in 1990 and 500 around 2010. But then things changed.
March 27, 2018 — SAVANNAH, Ga. — The winter calving season for critically endangered right whales has nearly ended with zero newborns spotted in the past four months — a reproductive drought that scientists who study the fragile species haven’t seen in three decades.
Survey flights to look for mother-and-calf pairs off the Atlantic coasts of Georgia and Florida are scheduled to wrap up when the month ends Saturday. Right whales typically give birth off the southeastern U.S. seacoast between December and late March. Researchers have recorded between one and 39 births each year since the flights began in 1989.
Now experts are looking at the possibility of a calving season without any confirmed births.
“It’s a pivotal moment for right whales,” said Barb Zoodsma, who oversees the right whale recovery program in the U.S. Southeast for the National Marine Fisheries Service. “If we don’t get serious and figure this out, it very well could be the beginning of the end.”
Zoodsma said she doesn’t expect any last-minute calf sightings this week.
The timing could hardly be worse. Scientists estimate only about 450 North Atlantic right whales remain, and the species suffered terribly in 2017. A total of 17 right whales washed up dead in the U.S. and Canada last year, far outpacing five births.
With no rebound in births this past winter, the overall population could shrink further in 2018. One right whale was found dead off the coast of Virginia in January.
“It is truly alarming,” said Philip Hamilton, a scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston who has studied right whales for three decades. “Following a year of such high mortality, it’s clear the population can’t sustain that trajectory.”
Right whales have averaged about 17 births per year during the past three decades. Since 2012, all but two seasons have yielded below-average calf counts.
Scientists will be looking for newborn stragglers as the whales return to their feeding grounds off the northeastern U.S. this spring. That happened last year, when two previously unseen babies were spotted in Cape Cod Bay.
Right whale researcher Charles “Stormy” Mayo of the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said he was hopeful some calves were born this season off the Carolinas or Virginia, where scientists weren’t really looking.
It’s also possible right whales could rally with a baby boom next year. Females typically take three years or longer between pregnancies, so births can fluctuate from year to year. The previous rock-bottom year for births — just one calf spotted in 2000 — was followed by 31 newborns in 2001, the second-best calving season on record.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe
March 26, 2018, PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — Inside the cabin of the research vessel Shearwater, Charles “Stormy” Mayo, senior scientist and director of the Right Whale Ecology Program at the Center for Coastal Studies, pulled up on his computer an image of the family tree of North Atlantic right whale #1140.
This whale — dubbed “Wart” by researchers — has a file of photographs, identifying marks, and a life history, as does nearly every one of the remaining 451 right whales on earth.
“Her productivity has been extraordinary,” Mayo said. But Wart hasn’t been seen since 2014, and some worry her fabled life may have come to an end.
Last summer was particularly tragic with 16, possibly 17, right whales — 4 percent of the remaining population — killed after being hit by ships, entangled in fishing gear, and other unknown causes.
Extinction, experts say, is suddenly a reality.
“It was one of the big stories of the day, that right whales were coming back,” Mayo said. “But up to 2010, you had this appallingly slow climb, then decline. Now we have a species that is clearly headed for extinction.”
Wart, first seen in 1981, at the dawn of right whale research, has been subsequently spotted and identified 66 times from the Bay of Fundy to Florida. Believed to be in her 50s now, she is one of the more successful breeders — mother to seven calves, grandmother to 13 and great-grandmother to six.
But that productivity may not be enough in the face of a host of environmental issues related to an increasingly urbanized ocean — vessel noise, pollution and oil and gas exploration — and the unknown complications from a rapidly warming sea that could affect, for example, the seasonal timing of critical right whale food.
Then, there is the intractable problem of human induced mortality and serious injury.
Sixteen deaths last summer caused many to hit the panic button. Researcher Brian Sharp called it shocking.
“It begs the need for fishery managers, the industry and scientists to push harder to find solutions,” said Sharp, manager of Marine Mammal Rescue and Research at the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Yarmouth.
Twelve of last year’s deaths occurred in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where right whales had been seen sporadically over the last four decades, fewer than a dozen a year, and not well-documented. Five live entanglements also were documented in that area last year. Unlike the U.S., Canada has had no ship or fishing restrictions in place as the numbers of whales documented in the Gulf, possibly following prey driven north by climate change, has grown.
But four deaths also happened in the U.S. last year, despite decades of research and planning on how to create whale-safe fishing gear, massive fishing closures and rerouted and slowed ships to avoid fatal interactions with whales. The U.S. deaths alone were four times the number scientists set as the maximum allowed per year if the species is going to recover.
“There’s a huge misconception that the industry is not sensitive to this matter or not aware of it. We certainly are, and it concerns the industry a lot,” said Grant Moore, of Westport, a longtime offshore lobsterman and president of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association.
The exact number of North Atlantic right whales that existed prior to human killing is unknown, but the population was likely reduced to fewer than 100 by the time the international 1935 ban on whaling was enacted.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times
March 23, 2018 — These are dire times for the North Atlantic right whale.
A record number of the whales — 17 — died due to ship strikes or gear entanglements last year. Meanwhile, scientists who have been tracking the mammals noted the birth of a mere five calves over the same period. The troubling trend does not bode well for the species.
“The story is just a simple one of arithmetic,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coast Studies, told Public Radio International. “If you have fewer births and higher mortalities, extinction is around the corner.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. Right whales, docile creatures that grow to about 50 feet long and about 70 tons, at one time seemed to be one of the conservation movement’s greatest success stories. The creatures — hunted nearly to extinction in the whaling era — saw their numbers grow from fewer than 250 to the current estimate of 450 after two decades of conservation efforts on the part of the federal government and the fishing and shipping industries.
The measures that worked before, however, are no longer sufficient to keep the species healthy. This is in large part due to the fractured nature of their habitat, which runs from the southeastern United States to Nova Scotia.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times
January 29, 2018 — HYANNIS, Mass. — Canadian Fisheries officials recently announced a handful of new rules for snow crab fishermen to protect critical endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement.
The regulations include reducing the amount of rope allowed to float on the surface.
The new rules are a result of at least 17 right whale deaths last year, many of which were in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Right whales are the most endangered marine mammal in the world with an estimated population around 450.
Charles “Stormy” Mayo with the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown gave kudos to the Canadian officials for being proactive this year.
“It’s a shame we didn’t know where the whales were last year so they could have taken action earlier,” Mayo said.
Read the full story at CapeCod.com
January 26, 2018 — A whale carcass tangled in fishing line that was reported off Virginia Monday is confirmed as the first documented death of a North Atlantic right whale this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The imperiled right whales, which lost nearly 4 percent of their total population last year in Canadian and U.S. waters, and with only five documented births, faces significant man-made threats from both fishing gear and ship strikes, according to researchers.
“This isn’t just a crisis, this is a countdown to extinction,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, which has an office in Plymouth.
A stranding response team with the Virginia Aquarium received notice and a photo of the carcass Wednesday, at which point the whale was identified as a North Atlantic right whale that appeared to show it was was alive and swimming when it ran into the line.
Entanglements of whales in ropes prevents them from surfacing for air, leading to drowning, or creates a drag that hampers feeding, movement and reproduction, and reduces energy stores, according to scientists.
NOAA requested a drift analysis from the Coast Guard to determine where the carcass might be, and to determine if it can be towed to shore for a necropsy.
The sex and identify of the dead whale has not be determined.
“Disaster, depressing,” said Charles “Stormy” Mayo, who directs right whale research at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said of the latest whale carcass. “These are our whales, the humans who live along the Gulf of Maine. We are obviously not doing a very good job as stewards. Something’s got to change soon.”
In addition to a voluntary ship slow-down announced this week for 30 miles south of Nantucket, NOAA announced Thursday another voluntary slow-down 100 miles east-southeast of Virginia Beach, where a U.S. military ship crew had seen the carcass and four other live right whales.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times