December 8, 2020 — Biologists from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida knew immediately what they were seeing: It was a North Atlantic right whale calf.
They couldn’t help but be ecstatic.
“Soon enough, the team knew the mother would surface for a breath of air and the calving season would have the first live mother-calf right whale pair,” said Melanie White, a research biologist who serves as the aquarium’s North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation Project Manager.
The calf, found swimming on Dec. 4 with a first-time mom known as Chiminea off the coast of Cumberland Island in Georgia, was the first of two live calves found over the past week, the National Marine Fisheries Service tweeted Monday.
The second, born to 16 year-old Millepede, was spotted Monday while swimming with bottlenose dolphins off Vilano Beach in Florida.