Saving Seafood

Endangered whale recently seen off Cape Cod may need rescue after entanglement

June 15, 2026 — A young right whale that was seen off Massachusetts two months ago may need to be rescued after it was observed in Canadian waters with fishing gear in its mouth.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada said that on June 8, aerial observers spotted an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near Shippagan, New Brunswick. They said if the whale is spotted again and conditions allow, “efforts will be made to remove any gear from the animal.”

The New England Aquarium said that the unnamed 5-year-old male was seen gear-free in Cape Cod Bay on April 21.

Read the full article at CBS News

New England Aquarium pens letter opposing changes to vessel speed limit

June 4, 2026 — In a letter sent to the assistant administrator for NOAA fisheries last week, the New England Aquarium says it opposes efforts by the National Marine Fisheries Service to deregulate vessel speed limits designed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The speed limits were established in 2008 in management areas where right whales were observed during their migration. But earlier this year, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service’s posted an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking of a “possible deregulatory action” to its website.

In its letter, the aquarium cited studies that say vessel strikes remain a threat to the small population of right whales left on the East Coast.

Between 2020 and 2025, 22 right whale vessel strikes were detected in U.S. waters, of which six were fatal and two resulted in serious injuries.

Read the full article at Maine Public 

Rare shark spotted off New England coast

June 1, 2026 — A species of large-bodied shark that nearly disappeared from Atlantic waters has been seen feeding on seals off the coast of New England, according to marine biologists.

Typically it’s great whites that are expected near the Massachusetts coast in the summertime. However, several sightings of what were believed to be great whites attacking seals actually turned out to be the elusive dusky shark, John Chisholm, adjunct scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, told ABC News.

Dusky sharks were nearly hunted to extinction in the late 20th century when commercial fisheries in the Gulf and Atlantic ramped up, according to Demian Chapman, senior scientist and director for the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida.

Meat and fins of many shark species are highly valued, and they are targeted and taken as bycatch in commercial and recreational fisheries, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. The demand for fins came primarily from China, Chapman told ABC News.

Read the full article at ABC News

Right whale births reported highest since 2009

April 29, 2026 — Whale researchers report endangered North Atlantic right whales have completed their most successful calving season since 2009, with 23 mother-calf pairs to help rebuild a population estimated at only about 380 animals.

The annual calving season off the southeastern United States, from the Carolinas to Georgia and Florida, runs from mid-November until mid-April and is closely monitored by aerial survey teams.

Scientists with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium track the season closely. In an April 29 statement they reported there were shorter intervals between calving for the majority of the adult female whales.

“While a healthy right whale can give birth every three to four years, we had been seeing nearly 10 years between calves for some females. Many of this year’s moms have had shorter intervals—18 of them previously gave birth within the last six years—giving us hope that they may be healthier and can help grow the population faster,” said Amy Warren, scientific program officer for the Anderson Cabot Center.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Enormous blue whales spotted in “unusual occurrence” off Massachusetts coast

March 6, 2026 — Blue whales, the largest animals on Earth, have been spotted not far off the coast of Massachusetts in what the New England Aquarium is calling an “unusual occurrence.”

Researchers with the aquarium spotted two blue whales just 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard on Saturday during an aerial survey. The day before, they saw a blue whale at Lydonia Canyon, 170 miles away to the southeast of Nantucket.

The aquarium team has never encountered a blue whale in the southern New England survey area before. The most recent sighting of the endangered species in the area had been off the coast of Maine in 2023. A blue whale was also spotted off Cape Cod, 13 miles east of Truro, by the Center for Coastal Studies in 2020.

Read the full article at CBS News

“It was amazing:” Scientists spot multiple blue whales in southern New England waters

March 6, 2026 — Researchers say they spotted three endangered blue whales off the coast of Southern New England in in a 24-hour period last month.

Observers with New England Aquarium said it’s the first time they have documented blue whales in their southern New England survey area.

Seeing blue whales outside of their Canadian feeding grounds is rare in the Atlantic, documenting them in two different areas of the ocean just hours apart is a first for Research Scientist Orla O’Brien.

She said little is known about the Western North Atlantic population, which is believed to be between 400-600 individuals.

“I don’t want to sound like silly but the mystery and the beauty of it is what we felt in the plane,” she said. “It was amazing.”

O’Brien says the whales were likely on the search for food near the Seamounts Marine National Monument — a breeding ground for krill and other plankton due to its unique biodiversity and nutrient-rich water.

In addition to the endangered blue whale, the aerial survey team spotted more than 300 animals, including three endangered fin whales, three endangered sperm whales, about 50 pilot whales, and hundreds of dolphins.

Read the full article at WSHU

Rare North Atlantic right whale grows population to 384

October 21, 2025 — One of the rarest whales on the planet has continued an encouraging trend of population growth in the wake of new efforts to protect the giant animals, according to scientists who study them.

The North Atlantic right whale now numbers an estimated 384 animals, up eight whales from the previous year, according to a report by the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium released Tuesday. The whales have shown a trend of slow population growth over the past four years and have gained more than 7% of their 2020 population, the consortium said.

It’s a welcome development in the wake of a troubling decline in the previous decade. The population of the whales, which are vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear, fell about 25% from 2010 to 2020.

The whale’s trend toward recovery is a testament to the importance of conservation measures, said Philip Hamilton, a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. The center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collaborate to calculate the population estimate.

New management measures in Canada that attempt to keep the whales safe amid their increased presence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have been especially important, Hamilton said.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

New England scientists honing models that predict where right whales will pop up next

September 22, 2025 — In recent years, efforts to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale population have included making ships slow down in known whale zones to avoid hitting them and encouraging fishing crews to use ropeless gear to prevent them from becoming entangled.

But changes to where the whales congregate have been challenging some of those efforts.

Now scientists at the University of Maine and the New England Aquarium in Boston are working together to improve their modelling to predict where the whales will be at any given time.

“North Atlantic right whales utilize a lot of the ocean environment, and so it’s really hard for humans to be out there observing them at all times,” Camille Ross, an associate research scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston, said in a radio interview with CBC New Brunswick’s Shift.

“And so models like this are really important to fill in those data gaps when we don’t have eyes on the water.”

Ross is the lead author of the study, called “Incorporating prey fields into North Atlantic right whale density surface models,” which was published in the latest edition of the research journal Endangered Species Research.

Read the full article at CBC News

Endangered fin whale and calf sighting is a “rare occurrence,” New England Aquarium scientist says

August 7, 2025 — New England Aquarium researchers recently documented what they say was a rare sighting of an endangered fin whale and its calf.

Scientists on a July 24 aerial survey flew over the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod. They observed more than 1,000 marine animals, including seven fin whales, one endangered sperm whale, one humpback whale, two minke whales and more than 900 dolphins.

“Seeing an endangered fin whale and its calf is a rare occurrence,” assistant research scientist Kate Laemmle said in a statement Wednesday.

Read the full article at CBS News

Endangered whales gave birth to few babies this year as population declines

May 19, 2025 — A vanishing species of whale gave birth to few babies this birthing season, raising alarms among scientists and conservationists who fear the animal could go extinct.

The whale is the North Atlantic right whale, which numbers only about 370 and has declined in population in recent years. The whales give birth to calves off the southeastern United States from mid-November to mid-April, and federal authorities have said they need to have at least 50 calves per season to start recovering.

The whales didn’t come anywhere near that number this year. The calving season produced only 11 mother-calf pairs, scientists with the New England Aquarium in Boston said.

Read the full article at the Associated Press