December 1, 2015 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Lucky Gloucester residents got a rare glimpse of a North Atlantic right whale this week within 300 feet of the city’s rocky shoreline.

The whale sighted Sunday morning is one of only about 500 North Atlantic right whales left in existence, and though the animals regularly swim along the coast, they are seldom seen.

Researchers have confirmed that the whale spotted off Gloucester was a right whale.

“It’s one of the rarest individuals in the world, so to have this sighting is special,” said Amy Knowlton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium. “They were hunted nearly to extinction … and they really have not recovered very quickly.”

The aquatic mammals feed on copecods, crustaceans that are abundant on Jeffreys Ledge, about 20 miles northeast of Gloucester, according to Tim Cole, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe