The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GDNR) reported in an emailed statement that there are fewer North Atlantic right whale females of breeding age and fewer whales overall.
GDNR reports that survey flights are underway to document North Atlantic right whales began during November along the Atlantic Coast as the right whales have begun their calving season. The species calves off of the waters of the Georgia and North Florida coasts – their only known remaining calving grounds left in the world.
New studies have detailed the dire state of the large marine mammals. The total population was estimated at just 340 individual whales in 2021, which is ten fewer than in 2020. That was followed by a new study showing that the population of breeding-age females has declined from 2014-2018. Researchers say there are only about 72 females left of breeding age and that fewer females are transitioning from pre-breeders to mothers.
According to the finding, the right whales “can’t calve their way out of this problem,” said Clay George, a senior wildlife biologist who leads DNR’s marine mammal work. “The whales need a good calving year, but more importantly, we need to stop human mortality” from commercial fishing gear entanglement and vessel strikes.
GDNR is urging recreational boaters to please slow down and be aware of the risks of hitting a right whale. Three right whale calves have been killed in collision with boats that are less than 65 feet long since 2020.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is proposing lowering the speed limit for boats that are 35 to 64 feet long along the U.S. East Coast to 10 knots (11.5 miles per hour). The threshold is now 65 feet. That proposal has raised questions and opposition from boatowners. There is also opposition to have new ropeless tackle regulations for lobster and Jonah crab trap and pot fisheries in the Northeast.
The recreational boating industry has objected to lowering the speed limit proposal.
Boaters can get a whale app on their phones so that they will be aware when they are in waters where whales are present.
When commercial hunting of the whales was banned in the 1930s, there were possibly less than 100 North Atlantic right whales left. The population had rebounded then, but the low number of breeding females, coupled with a shrinking population, concerns scientists.
George said that the number of pre-breeding age females is holding steady at 70.
“If some of those females start having calves, it could really help,” George said. There were also fewer whale deaths this spring and summer. No right whale carcasses were spotted in New England or Canada last spring or summer for the first time since 2013.
“A lot’s being done to increase protections and awareness in the U.S. and Canada,” George said. “Hopefully, we’re starting to see the fruits of those efforts.”
The life expectancy of right whales is not known, but it is at least 70 years and could be well over a hundred and fifty years based on research with bowhead whales. Because the animals are so large and so long-lived it takes many years for a calf to reach breeding age, and if the calf is killed in a boat wreck before breeding, then that individual does not live to replace itself.
Right whales are so named because when a right whale is killed by a whaler, it does not sink, allowing whalers to collect the floating carcass. Thus it is considered the “right” whale to hunt. More modern whalers pumped compressed air into whale species that historically sank, allowing them to harvest those species as well since the number of right whales by then was far below the numbers to support whaling. The number of North Atlantic right whales has been in decline since 2010. High mortality from boat accidents with humans is a major factor in the decline.
Whales were heavily harvested well into the twentieth century for their oil which was used for dozens of industrial purposes, but historically was used mostly for lighting lamps. American industrialist John D. Rockefeller probably did more than anyone to save the rapidly declining whale species around the world when his company, Standard Oil, began producing and marketing a much superior and more consistent lamp oil, kerosene – that he marketed as being “standard oil,” refined from petroleum rather than from whale blubber. Whale oil, prior to that point, was trading at an incredible $200 a barrel in today’s currency, meaning that whalers would go into even the most remote oceans pursuing the blubber that can be harvested for the oil. Despite this, whale oil continued to be used for some industrial purposes well into the twentieth century.
Scientists are also concerned that global warming of the oceans could be negatively impacting the species that annually migrate from south Florida at about Cape Canaveral to well into the Arctic.
North Atlantic right whales were listed as an endangered species in 1970.
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