Right whale population grows by 4%, but die-offs remain…

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine (AP) – The population of one of the world’s rarest whale species has increased slightly, prompting conservationists to call on the federal government and the shipping and fishing industries to make more efforts to bring the giant animals back from the brink of extinction.

In 2010, numbers of the North Atlantic right whale, which can weigh up to 150,000 pounds (68,039 kilograms) and lives off the East Coast, plummeted. By the early 1920s, numbers of the critically endangered whales, which are stressed by global warming and vulnerable to ship collisions and entanglement in fishing gear, had fallen to fewer than 360 individuals.

A group of whale researchers said Tuesday that the whale population has increased to an estimated 372 in 2023. That’s an increase of about 4% from 2020 and “reassuring news” after the whale population dropped by about 25%. between 2010 and 2020, researchers said in a statement.

The scientists are members of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, which is the result of many years of cooperation between scientists, conservationists, representatives of the maritime industry and others. Heather Pettis, a researcher at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center and chairwoman of the consortium, said conservationists and government regulators “still have a lot of work to do” to ensure the species’ continued recovery.

“This is a really vulnerable population. One bad calving year can really impact an entire population,” Pettis said. “We need to make sure the whales can calve, breed, feed and do what they need to do without stress.”

The number of recent births shows improvement compared to 2010, but the number of new calves is lower than the number of new calves that scientists have observed in the 2000s, and threats remain a serious problem. Five right whale deaths and four other lost calves have been detected this year – the highest annual mortality rate since 2019 – and these nine deaths could cause the population to decline in 2024, the consortium says.

Several right whale deaths this year have shown signs of chronic entanglement and ship strikes – evidence that the government needs to act faster to impose new restrictions on fishing and shipping, conservation groups said.

“While population growth is promising, the dead North Atlantic right whales washing up on our shores speak volumes – we need to stop killing them,” said Gib Brogan, campaign director at Oceana.

Protecting whales with new regulations has proven difficult. In February, a coalition of environmental groups sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, seeking to force the agency to finalize ship speed regulations it proposed in 2022 to protect whales from ship strikes. Rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service to reduce the risk of whale entanglements have been met with opposition from fishing groups.

The whales migrate each year from calving grounds off the coast of Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off the coast of New England and Canada. Scientists say the journey has become more dangerous in an era of warming ocean waters as whales have had to leave established protected zones in search of tiny marine life, which they eat.

By the 1890s, whales were almost wiped out by whalers. They have been under federal protection for decades, but have never recovered their population to pre-whaling levels.