PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the world's rarest whales 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, eight whales more than the year before, according to a report from the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium released Tuesday. The whales have shown a trend of slow population growth over the past four years.
It's a welcome development in the wake of a worrying decline over the past decade. The population of whales, which are vulnerable to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, declined by about 25% between 2010 and 2020.
The trend toward whale recovery is a testament to the importance of conservation measures, said Philip Hamilton, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. The center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration work together to calculate the population estimate.
New management measures in Canada that try to keep the whales safe amid their increased presence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have been particularly important, Hamilton said.
“We know that a modest increase each year, if we can sustain it, will lead to population growth,” Hamilton said. “It's about whether or not we can keep it going.”
Scientists have warned in recent years that the whale's slow recovery is coming at a time when the giant animals are still threatened by accidental deaths, and that stronger conservation measures are needed. But there are also reasons to believe the whales are making a turnaround in terms of low reproductive numbers, Hamilton said.
The whales are less likely to reproduce if they have suffered injuries or are malnourished, scientists say. That has become a problem for the whales because they don't produce enough babies to sustain their population, they say.
This year, however, four mother whales had calves for the first time, Hamilton said. And some other, established mother whales had shorter intervals between calves, he said.
A total of 11 calves were born, which is fewer than researchers had hoped, but the entry of new females into the reproductive pool is encouraging, Hamilton said.
And any number of calves is helpful in a year without deaths, says Heather Pettis, who directs the whale research program at the Cabot Center and chairs the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.
“The slight increase in the population estimate, coupled with the lack of detected deaths and fewer detected injuries than in recent years, leaves us cautiously optimistic about the future of North Atlantic right whales,” Pettis said. “What we have seen before is that this population can turn on a dime.”
During commercial whaling, whales were hunted, which were on the brink of extinction. They have been federally protected for decades.
The whales migrate every year from the calving grounds near Florida and Georgia to the feeding grounds near New England and Canada. Some scientists have said that warming oceans have made that journey more dangerous, as the whales have had to stray from established protected areas in search of food.
