NEW BEDFORD — The North Atlantic right whale is not a species accustomed to good fortune. The endangered marine mammal most often makes headlines for getting snared in fishing gear, struck by speeding vessels, or washing up dead onshore.
But at the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium’s annual meeting at the New Bedford Whaling Museum this week, researchers and advocates gathered to share rare good news: the right whale population is on the rebound. Even more unusual, scientists across Canada and the U.S. have yet to record a single right whale mortality this year, after 2024 saw the highest count of carcasses, mortalities, and serious injuries since 2017.
From 2023 to 2024, the right whale population increased from 376 (give or take a few whales) to 384. This year so far also saw 11 new right whale calves, four first-time moms, and four repeat moms.
“Given the history of this population, we always go into these sort of good news stories with cautious optimism,” said Heather Pettis, consortium chair and senior scientist at the Kraus Marine Mammal Conservation Program at the New England Aquarium in Boston. “But it is important to share that really good news.”
The most recent data continues a slight but unmistakably positive trend in the right whale’s population going back to 2020.
The consortium, a network of scientists, marine management officials, and academics from across the U.S. and Canada, meets every fall to check in on the right whale’s progress. It shares the latest research into just about every aspect of the beleaguered species’ behavior, environment, and movement patterns. Started in 1986, the network has grown to over 200 members.
“It underscores what we’ve done as a consortium community to really stay focused on advancing conservation efforts,” Pettis said of the population increase. “I think having that good news gives people a feeling of, ‘We may be onto something here.’”
‘Bananas’
While the progress is encouraging, Pettis acknowledged that one banner year does not save a species from the brink. Her enthusiasm was also tempered by potential change ahead.
A new bill brought forth by Republicans in Congress could drastically alter the way scientists and marine management officials set protections around the right whale and other vulnerable marine species. Since 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act has provided a framework for regulations protecting the United States’ marine ecosystem from human impacts, and also made it illegal to kill and hunt whales, seals, and other marine mammals.
Key to maintaining the overall health of whale species is what’s called the PBR level, or potential biological removal level. The PBR is essentially the number that determines how many animals of a species could die of non-natural causes while still ensuring the population would continue to grow, Pettis said. For right whales, that number is 0.73 — meaning the species can only really handle less than one human-caused death per year.
Proposed changes to the Marine Mammal Protection Act under the new bill would raise that number to seven — a near 900% increase.
“It’s mind-blowing,” Pettis said. “It’s outside of any scientific backing that that’s a reasonable thing to do, that that’s an expectation of this population to be able to survive mortality rates like that.”
Tim Frasier is a professor of biology at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the principal investigator of the Frasier Lab, which uses genetic analyses to evaluate right whales’ reproductive success, among other things. He said each PBR level that the U.S. government sets for a species comes out of years of collective research and scientific agreement.
“To just throw out a different number, it’s bananas,” Frasier said.
The current political climate also affected the consortium meeting itself, with empty seats in what was supposed to have been a packed auditorium. Invitees from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including many scheduled speakers, were not able to attend due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
“That is a loss for us,” Pettis said in her opening remarks. “Their voices are critical. They are critical partners, colleagues, and collaborators.”
Networking
Whether U.S. marine management regulations shift or not, Pettis said, conservationists should increasingly look to more collaborative approaches to protecting right whales and other marine mammals.
For example, feedback from commercial fishers is key to developing and improving ropeless fishing technology that could reduce entanglements, not just for right whales but all marine species, Frasier said.
Several researchers at the consortium meeting have also turned to local fishers’ field expertise to help track and locate right whales’ whereabouts.
The most common cause of death for a right whale is by vessel strike, making it vulnerable to any commercial or recreational activity in the water. For that reason, researchers can sometimes possess an Ahab-like obsession over identifying where a right whale has been, could be, or will be.
Moira “Moe” Brown is a Canadian right whale researcher who heads the team that responds to stranded and entangled right whales from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Quebec to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. With such a large coverage area, any call for assistance typically begins with an eight-hour drive, she said.
To get a better picture of where right whales may be, Brown encourages local fishermen to send in photos or report any whales they might see.
“Sometimes these so-called isolated sightings can be really interesting, maybe giving us a place to go and look,” Brown said.
Brown said collaborations like these also spread greater awareness for the right whale’s plight as one of the world’s most endangered large whale species. Stocky and black, with distinctive white markings called callosities, right whales, like other whale species, play a critical role in balancing the marine ecosystem, redistributing nutrients from the bottom of the ocean to its surface. They got their name from whalers, who noted that the animal was the “right whale” to hunt since its carcass could float.
“There are still a lot of people who don’t know what a right whale is,” Brown said.
Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
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