'We're watching them die': can right whales pull back from the brink?
Dedicated conservationists are striving to save the North Atlantic right whale – believed to be down to 400 individuals as ships and fishing gear take their toll
by Megan Mayhew Bergman
“You can’t work on North Atlantic right whales and be a pessimist,” Clay George tells me. He’s a senior wildlife biologist and right whale specialist at Georgia’s department of natural resources, and one of the only people in the south formally trained to disentangle a whale from fishing gear.
Right whales are known to spend most of their time near the surface of the water, feeding and socializing. This behavior leaves them vulnerable to boat strikes and entanglement in fishing lines, almost exclusively the cause of their deaths.
There are so few North Atlantic right whales left in the world’s oceans – estimates hover around 400 – that many are known entities to the scientists who devote their careers to saving them. They often identify them by the patterns of callosity on their heads, raised tissue colored white by an infestation of cyamids, commonly known as “whale lice”.
I want to know if George feels any optimism at the slight uptick in calving in 2020, as 10 were seen in calving grounds this winter. There were zero calves recorded in 2018, and according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, calving has been down 40% since 2010.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/north-atlantic-right-whales-were-watching-them-die
