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Researchers are racing to understand the warming habitat of the declining North Atlantic right whale before it’s too late
“Get it, get it, get it, get it!”
With Only 300 left, the North Atlantic right whale ranks as one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals. Nearly annihilated centuries ago by whalers, the slow-swimming species is said to have earned its name because it was the “right” whale to hunt.
Old-fashioned harpoons are now vulnerable to other threats. Humans continue to kill right whales. Startlingly high numbers — but by accident. Waters that aren’t contaminated by whalers are now full of ships that strike them and ropes to entangle them.
Changes in the climate are creating new challenges. Rising temperatures are pushing them to new seas. And soon, dozens of offshore wind turbines — part of President Biden’s clean energy agenda — will encroach their habitat as the administration tries to balance tackling global warming with protecting wildlife.
In recent years, the number of North Atlantic right whales born has declined.
More than 10% of the right whale population have been killed or seriously injured by vessel strikes and entanglements since 2017.
In recent years, the number of North Atlantic right whales born has declined.
Since 2017, more than 10% of right whales have been killed or seriously hurt by vessel strikes and entanglements.
In recent years, the number of North Atlantic right whales born has declined.
More than 10% of the right whale population have been killed or seriously injured by vessel strikes and entanglements since 2017.
As the Helen H teetered, Warren called out, “There’s a third whale!” This one they didn’t recognize. That’s when Warren, the trip’s coordinator, and her team began thinking about fetching another piece of equipment.
A crossbow would help them better understand this unidentified whale.
Watching the disappearance of whales one at a time, by name
For at least a millennium, human beings have chased right baleens in the Atlantic. Basque whale hunters from Spain and France scanned the horizon using stone towers. Soon after the Mayflower was anchored off Cape Cod by whales, colonists began hunting them.
Herman Melville called right whales “morning mowers.” The enormous carnivore siphons microscopic zooplankton near the ocean surface much the way a deer grazes a meadow, making them ready targets. Rights, unlike other whales, float after death, making them easier for haulers.
While the slaughter killed the species, the spoils were a key ingredient in the creation of the modern world. The Industrial Revolution was powered by whale oil, which lit cities and lubricated machines. Baleen, a comb-like structure used to filter food, was removed from the mouths of the whales and made into collars, corsets, and petticoats. By the American Revolution, the island of Nantucket stood as the capital of the nascent nation’s booming whaling business.
Early on a frigid March morning this year, the New England Aquarium’s charter boat steered south under the starlight between Nantucket and neighboring Martha’s Vineyard.
During Cape Cod’s bustling summer season, the Helen H takes out tourists hoping to catch fluke and cod. The 100-foot boat was rented to the research scientists during a late winter lull. The research team set out from Barnstable, Mass. at 3 a.m. in windy conditions to reach whale-filled waters by sunrise.
The six-member research group wore hats, gloves and boots. They also wore flame-colored float coats. Every hour, they rotated around the boat — one looking off the stern, a few from the bow and another in the wheelhouse while the others warmed in the cabin, napping, snacking and playing Wordle.
“Whale biologists have to have the patience of a monk and the sprinting ability of an athlete,” said Philip Hamilton, who has worked at the aquarium for 33 years, “because you go from doing absolutely nothing, like this, and then all of a sudden, a lot of action.”
The whales are difficult to find. “We call it noncooperative behavior,” Kelsey Howe, a right whale assistant scientist, said while scanning off of the stern through Polarized sunglasses are used to distinguish the whales from water.
Howe grew in Utah, inland. “The Great Salt Lake doesn’t count,” she said. As a kid, she was obsessed with whales. She attended junior high. A camp in California is a place where marine biologists can sleep away. It’s a way to fulfill a childhood dream. However, no whales were visible as the morning progressed.
“You’re getting the full whale surveying experience, which is sometimes not a whole lot,” she said.
Warren, a right-whale research assistant, is tucked away in the wheelhouse. Charted a course on the shoals, monitored the weather, and coordinated with colleagues in a plane flying overhead to watch for whales. Marine mammals started for her, too, as “one of those childhood obsessions” she grew into rather than out of. She rose from deckhand to naturalist during whale-watching tours in New England as an adult.
“Sometimes you could watch someone fall in love with a whale in that moment.”
With her computer, she can now access a census of almost every right whale in American waters and Canada. This is based on 1.2million photos submitted by 684 observers from Newfoundland to Florida. The North Atlantic Right Whale CatalogIt includes data back to 1935, including the age, sex of all members of the species, as well as their physical characteristics and family lineage. Scientists would be able watch right whales disappear one by one, and by name, if they were to die.
Where is the North Atlantic right?
Whales are protected along
The East Coast
These waters are home to right whales, who spend their summers foraging. Large boats must slow down in order to protect the whales as well as their food sources.
Seasonal
Management
These areas
Speed limits are enforced on boats that are in heavy traffic areas during the months when whales migrate up and down the East Coast.
The whales calve off of the Southeast coast in late autumn and early spring.
Where North Atlantic right whales can be found
Protected along the East Coast
These waters are home to right whales, who spend their summers foraging. Large boats must slow down in order to protect the whales as well as their food sources.
Seasonal
Management
These areas
Speed limits are enforced on boats that are in heavy traffic areas during the months when whales migrate up and down the East Coast.
The whales calve off of the Southeast coast in late autumn and early spring.
Protected along the East Coast are North Atlantic right Whales
These waters are home to right whales, who spend their summers foraging. Large boats must slow down in order to protect the whales as well as their food sources.
Management areas for the season
During the migration of whales up and down East Coast, speed limits for boats in heavy traffic areas are enforced.
The whales calve off of the Southeast coast in late autumn and early spring.
Big Oil, now an environmental pariah has helped to pull the whales out of the brink.
In 1859, the first commercial well in western Pennsylvania was drilled. This marked the end to the U.S. whaling business. The whales were granted a reprieve when petroleum products took over from baleen, blubber, and blubber.
By 1935, the world’s nations agreed to stop hunting right whales. The 1972 passage and subsequent year’s Endangered Species Acts cemented protections along the Eastern Seaboard.
But the damage was done. According to a report by the International Whaling Commission, more than 5500 right whales have been killed in the western Atlantic after three centuries of whaling. one conservative estimateFrom biologists.
Two decades of slow recovery saw the population of whales increase to 500 by 2010. The species struggled to survive in an ocean that was constantly changing and crowded with people.
Boat strikes are a major threat to species that live on the surface. NOAA Fisheries is a division of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It has been in operation since 2008. Requirements boats bigger than 65 feet to slow down in the whale’s habitat at certain times of the year.
However, carcasses with propeller-driven deep S-shaped gashes are still possible Still washing ashore. It is difficult to enforce speed limits in the open ocean. A strike from a small boat can cause massive damage and result in the death of a mammal. The agency stated that it will propose a revised speed rule in spring.
Rope presents a more dangerous threat. Traps that are used to catch lobsters and crabs can ensnare whales. They swim into the lines that tether the pots below to the buoys at the surface. Whales can drag fishing equipment for miles, leaving them exhausted, starved, scarred, and hungry.
The Biden administration was active during the summer. issuedNew fishing restrictions are intended to reduce the number and severity of entanglements off New England. Jonah crab and lobster fishermen now must reduce the number of buoy lines and use rope weak enough to break under a whale’s weight. Over the next ten years, the administration will issue additional fishing rules.
However, almost immediately the environmental groups and the fishing industry filed their own lawsuits over the government’s plans.
For the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups, the new rule falls short of the government’s own science. The agency estimates that fisheries may injure and kill right whales at rates higher than necessary to sustain the species.
For the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and other operators using traps, the federal framework is “draconian” and may drive them out of business, According to their lawsuit.
Jon Williams, a New Bedford fisherman, is finding it hard to afford special rope that will sink so right whales don’t get caught. He owns 14 boats which catch lobster, crab, and hagfish. “We’re buying an awful lot more rope than we ever used to, for sure,” he said.
Williams will test traps without any rope, which conservationists call a permanent solution. This new “ropeless” gear descends with a compressed air canister and a deflated balloon. The balloon inflates quickly and brings the traps to surface with a simple tap.
Williams is eager to test the new gear in deep seas to trap red crab. However, he warned that fishing without rope would be difficult in more crowded areas like the one south Nantucket.
“Without a buoy marking where his gear is, you have no idea where he is. So you just end up sitting over top of people, and it’s a mess,” he said. “It’s pretty much impossible.”
‘It can’t be more than a mosquito bite’
Midmorning, Helen H was able to catch a break when the aerial team spotted a group right whales. Warren set a course for north.
Right whales can be described as extraordinary by the uninitiated. The right whale’s appearance is distorted by its narrow upper jaw and low-set lower jaw, which create a frown that appears to be permanent. Thick patches of cornified skin around the head, dubbed callosities, are infested with cream-colored “whale lice” that contrasts their inky bodies.
Researchers who have looked through whale catalogue photos can recognize many of the callosity patterns. In the wild. However, scars have become more distinctive marks for many whales.
“Head scars!” Warren yelled over the wind as the boat approached the whales. “Two! Two whales.”
“It has like a — it’s a double island,” said Howe, describing the shape of a callosity.
“The one I looked at had really good, very even, multiple scars,” Hamilton said.
“So A and B both have a lot of head scars,” Warren said.
The team quickly realized Whale “A” was Marlin. The 14-year-old male is from a tough family with both his parents and his two siblings still living. “That’s sadly quite rare,” Hamilton said.
Marlin has been entangled in fishing gear twice in his short life. He was even bitten by the rope off the North Carolina coast in 2009. He managed to get rid of the line within a few weeks, but not without gagging his back.
The second whale, “B,” is named Sawtooth. He too bears a distinctive mark: a jagged scar at his tail that gives him his name. This 15-year-old male also got ensnared as a juvenile in the waters between South Carolina and Florida, the right whale’s Only known birthing ground.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources followed Sawtooth for several days in 2009 using a satellite-linked buoy. Wildlife officials were able to partially disentangle him. Within a month, he was freed completely. However, his baleen was permanently damaged.
Now, Hamilton said: “He looks good. Really healthy skin.”
The identity of the third whale, “C,” proved more elusive. Warren suspected that it was the third whale, “C” because not every whale gets a name. #3629. This one needed to get darted.
Researchers are allowed to use a crossbow for a biopsy to collect whale DNA and hormone levels. Specialized arrows may be used With a float, tipped Grab a little bit of skin with a small hollow and sterile cylindrical with barbs on its inside.
Warren had watched but never collected her own biopsy, practicing with the bow at the aquarium’s field house in Maine.
While unsheathing the bow from its green bag, Warren said whales sometimes twitch but otherwise don’t seem to mind. For a creature as long as a school bus, she said, “it can’t be more than a mosquito bite.”
‘Really dangerous work’
This area near the Nantucket Shoals wasn’t always such a right whale hot spot. And this changing migration pattern has complicated the Biden administration’s environmental agenda.
The aquarium’s aerial team started tracking the animals here after developers began eyeing these waters for offshore wind projects. This is the First yearThe New England Aquarium searched the region by boat, sandwiched between Nantucket, and the shipping lanes to New York.
Biden officials are racing to permit construction of hundreds of turbines up and down the East Coast — many in the middle of right whale habitat. It’s a great idea! Goal is to get 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity — enough to power more than 10 million homes — online by the end of the decade.
Among the top ApprovedProjekte ist Vineyard Wind, which plans to place 62 turbines taller than the Washington Monument south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Crews from offshore will be needed to build this infrastructure. domain of a whale that can’t take very many more collisions.
The Spanish-controlled Avangrid Renewables, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, were the developers to help get project approval. AccededTo give up pile-driving during winter — peak whale season in the area, though researchers now It is available hereAs a year-round habitat. Vineyard Wind will cover the foundations with curtains of bubbles, foam, and/or both during construction to reduce noise.
“While these benefits of offshore wind power — they’re undeniable, they’re exciting — it’s also critical to make sure that this new industry advances in a way that’s compatible with healthy ocean ecosystems,” said Francine Kershaw, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that struck a deal To better protect whales, we are collaborating with offshore wind developers. “We believe that both of these goals can be achieved.”
Amy DiSibio is a retired stock trader who spent three decades vacationing in Nantucket. She said that many people are turning a blind to noise and other nuisances. The energy project has no ecological impact simply because it is green. “Wind farm sounds really nice,” she said. “It’s a power plant. It really is.”
Her group, Nantucket Residents Against Turbines is called Nantucket Residents Against Turbines. Accusations The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ApprovedThe turbines It failed to protect the right whale in its lawsuit. Many conservatives have supported the effort.
David Stevenson, a former member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team, has helped Nantucket Residents Against Turbines with publicity. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based right-wing think tank, is also involved. RepresentingFishing groups are against turbines being built near their homes.
“If we were talking about an oil and gas platform,” said Robert Henneke, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s executive director and general counsel, “there’s absolutely no way that the federal government would be allowing that kind of a construction project in this area.”
The Biden administration, however, encourages offshore wind development in order to meet its global commitment to cut carbon emissions.
Climate change is already compounding the right whale’s woes. Right whales are already being euthanized in the North Atlantic. scrawnierThey reproduce less often then their Antarctica-based cousins. Warming waters are now bringing in zooplankton into unprotected waters. The whales are following their prey faster that scientists or regulators can keep up.
2017 was the worst year — both for the whales and the humans trying to save them.
Seventeen right-handed whales were rescued found deadMany were killed by boat strikes or entanglements in areas that had better protections.
To stop the death count from spiraling further, Hamilton worked that July with Joe Howlett, a friend and lobsterman with experience freeing entangled whales, to cut a badly ensnarled male loose with a long, hooked knife in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then disaster struck.
The whale “flicked its tail into the boat,” Hamilton said, pausing, “and killed him instantly.”
“It’s really, really dangerous work.”
The wind that will soon bring turbines around these waters around Helen H picked up during the afternoon. Hamilton and Warren huddled to decide that the gusts were too strong for #3629 to be darted. Some of the secrets would be kept by the whale.
“I was all gung-ho to give it a shot, even though it’s going to be pretty challenging,” Hamilton said between bites of turkey chili as he warmed up in the cabin. “Then I stepped outside.”
“At that point,” Warren added, “just a little bit of wind will take the arrow completely in the wrong direction.”
The team left the three creatures — 1 percent of the entire species’ population — in search of another pod the plane spotted, uncertain when they would see them again. Studying an endangered species, Warren said, is “definitely a roller coaster of emotions.” Every newborn calf brings delight. Every death fosters dread. There are now more people trying to save North Atlantic right whales than right whales.
“It’s just — it can be really frustrating,” she said. “At least for me, I find that also drives me in working harder.”
Photos by Adam Glanzman. Graphics by Dylan Moriarty. Editing by Juliet Eilperin. Olivier Laurent did the photo editing. Jordan Melendrez edits copy.
