All the Right Moves Needed to Save These Endangered Whales

Trump is lifting speed limits for boats traveling through sensitive whale habitat

By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist

Once they were tagged with the “right” label, their future instantly dimmed. These marine mammals got their white name because they floated when killed, making it easier to retrieve their carcasses.

There are less than 400 left, and they are traveling greater distances to find food, habitat, and mates. We are stressing them out, and special interests continue to delay efforts to help these leviathans survive.

The North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, and it’s all because of us. By the early 1890s, commercial whalers had hunted this magnificent creature to the brink of extinction. We can’t live in harmony with the natural world, or with each other.

Late last year researchers discovered that a North Atlantic right whale sighted in Massachusetts waters was the same animal reported off Ireland in 2024. It was called an “extraordinary connection” that showed the whale traveled some 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

While conducting an aerial survey in November, observers from the Provincetown, Mass.-based Center for Coastal Studies sighted a North Atlantic right whale off the coast of Boston. Scientists in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life confirmed that the marine mammal had previously only been seen in Donegal Bay, Ireland, in July 2024.

There are rare instances of known North Atlantic right whales from the western Atlantic traveling to the eastern Atlantic and back, but this appears to be the first documented case of a right whale initially sighted in the eastern North Atlantic and later sighted in the western North Atlantic, according to the Center for Coastal Studies and the New England Aquarium. The 2025 sighting suggests that historical North Atlantic right whale habitat may still hold value and that right whales continue to search widely for suitable habitat.

While whaling is no longer a threat, this baleen whale species has never recovered to its pre-whaling numbers, and human interaction still presents the greatest danger to their existence.

The first North Atlantic right whale death of the year was recorded late last month. A 4-year-old male named Division — for the marks on his head that resembled a division sign — was found floating offshore of Avon, N.C. He died from fishing gear entanglement injuries. The gear had cut into his blowhole and embedded in his upper jaw. A rescue effort by researchers in December was unable to fully free him from the suffocating lines.

A week before Division’s documented death, a right whale calf known as Monarch was spotted in Cape Cod Bay entangled in fishing gear.

Two weeks ago, a 3-year-old female, the 2023 calf of right whale Porcia, was found dead on a barrier island off Virginia’s coast. Since 2017, 43 North Atlantic right whales deaths have been documented in the United States and Canada.

Entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes are the leading causes of North Atlantic right whale mortality, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and marine scientists everywhere.

NOAA Fisheries has estimated that about 85% of right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once. Fishing gear, including ghost gear, can cut into a whale’s body, cause serious injuries, and result in infections and death. Even if gear is shed or removed, the time spent entangled can severely stress a whale, weaken it, prevent it from feeding, and sap the energy it needs to swim, feed, and reproduce. Chronic entanglements are one reason marine scientists believe female right whales are having fewer calves.

Humans are an ongoing menace to North Atlantic right whales. (NOAA)

Right whale habitat and migration routes are close to major ports along the Atlantic Coast and often overlap with shipping lanes, making these mammals vulnerable to collisions with vessels. These collisions can break bones, cause massive internal injuries, and/or lacerations from propellers. The faster a vessel is traveling when it hits a whale, the higher the likelihood of serious injury or death.

The human-caused climate crisis and human-generated ocean noise also pose threats to the species’ well-being.

The changing climate, and more specifically oceanographic changes in the Northwest Atlantic, are key factors contributing to reduced reproduction and higher susceptibility to human-caused threats, according to NOAA.

Over the past decade, right whales have changed their distribution patterns, likely in response to changes in prey location and availability due to warming and acidifying marine waters. As their prey moves, the whales have begun spending more time in areas with fewer protections from vessels and entanglements.

The North Atlantic right whale season is split, with winter/spring (mid-November to mid-April) being the calving season off the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Researchers have so far this season identified 22 calves. NOAA scientists have noted that at least 50 calves would need to be born annually for many years to allow the species’ population to recover.

During the spring/early fall season (mid-April to mid-November), these whales return to their northern feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Some now remain off the southern New England coast year-round, driven by warming waters that have impacted the distribution of their top prey, copepods and other zooplankton.

Early last month, for example, two aerial surveys in southern New England waters spotted at least 23 right whales. In fact, the winter/spring season now marks the peak time of year for right whale sightings in southern New England waters.

Marine scientists note a dip in right whale births and lengthened calving intervals — from 3-5 years to 6-10 years — indicates that reproductively active females have struggled in recent years to find sufficient food resources to support pregnancy.

Ocean noise from human activities, such as shipping, boating, construction, and energy exploration and development, has increased in the Northwest Atlantic. Noise from these activities can interrupt the normal behavior of right whales and interfere with their communication.

Researchers and staff at the Center for Coastal Studies’ Right Whale Ecology Program document the presence of North Atlantic right whales in Cape Cod Bay and surrounding waters.

“Each calf represents precious hope for the future of this critically endangered species,” according to Daniel Palacios, the program’s director. “I believe extinction is not inevitable. We’ve seen species recover and come back from the brink of extinction, and I believe that we can see the same with right whales.”

To do that, will require effort on everyone’s part.

Note: Since a certain segment of readers will most assuredly ignore vessel strikes and lost fishing gear and pin much of the blame on offshore wind, let me introduce the case of Rice’s whales. This endangered species — one of the rarest whales on the planet; there are fewer than 100 remaining — is a year-round Gulf of Mexico resident. There are no offshore wind turbines operating in the Gulf of Mexico, but it is home to thousands of oil and methane platforms. A 2023 study identified some 14,000 wells in the Gulf of Mexico. For more than eight decades, underwater pipelines have transported crude oil and natural gas to shore. There is at least 8,000 miles of active seafloor pipeline, and 97% of those no longer in use have been left in place. Abandoned lines are estimated to add up to 18,000 miles — for a total of 26,000 miles of pipeline crisscrossing the Gulf’s seafloor and leaking fossil fuels. The top two threats to Rice’s whales are vessel strikes/noise from vessels, including support boats for the omnipresent fossil fuel industry, and energy exploration, mostly for fossil fuels.

Frank Carini can be reached at frank@ecori.org.