The Northern right whale, already an endangered species, is in deep trouble [View all]

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After a shocking number of deaths among North Atlantic right whales last year, no new births have been recorded so far this year, moving them ever closer to extinction.

Warming ocean waters have prompted the whales to move north from their usual summer feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine into Canada’s Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Canada has fewer rules protecting them from ship strikes, and 18 of these rare giants died last season alone. Now, the report that the population produced no new calves in the past year is causing great concern among scientists.

“It's unprecedented," says Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director and senior biologist of the North American branch of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a global wildlife charity. “We’ve never had a year when we didn't have a single calf born to the population.”

Though it’s been illegal to hunt right whales since 1935, only about 450 are alive today. To make matters worse, human impacts to the population have been more harmful to females, so there are probably only about 100 breeding females left.

The biggest problems the whales face are fishing gear entanglements, vessel strikes and food scarcity, Asmutis-Silvia says. Improvements to fishing lines that have increased their strength and durability have proved deadly to whales, and even if a whale survives a fishing gear entanglement, it suffers what are called sub-lethal effects. Entanglement causes an increase in stress hormones that can make it harder for females to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to full term. As the climate changes, food resources are moving to different waters. Alternative foods may not be as healthy or make the females fat enough to produce the hormones that allow them to ovulate.

Right whales, and indeed all whales, add more than just beauty to the oceans, Asmutis-Silvia emphasizes. They are an essential part of an ocean ecosystem that keeps the planet and humans healthy.


More: https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-04-01/northern-right-whale-already-endangered-species-deep-trouble



A mother North Atlantic right whale and her calf off the coast of Florida. This year’s apparent lack of any newborn North Atlantic right whale calves could spell disaster for the critically endangered species. Credit: Fish and Wildlife Research Institute