Right Whales Return

There is a reason the North Atlantic Right Whale is our state marine mammal. Growing up to 55 feet long and weighing up to 70 tons, these creatures are a sight to behold. They are also critically endangered, with only approximately 400 whales left on Earth.

Each fall, pregnant female Right Whales make the journey from the cold waters of the North Atlantic to give birth in the warmer waters off the coast of Georgia and Florida – their only known calving ground in the world. They will spend the next several months raising their young before departing in April for their summer grounds, ranging from Cape Cod in Massachusetts, to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Right Whales face a variety of threats, including ship strikes and entanglement in fishing netting. They are also at risk from the U.S. Navy’s proposed Undersea Warfare Training Range, which would be located close to the Right Whale’s calving area. The threat posed by the training range is so great that the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of 13 environmental groups, brought a lawsuit against the Navy in 2010 – a case that has yet to be heard by the courts.

In order to educate our members about the Right Whale, the Georgia Conservancy sat down with Cathy Sakas to learn more about these rare animals. Sakas is the education coordinator at Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary on Skidaway Island and a member of the Southeast U.S. Implementation Team for the Recovery of the North Atlantic Right Whale.

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How did you first get involved with right whales?

Sakas: In January 1981, I was working as a naturalist on Little St. Simon’s Island. One day, the Coast Guard called and asked me to identify a pygmy sperm whale that had washed ashore on the north end of the island. When I went out to look at it, I saw that it wasn’t a pygmy sperm whale; it was a newborn baleen whale that I wasn’t familiar with. After researching it, I discovered it was a newborn, a neonate, North Atlantic Right Whale.

It is worth noting that in 1981 no one knew that female Right Whales migrated annually to Georgia and Florida to give birth. Researchers in New England observed that the whales disappeared in the fall and came back in the spring with calves, but they did not know where they went to calf.

Finding this newborn whale was notable. What was even more notable was when another newborn washed ashore on Ossabaw Island a month later, and, prior to that, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources folks reported seeing an adult right whale in the previous fall. These events led to the discovery of their seasonal migration pattern.

How is the right whale population doing right now?

Sakas: Since being placed on the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection lists, the Right Whale has rebounded somewhat – from approximately 250 in the 1970s to over 400 today. That is still not a large number, though, and there are still many threats to them.

What are some of the threats?

Sakas: Vessel strikes are the leading cause of Right Whale deaths. A lot has been done to prevent vessel strikes, including requiring all vessels greater than 65 feet in length to slow to 10 knots in Seasonally Managed Areas or if a right whale has been reported in a specific area. In addition, shipping lanes off of Cape Cod that run through Stellwagen Banks National Marine Sanctuary were recently relocated five miles north of the whale’s feeding grounds, leading to an 80 percent decrease in vessel strikes.

Another cause of death for Right Whales is entanglement in fishing nets. Nets can kill whales by suffocation. Gill nets, for example, prevent the whale from surfacing to breathe. Nets also can also dig into the flesh of the whale, leading to a slow death by infection over a period of months or even years. Gill netting causes the most immediate deaths, since whales skim for food near the surface where these nets are deployed. The good news is that Georgia and Florida both ban the use of gill netting during calving season.

What should boaters on our coast do if they see a right whale?

Sakas: If you see a Right Whale while at sea, the most important thing to do is to not approach it. Federal law prevents anyone and any vessel including kayaks and surf boards from coming within 500 yards of a Right Whale. Unfortunately, vessels in Georgia waters often violate this the 500-yard approach rule in order to get better looks or obtain photographs. More importantly, though, a mother and calf are both at their most vulnerable, and you do not want to do anything that could inadvertently cause harm to the mother or baby. If a right whale surfaces, the best action to take is to put your boat in gear and slowly drive away.

Photo Credits

Top image - Right Whale No. 3180 and her newborn calf swim 30 miles east of Brunswick, Ga., in 2008.
Photo by Wildlife Trust, NOAA Permit #594-1759

Side image - Right Whale No. 1301 rests at the surface with her calf, six miles east of Jekyll Island on Dec. 20, 2011. The calf was only a few days old and was the first calf spotted by researchers during the 2012 calving season. This is No. 1301's fifth documented calf; the mother is 29 years old.
Photo by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, NOAA Permit #15488