PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the rarest whales on the planet has continued an encouraging trend of population growth in the wake of new efforts to protect the giant animals, according to scientists who study it.
The North Atlantic right whale now numbers approximately 384 animals, eight more whales than last year, according to a North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium report released Tuesday. Whales have shown a trend of slow population growth over the past four years.
It is a welcome development after a worrying decline in the previous decade. The population of whales, which are vulnerable to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, fell by around 25% between 2010 and 2020.
The whale’s trend toward recovery is a testament to the importance of conservation measures, said Philip Hamilton, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. The center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are collaborating to calculate the population estimate.
New management measures in Canada attempting to keep the whales safe amid their growing presence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have been especially important, Hamilton said.
“We know that a modest increase each year, if we can sustain it, will lead to population growth,” Hamilton said. “The question is whether or not we can sustain it.”
Scientists have warned in recent years that the whale’s slow recovery comes at a time when the giant animals still face threats of accidental deaths and that stricter conservation measures are needed. But there is also reason to believe that whales are turning a corner in terms of low reproduction numbers, Hamilton said.
Scientists have said that whales are less likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are malnourished. This has become a problem for the whales because they are not producing enough calves to sustain their population, they said.
However, this year four mother whales gave birth to calves for the first time, Hamilton said. And some other established mother whales had shorter intervals between calves, he said.
In total, 11 calves were born, fewer than researchers expected, but the entry of new females into the reproductive group is encouraging, Hamilton said.
And any number of calves is useful in a year without mortality, said Heather Pettis, who directs the right whale research program at the Cabot Center and chairs the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.
“The slight increase in the population estimate, coupled with no detected mortality and fewer detected injuries than in recent years, leaves us cautiously optimistic about the future of North Atlantic right whales,” Pettis said. “What we’ve seen before is that this population can change in the blink of an eye.”
Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the era of commercial whaling. They have been protected at the federal level for decades.
Whales migrate each year from calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Some scientists have said that warming oceans have made that journey more dangerous because the whales have had to stray from established protected areas in search of food.