The Fall and Rise of the Right Whale

Cornelia Dean, New York Times 16 Mar 09;

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — The biologists had been in the plane for hours, flying back and forth over the calm ocean. They had seen dolphins, leatherback turtles, a flock of water birds called gannets and even a basking shark — but not what they were looking for.

Then Millie Brower, who was peering with intense concentration through a bubblelike window fitted into the plane’s fuselage, announced “nine o’clock, about a mile off.” The plane made a stomach-churning lurch as the pilots banked left and began to circle. And there, below, were a right whale mother and her new calf, barely breaking the surface, lolling in the swells.

The researchers, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Georgia Wildlife Trust, are part of an intense effort to monitor North Atlantic right whales, one of the most endangered, and closely watched, species on earth. As a database check eventually disclosed, the whale was Diablo, who was born in these waters eight years ago. Her calf — at a guess 2 weeks old and a bouncing 12 feet and 2 tons — was the 38th born this year, a record that would be surpassed just weeks later, with a report from NOAA on the birth of a 39th calf. The previous record was 31, set in 2001.

“It’s a bumper year for calves,” Richard Merrick, an oceanographer for NOAA’s fisheries service, said in an interview. “That’s a good sign.”

Actually, it’s one of so many good signs that researchers are beginning to hope that for the first time in centuries things are looking up for the right whale. They say the species offers proof that simple conservation steps can have a big impact, even for species driven to the edge of oblivion.

North Atlantic right whales, which can grow up to 55 feet long and weigh up to 70 tons, were the “right” whales for 18th- and 19th-century whalers because they are rich in oil and baleen, move slowly, keep close to shore and float when they die.

They were long ago hunted to extinction in European waters, and by 1900 perhaps only 100 or so remained in their North American range, from feeding grounds off Maritime Canada and New England to winter calving grounds off the Southeastern coast.

Since then, the species’ numbers have crept up, but very slowly. NOAA estimates that there are about 325, though scientists in and out of the agency suspect there may be more, perhaps as many as 400. It has been illegal to hunt the right whale since 1935, when the League of Nations put them under protection. Even so, researchers despaired of ever seeing a healthy right whale population here as long as ship strikes still maimed and killed them and fishing gear strangled them.

But “over the last four or five months there’s been a tremendous amount of good news,” said Tony LaCasse, a spokesman for the New England Aquarium, a center of right whale research. For example:

¶Recent changes in shipping lanes, some compulsory and others voluntary, seem to be reducing collisions between whales and vessels.

¶The Bush administration agreed last year to lower speed limits for large vessels in coastal waters where right whales congregate.

¶Fishing authorities in the United States are beginning to impose gear restrictions designed to reduce the chances whales and other marine mammals will be entangled in fishing lines. Canada is considering similar steps.

¶In December, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spotted an unusually large aggregation of right whales in the Gulf of Maine. A month later, a right whale turned up in the Azores, a first since the early 20th century.

¶And last year, probably for the first time since the 1600s, not one North Atlantic right whale died at human hands.

“We are seeing signs of recovery,” Dr. Merrick said. He and others warn that it is far too soon to say the whales are out of danger. Calving seasons are known for their ups and downs. A single whale in the Azores does not prove the species is recolonizing its old haunts. Not everyone embraces the new shipping regulations. And so far this year, five whales have turned up entangled with fishing gear. Rescuers removed all or almost all of the gear from the five, including one whale freed last week after being successfully sedated for the process, a first.

Efforts to protect the whales are costly. Surveying alone costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, said Barb Zoodsma, a NOAA biologist who coordinates survey efforts in the Southeast. In 2003, three researchers and a pilot died when their plane went down off Amelia Island, Florida.

“It’s a very expensive endeavor, and we are very cognizant of that fact,” Ms. Zoodsma said. Some wonder if it is worth it. “We have been pressured by some folks on the outside to say this is a lost cause,” said Greg Silber, who coordinates whale recovery efforts for NOAA, which is charged with protecting marine mammals and endangered species like the right whale.

The whales are so few and distinct in appearance that researchers identify them not just by number but by nickname. The whales are identifiable by patterns of growths on their skin called callosities. These callosities are colonized by pale, licelike creatures in patterns discernable even at a distance.

When survey teams spot a right whale, they can enter its description in an online database maintained by the aquarium and accessible to researchers around the world.

Sightings offer important clues to the movements and habits of the creatures. When the pod of whales was sighted in December, in the Jordan Basin, about 70 miles south of Bar Harbor, the individual whales were well known. But no one had seen them hang out in the basin before. Now, researchers think it may be a previously unknown wintering ground or even a place where whales mate.

When researchers learn where whales are, they can work to keep shippers out of the way. That is what happened in July, when shipping lanes that cross Stellwagen Bank, a national marine sanctuary north of Cape Cod, were moved slightly to the north. “One of the sanctuary staff had documented where the whale sightings were,” Mr. LaCasse said. The lanes now run through a less frequented area. And the sanctuary sends thank-you notes to ships that steer clear of the whales.

A similar change occurred off Saint John, New Brunswick, a hub for shipping oil into the Maritime Provinces. Lanes going into the city were moved a few years ago, after negotiations with the International Maritime Organization. Voluntary lane changes are in effect in places like Boston, Dr. Silber said. “The measured economic impact to mariners was minimal,” he said. But the changes brought “huge benefits” to the animals.

“Compliance appears to be quite high,” he said, adding, “We are optimistic.”

Moira Brown, a senior scientist at the aquarium, said researchers working with Canadian officials designated “an area to be avoided” south of New Brunswick where right whales congregate in summer. “Compliance there has been very good,” Dr. Brown said.

But entanglements with fishing gear continue to be a big problem.

When the researchers spotted Diablo, for example, she had something white on her fluke and, for a few anxious moments, they thought she might be snagged on fishing gear. Instead, like an estimated 80 percent to 85 percent of adult right whales, she carried a scar from a previous entanglement.

Entanglements can be lethal for the whales, Ms. Zoodsma said, especially if lines get caught in whales’ mouths or around their flippers. NOAA trains people to disentangle them, she said, but “when you have a 40-ton animal in a stressful situation” the work can be unpleasant and dangerous. And it is labor intensive. Last week’s effort to sedate and free an entangled whale involved a spotter plane, four boats and multiple attempts, she said. That is why preventing entanglements “is a first priority,” Ms. Zoodsma said. New efforts center on new gear, like lines that lie along the ocean floor or marker buoys that sit at the bottom until a fishing boat finds them electronically and signals them to bob to the surface.

Dr. Brown said the United States was taking a first step in this direction with regulations going into effect this spring. She said discussions were under way with fishing authorities in Canada. Meanwhile, researchers continue efforts to discover as much as they can about where the animals spend their time, what they eat and what natural factors may affect their health. One of their most unusual efforts involved dogs trained to sniff whale scat, which the animals usually produce at the surface. The samples the dogs helped collect offered valuable information about what the whales were eating and where they were feeding. They can also offer hormone clues about whether females are pregnant. Researchers want this information because despite this year’s baby boom, right whales are not reproducing as they should. The scientists want to know if the problem is impaired fertility, spontaneous miscarriage or some other issue.

In their book “The Urban Whale” (Harvard University Press, 2007), Scott D. Kraus and Rosalind M. Rolland, scientists at the aquarium, say they believe the last North American right whale deliberately hunted by people was a calf swimming with its mother off Palm Beach, Fla., in 1935.

But people will continue to kill right whales. Ship strikes “are still going to happen,” Dr. Merrick said. “To totally eliminate them would mean we would have to eliminate shipping.”

In the end, Ms. Zoodsma said, the value of a species is something “each individual has to sort that out for themselves.” But if right whales were to vanish, she said, “it would be a tremendous loss for future generations.”