Despite more than 80 years of protection, the endangered North Atlantic right whale – often spotted off the Space and Treasure Coasts in winter – is on the brink of extinction. And local whale conservationists are calling for help from beachside residents to monitor the tanking population.
“Only 411 animals are left. In less than 22 years, they could be extinct,” warned Julie Albert, coordinator of the Marine Resources Council’s North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation Program, in a public lecture last Tuesday at organization headquarters.
For the past 20 years, Albert has trained and managed a loose cadre of about 150 volunteers – based mostly on the beach but also at sea and in the air – who keep a lookout for the huge marine mammals as they migrate south from New England and Canada to their calving area between North Carolina and Florida from November through April.
Sightings are reported to a 24-hour hotline and the information is entered into a national database used to estimate the size of the population and protect it from manmade threats.
Right now, things are looking grim.
So far this year, no calves have been born and three whales died. In 2017, 17 whales died – the highest number on record – and five calves were born.
Albert said the two main causes of mortality are entanglements in fishing gear and ship strikes. The animals, which can grow to 55 feet long and live up to 70 years, take about 10 years to reach sexual maturity and females have a gestation period of about a year. Most calves are born off Florida and Georgia. Despite federal laws that slow big ships down, shift their travel lanes away from the right whales’ migratory routes, and impose time and area closures for fishermen, Albert said, many whales are being killed before they have a chance to reproduce.
“As they hang out in our area, there are a lot of ships they have to dodge,” she said.
Last year, Albert trained some 37 members of Central Brevard’s U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary to spot and identify whales during their regular air and sea patrols. Previously aerial patrols were conducted only as far south as St. Augustine. But surveillance from land is very important because the animals often swim very close to the beach where they can easily be seen from condo decks.
“When citizens call and send us pictures, they need to understand this helps us,” Albert said. “The more eyes on the water, the better.”
Albert conducts regular training classes for anyone who’s interested. A schedule is posted at www.mrcirl.org. Volunteers learn about whale history, biology, migration, feeding habits, and identification methods.
Right whales are distinctive for their black skin, lack of a dorsal fin, high jaw line, black tail, black paddle-shaped pectoral flippers, two blowholes which create a V-shaped spray, and white, raised rough patches of skin on their heads called callosities that are unique to each animal.
Marine Resources Council board chairman Jim Moir said citizens can also help by lobbying federal elected officials who control the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – the agency in charge of whale conservation – on behalf of the right whales.
“Keep pressure on the federal government to not de-fund the NOAA program, or else this animal will be done,” Moir said.
