Any time I see a North Atlantic right whale, especially a mom-calf pair, it is the most exciting moment and your heart skips a beat
Melanie White, Director of North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation Project for Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute.
Picture this: It’s clear skies off the coast of Georgia, a critical calving area for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. You’ve been given the greenlight to take off in a small two-propeller plane with your flight team member and two pilots, armed with a long-distance camera. You’re on the hunt in the vastness of the great Atlantic Ocean for a glimpse of one of the rarest large animals on Earth, the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
The plane canvasses wave after wave, hour after hour. Suddenly, from 1,000 feet in the air, you spot a dark silhouette just under the ocean’s surface. Could this be one of these elusive 50-foot-long giants? As the plane approaches, the dark silhouette surfaces to exhale — a North Atlantic right whale!
The joy continues as a pudgy mini-me appears next to the large whale, exhaling a smaller plume of air – a mom and calf pair! Your adrenaline rushes as the plane circles above the whales because you know, this birth is a brazen declaration of hope, despite all the obstacles mom overcame to travel over 1,000 miles to the calving grounds, avoiding boats and fishing lines, and then successfully birth this 15-foot-long, 2,000-pound baby. This calf is a welcome addition as there are only about 380 North Atlantic right whales left on this planet. For Melanie White, it’s a miracle she’s seen first-hand for over two decades.
Tracking the Annual Migration of North Atlantic Right Whales
White, the North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation Project Director for Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute (CMARI), has been tracking these whales each winter for the past 20 years.
Every winter, Melanie and her team take to the skies as pregnant females — along with adult males, other females, and juveniles — migrate down the East Coast from their feeding grounds in the Northwest Atlantic to the warmer waters off the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Here the warmer waters help the calf regulate its own temperature as it gains its insulating layer of fat, or blubber, while the mom spends her energy reserves nursing her calf — transforming that energy into milk, which the calf will transform into its blubber layer, putting on up to 100 pounds per day!
During this critical period of growth, photographs from the aerial surveys, including from Melanie and her team, provide invaluable information about these whales. Each photograph can individually identify the whales who migrate south every year. Each right whale has large calluses, and the pattern of these calluses are unique to them. Researchers can use that callosity pattern to identify and name individuals. Photographs not only identify whales; they also allow researchers to track individual health, reproductive success, migration patterns, and population trends over time.
Melanie’s team is also an eye in the sky for these gentle giants. The views from the sky allow the team to look out for boats near the whales. This is especially important as ship strikes are one of the top threats for North Atlantic right whales. If a boat is close or if it’s heading toward the whale, the team will try to contact the vessel to alert it of the whale ahead — reducing the risk of vessel strikes in real time.
These aerial scientists can also document if any whales are injured, or if any of the whales have new vessel strike external injuries or new wounds and scars from becoming entangled in fishing rope and gear since last time they were photographed. If there is a visible entanglement, Melanie’s team provides critical support for the Large Whale Entanglement Response teams that will attempt to disentangle the gear from the whale. Photographs from the airplane are sent in real time to the response team on the ground. This way, rescuers know how to prepare and where to go to find the injured whale.
Over the span of her career, Melanie has had a front row seat watching calves from the first days of their life. “You get to see them rolling on mom and upside down, and a lot of times it looks like they’re just being playful”, says Melanie.
And just like any young child, Melanie says these calves know how to get mom’s attention. “Mom will often times be sighted just resting at the surface or sub surface, and the calf will be all willy nilly, rolling around, creating white water,” she said. “I can just imagine a calf being like ‘Mom, wake up! Mom, let’s play! Mom, let’s do this! Mom, look what I can do!’”
The Human-Caused Threats Facing North Atlantic Right Whales
But with those joyful moments come the flip side, Melanie has also seen family legacies end.
“These animals are not living as long as they can,” said Melanie. “I wish I could say whales die because of old age, but they’re not, they’re dying earlier than they should be, and that is because of human activity, and that is really hard to get people on board when they’re not seeing it happen out there on the water.”
So how did we get here, why are there so few North Atlantic right whales left? These whales are large and very slow moving and come in close to the coastline during migration and calving — making them the perfect target during the industrial whaling era. In fact, they were named the right whale because they were the right whale, or the easy whale, to hunt.
Today, industrial whaling is banned in the United States, but these same attributes that made them an easy target of whalers, make them susceptible to vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. We no longer kill them intentionally, but we are still very good at killing them. This has prevented the population from recovering from the terrible impact of the whaling days when we whittled their population down to approximately 100 whales.
This year, however, scientists have already documented a record-breaking number of North Atlantic right whale calves, and the calving season is only halfway through. It seems the North Atlantic right whale moms have not given up, so neither should we.
“What gives me hope is that we are just one part of the picture — there are so many colleagues and agencies dedicated to the species, it’s fantastic to be a part of it”
Melanie White
With the North Atlantic right whale calving season in full swing, Melanie and her team will continue to be part of this important work. Learn more and see some of their work for yourself on Oceana’s calving tracker.
