Right whale population faces extinction threat despite 4% growth

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine: Conservationists are calling on the government, shipping and fishing industries to save the North Atlantic right whale from extinction despite an increase in its population.

Researchers studying the whales said this week that the population increased to an estimated 372 in 2023. That's an increase of about four percent from 2020, and "heartening news" after the whale's population fell by about 25 percent from 2010 to 2020.

The population of the right whale, which can weigh up to 150,000 pounds (68,039 kilograms) and lives off the East Coast, plummeted in the 2010s. Stressed by global warming and vulnerable to ship collisions and entanglement in fishing gear, their numbers fell to fewer than 360 by the early 2020s.

Heather Pettis, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center and the chair of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium said conservationists and government regulators "still have a great deal of work to do" to ensure the species keeps recovering.

Efforts to protect whales through new regulations have faced challenges. In February, a coalition of environmental groups sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to expedite the finalization of ship speed rules proposed in 2022 to prevent whale collisions. Additionally, the fishing industry opposed rules suggested by the National Marine Fisheries Service to reduce the risk of whales getting entangled in fishing gear.

Every year, whales migrate from their calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding areas near New England and Canada. However, scientists warn that climate change has made this journey increasingly dangerous. Rising ocean temperatures have forced whales to venture outside protected zones in search of the small marine organisms they feed on.

Historically, whales were nearly driven to extinction by whaling by the 1890s. Although they have been federally protected for decades, their population has yet to recover to pre-whaling levels fully.