8 North Atlantic right whale calves recorded this season ‘encouraging,’ says researcher | 24CA News
Eight North Atlantic proper whale calves have been noticed off the coast of the United States up to now this calving season.
Right whales have their calves between mid-November and mid-April in southern coastal waters.
“It’s encouraging to see,” mentioned Moira Brown, senior scientist with the Canadian Whale Institute. “We hope it continues and we hope it starts trending into an increase.”
The inhabitants has been declining for greater than a decade, although the decline has proven indicators of slowing lately.
There have been a report 13 calves born within the first half of calving season final 12 months.
Fewer than 100 potential moms
The newest inhabitants estimate is round 340, Brown mentioned fewer than 100 are potential moms.
“Some of those mothers have been around for several decades. [It’s] good to see them still, you know, giving birth to calves,” mentioned Brown, who additionally works with the Campobello Island Whale Rescue Team in New Brunswick.
The New England Aquarium data all mom and calf sightings in a weblog publish, with details about the moms’ ages and histories – like what number of years since they final gave delivery, or earlier human impacts resembling entanglements.
Some of this 12 months’s calves have been born to moms older than 30. Brown mentioned it isn’t unusual and there is not any proof of age deterioration in proper whales or different massive whale species.
Time between births getting longer
“It’s fascinating,” Brown mentioned. “I’ve been doing this for 37, 38 years now and some of these whales I’ve seen when they were calves … now they’re mothers and grandmothers.”
Female proper whales can have a calf each three years. But Brown mentioned that interval has been getting longer lately.
“We believe part of it is due to stress from entanglements. It could also be from stress in their environment, noise for example,” Brown mentioned.
The inhabitants has additionally gone via a considerable habitat shift within the final decade, with whales now being seen within the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the summertime. Brown mentioned a lot of their analysis operation in the summertime months now occurs there as an alternative of the Bay of Fundy.
