Conservationists fight to save Northern Atlantic right whales from extinction

Amna Nawaz:

It's estimated there are fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales remaining. They are dying faster than they can reproduce, and its largely due to human causes.

With so few of the whales left, experts are closely monitoring for new offspring and, as science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports, working to keep this whale from extinction.

Miles O’Brien:

It was a perfect April morning when we steamed out of Provincetown Harbor in Massachusetts. Cape Cod Bay was glassy as a lake, the visibility unlimited, the right kind of day.

Charles "Stormy" Mayo, Co-Founder, Center for Coastal Studies: Now, if we find whales…

Miles O’Brien:

I assume you're going to say, when we find whales.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

We're always going fishing. This is a fishing trip.

Miles O’Brien:

Marine biologist Charles Stormy Mayo has been looking for right whales for the better part of 40 years. He is co-founder of the Center for Coastal Studies, a nonprofit committed to saving the whales.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

I have been on hundreds of cruises. When the first right whale shows up, it's still pretty special.

These are very odd creatures, and they live a mysterious, but, from a human point of view, a very odd life.

Miles O’Brien:

It was not long before we hit pay waters.

Woman:

We're seeing at least one individual right up here at 290 degrees.

Miles O’Brien:

Soon, there were feeding, or skimming, North Atlantic right whales all around us.

Woman:

Wow, there's a whole patch of them. There's like, a whole bunch, like at least four.

Miles O’Brien:

About two dozen in all.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

Is that calf trying to skim? It's got its head out of water.

Miles O’Brien:

A rare thrill in every sense. North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered. Scientists believe there are fewer than 350 individuals remaining.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

The future of right whales is dire. And it's dire because the very simple arithmetic of the right whales population is bad. The mortality rate is outstripping the birth rate. The arrow points to zero.

Miles O’Brien:

The whales migrate along the North American East Coast between Canada to Florida. Humans have made this an increasingly perilous gauntlet.

Ship strikes and entanglement with fishing gear are the leading causes of death. Stormy Mayo's team is part of a multifaceted effort to document this demise, in hopes that it can be stemmed.

Woman:

Runway 32, cleared for takeoff.

Man:

Cleared for takeoff, Runway 32.

Miles O’Brien:

An aircraft chartered by New England Aquarium scientists flies 50 missions a year to help track the whales.

Woman:

The humpbacks were at, like, the northern end of the line, and then the right whales were further out.

Miles O’Brien:

The aquarium is curator of an extraordinary photographic catalog of right whales dating back more than 80 years. It's a collaboration with researchers at various institutions that aim to collect every photograph taken of a North Atlantic right whale.

Whale biologist Philip Hamilton is a senior research scientist at the aquarium. Individual whales are identifiable by experts, able to recognize the unique patterns created by lice that live on the whales heads and behind their blowholes.

You have been doing this for a number of years. Can you spot individuals by sight pretty well?

Philip Hamilton, New England Aquarium:

Yes. Yes.

Miles O’Brien:

It's that obvious in some cases?

Philip Hamilton:

I realized at one point I think I probably recognized more whales on sight than I did people.

(LAUGHTER)

Miles O’Brien:

Over time, the images and the scars tell a grim forensic story.

Philip Hamilton:

Once we realized that we are seeing this pattern of scarring from entanglements, and that's been an incredible wealth of information, able to track when and where right whales are becoming entangled.

Miles O’Brien:

The whales move unpredictably. This season, they gathered in Cape Cod Bay. About half of the known population were here. It turns out the place was brimming with their favorite food, a tiny shrimp-like plankton, a copepod, called Calanus finmarchicus.

Christy Hudak, Research Associate, Center for Coastal Studies: It looks like cinnamon applesauce.

(LAUGHTER)

Miles O’Brien:

Research associate Christy Hudak gathers plankton samples in the wake of whales to see exactly what they are eating, how much, and at what depth.

How does something so big subsist on something so small?

Christy Hudak:

That is the ultimate question.

Miles O’Brien:

Back in the lab in Provincetown, she carefully counts the plankton to determine their density and identify exactly what species the whales are favoring.

So, at this time of the year at least, Cape Cod bay is the ultimate right whale buffet?

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

It looks like it is. The plankton that we collected today is an example. It's unbelievably rich. And these animals are consuming at very high levels. Back-of-the-envelope calculation is, they may be taking over 125 pounds of plankton an hour.

Miles O’Brien:

Unfortunately, their essential pursuit of plankton has led them to troubled waters.

Cape Cod Bay is part one of the fastest-warming ocean regions on the planet, the Gulf of Maine, and so the plankton picture is changing here. It may be the reason the whales began altering their migration patterns in 2015, sending them into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Scientists were caught off guard, and before they could suggest regulations to protect the whales in their new feeding area, a dozen were killed by ship strikes and entanglements with fishing gear.

This triggered an unusual mortality event. Researchers have documented 36 right whale deaths and 62 injuries since 2017.

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

We have had several times of big mortalities of whales because they were entering an area where the managers had no idea that right whales were there. But they came in probably searching for food in a changing environment.

Miles O’Brien:

Given the onslaught they already face, climate could be the final straw?

Charles “Stormy” Mayo:

Climate could be the final straw for all of us.

Miles O’Brien:

There are solutions. Ships can be rerouted or forced to slow down, and there is technology that makes it possible for fishermen to do their jobs without leaving vertical lines dangling in the water.

But this has put the desperate effort to save the whales on a collision course with one of the most lucrative fisheries in the world, Maine lobsters.

More on that soon when we continue our voyage.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien on Cape Cod Bay.