August 29, 2024 — The Gulf of Mexico is haunted by a ghost. The animal is as big as a school bus, but glides unseen through the ocean’s twilight zone, its low moans echoing in the dim water. A creature so elusive, researchers can spend days searching without ever glimpsing one.
This is the Rice’s whale, one of the Gulf of Mexico’s largest and most mysterious animals. Found nowhere else on Earth, it is the only baleen whale that lives in the Gulf year-round.
Previously thought to be a sub-species of the Bryde’s whale, the Rice’s whale was only declared a unique species in 2021. Yet experts fear it could disappear before people ever get to know it. NOAA Fisheries researchers estimate that fewer than 100 Rice’s whales remain in the Gulf, with recent counts putting that number as low as 50.
“Our scientists have not been seeing many calves when they do surveys for Rice’s whales, which is obviously problematic,” NOAA Fisheries Southeast Large Whale Recovery Coordinator Clay George said.
NOAA Fisheries was to publish a new critical habitat designation for the species this week under a settlement agreement with environmental organizations to better protect the endangered whale. But the parties have agreed to extend the deadline to no later than Dec. 2