December 22, 2020 — For North Atlantic right whales, the most endangered great whale — and marine mammal — on Earth, the good news for the new year started early, with the birth of three calves in the fall.
But a fourth calf washed up dead on a North Carolina beach in late November, believed to have died of natural causes soon after birth.
For a species that now numbers 366 individuals with less than 100 females, the births were hailed as a sign that something at least was going right.
“One of the positives is that two of the three mothers are new mothers,” said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. Hamilton oversees the Anderson center’s North Atlantic right whale photo-identification catalog.
After years where the numbers of calves fell below the number of dead whales lost to entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships, Hamilton found solace in these new mothers.