December 27, 2021 — Until recently, researchers tracking the well-being of the world’s most endangered great whale could count on North Atlantic right whales showing up in several key areas at certain times of the year seeking food, love, or a safe place to give birth.
In winter and early spring, a large portion of right whales could be found in Cape Cod Bay feeding on copepods, their favorite food. They then moved to the Bay of Fundy for summer feeding, where New England Aquarium researchers had been studying them since the 1980s.
But in 2010, and in the years to follow, they went missing. Although they still showed up in Cape Cod Bay, for the past decade the Bay of Fundy has been largely a right whale ghost town. The same was true for the Great South Channel east of Cape Cod and the northern edge of Georges Bank.
It took a combination of detective work and luck to eventually find them — and where they ended up dramatically altered the landscape for whale survival and fisheries management.