The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard will be working in tandem this year to increase focus on protecting North Atlantic right whales — or what they call enforcement of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan.
The reduction plan’s goal is to identify and remove “illegally rigged and improperly marked gear in an effort to decrease whale entanglements within New England’s waters,” according to a press release from the Coast Guard.
NOAA has also established vessel speed restrictions for all vessels 65 feet or longer to help prevent vessel collisions with whales. Vessels are required to travel at speeds of 10 knots or less in certain locations along the East Coast during certain times of the year.
The operation, which functions as part of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, will increase its focus from May 1 through June 30 to align with whale migration patterns.
Each spring in New England, nutrient-rich waters yield dense planktonic blooms, which are a favorite food of the North Atlantic right whale. Other species, such as humpback and fin whales, also migrate toward New England’s coast. Right whales are of particular interest due to their status as an endangered species.
“The major threat is anchored gear,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, Ph.D, the director of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, told The Times. Anchored fishing gear has long ropes that hang down to traps at the bottom of the ocean. Whales run into the ropes with their mouths open, which can be fatal.
In 2017, NOAA documented 17 right whale fatalities within U.S. and Canadian waters. That 17, however, is not an absolute number, Mayo said, but rather the minimum. More deaths could have occured.
Mayo also told The Times there are 430 right whales left in the wild, with about a third of the population being female.
“Females are a third of population, and should be half,” Mayo said. “Females appear to be dying faster than males. The population ratio is whacked out.”
The right whale population decline started in 2010. “This population now appears to be in a negative directory. It looks like the population is in a collapse because of high mortality. Even more of a concern, it appears no calves were born in the North Atlantic this year. Seventeen whales died, with a calving rate of zero,” Mayo said.
Last year, two right whale carcasses washed ashore on Martha’s Vineyard.
Mayo also said the only hope now is that next year, there will be an increase in births. The whales are facing extinction, Mayo warned: “When it comes to extinction, that is a final thing. Extinction is the end, and there is no recovery. Extinction is finality.”