B4
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2021
Endangered
right whales
are shrinking
By EVE ZUCKOFF
WCAI
North Atlantic right whales now grow
smaller than they did 40 years ago, and
new research suggests a leading cause is
the damage human activity infl icts on the
critically endangered mammals.
The fi ndings, published last week in the
journal Current Biology, reveal that when
fully grown, a North Atlantic right whale
born today would be expected to be about
1 meter shorter than a whale born in 1980.
Full-grown members of the species aver-
age 43 to 46 feet.
“The fi rst inkling that we had came from
the folks who were collecting the data in
the fi eld, where, as the story goes, they saw
what looked to be a really young whale,
a calf, or maybe 1- or 2-year-old,” said
Joshua Stewart, a postdoctoral researcher
with the National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration’s Marine Mam-
mal and Turtle Division and lead author
of the new study. “But it turns out that
they were actually 5-year-old or 10-year-
old whales that were smaller than a typical
2-year-old.”
The researchers used high-resolution
aerial photographs to track size and body
condition over time of 129 right whales.
There are only about 366 North Atlantic
right whales in existence now, compared to
481 in 2011, the known high for the popu-
lation in recent years. Their numbers were
much higher before commercial whaling
brought them to the brink of extinction by
the early 1890s. The mammals’ high fat
content and buoyancy after death led to
their name: whalers called them the “right
whales” to kill.
The research, with contributions from
scientists with the New England Aquar-
ium, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu-
tion and Oregon State University, indicated
that a prime reason for the animals’ recent
stunted growth is entanglement in rope and
fi shing gear.
North Atlantic right whales typically
migrate up and down the eastern seaboard,
from Florida to Canada. In recent years,
more than half the population can be found
from late winter to early spring off the coast
of Cape Cod, where they navigate a deadly
maze of rope and lobster fi shing gear.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Scientists from NOAA Fisheries Service approach a young North Atlantic right whale in order to disentangle it. New research
shows whales with severe entanglements in rope and fi shing gear are experiencing stunted growth, and body lengths have been
decreasing since 1981.
Entanglements in the gear can lead
to fatal infections, starvation or drown-
ing. But even when they don’t kill the
whales, they can cause long-term harm,
the researchers found. When the mam-
mals get caught in human detritus and
end up dragging it around, it forces them
to expend more energy fi ghting to sur-
vive, instead of growing or repopulating
their dwindling species.
“You can imagine if you had a sand-
bag tied to you and you had to go about
your daily business, you’d be burning
a lot of extra energy just dragging that
sandbag around,” Stewart said.
Not only does entanglement con-
tribute to reduced body size for an indi-
vidual whale, but female North Atlan-
tic right whales entangled while nursing
produce smaller calves. That threatens
the repopulation of a species with so few
remaining members.
“This is a fi nding that adds to the
grim tale of the right whale,” said
Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of
the North Atlantic Right Whale Ecol-
ogy Program at the Center for Coastal
Studies in Provincetown, Massachu-
setts, who did not contribute to the new
research. “It’s an extremely important
piece of work because it demonstrates
not only what we always knew, and that
is that entanglement causes death. But in
this case, it goes beyond that and con-
fi rms what some of the authors have
long suspected.”
The stunted growth of the whales
coincides with an increasing rate of
entanglements. A 2012 study from the
New England Aquarium revealed that
more than 80% of right whales have
been entangled at least once in their lives
and 60% have been entangled more than
twice.
“We know from other species of
whales, including really closely related
southern right whales, that in the case
of moms, when you’re giving birth, if
you’re smaller and skinnier, then your
calf is also likely to be smaller and skin-
nier,” Stewart said. “Especially as a calf,
you’re needing to grow really quickly
in those early years, so you could have
a lower chance of survival if you’re
smaller.”
He added: “We also think that if
you’re shorter, you can’t pack on as
much of an energetic reserve as a longer
whale can. Their gas tank is smaller, and
so that means that if you deplete a lot of
that reserve when you’re, let’s say, nurs-
ing a calf ... you might have to wait lon-
ger between pregnancies.”
Researchers
acknowledge
that
entanglements do not explain all of the
reduced growth. Other factors might
be climate change, collisions and noise
from ships, and the shifting availabil-
ity of tiny crustaceans called copepods,
their primary food source.
Researchers are now trying to estab-
lish whether other, less-studied large
whale species and marine mammals
are suff ering from similar declines in
growth.
In response, conservationists say fi sh-
eries managers need to better regulate
the crab and lobster fi sheries, whose ver-
tical lines to traps on the seafl oor are con-
sidered the primary culprit in entangle-
ments. One potential answer is greater
investment in the development and test-
ing of ropeless fi shing technology.
Representatives of the lobster indus-
try say they have been unfairly blamed
for entanglements and insist that more
research is needed to determine the
source of gear found wrapped around
these whales before further regulation
drives them out of business.
Researchers, however, say there is no
time to wait.
“We are in a very deep hole with right
whales,” Mayo said. “Really, the species
can’t tolerate any further impacts or its
future really is sealed.”
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