Two entangled North Atlantic right whales were spotted swimming off Nantucket last week, and officials said the younger one is not expected to survive.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said one of their aerial survey crews reported the two whales swimming about 50 miles southeast of Nantucket on Dec. 9.
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The first whale, a 3-year-old male, was first seen as a calf in 2021 and was last seen gear-free in Cape Cod Bay last April. The whale has a thick line that passes once across his head and once across his back. After reviewing the entanglement, NOAA Fisheries biologists have made a preliminary determination that the whale is likely to die from his injuries.
The New England Aquarium said it is the whale's first entanglement, but his family has a long history of entanglement. He was born in 2021 to a whale that has now suffered three entanglements.
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The second whale, a 13-year-old female, was first seen as a calf in 2011 and was last seen gear-free about 50 miles off the coast of Long Island last July. This whale has two lines exiting the left side of her mouth, with both lines extending a half to two thirds of the way down the body. NOAA Fisheries biologists believe the whale will survive her injuries.
This is the whale's third documented entanglement, the aquarium said, which could impact her ability to reproduce.
NOAA said its entanglement response teams did not mount a response after the initial sighting because of the time of day and the distance of the whales from shore. But as conditions permit, they said they will work with authorized responders and trained experts to monitor the whales further.
The two whales are the 149th and 150th documented in NOAA's ongoing effort to document North Atlantic right whale deaths and injuries in Canada and the U.S., which dates back to 2017. The primary causes are entanglements in commercial fishing gear and collisions with large ships. Scientists say the warming of the ocean has caused the whales to stray from protected zones in search of food, and that makes them more vulnerable to those threats.
The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale is one of the rarest whale species in the world and it is thought to number about 370. The giant animals migrate, and usually arrive in Cape Cod Bay off Massachusetts early in the winter and stay until around the middle of May.
The whale’s population fell by about 25% from 2010 to 2020, raising concerns about potential extinction among scientists and conservationists. Conservationists warned that the species is still in dire need of protection despite recent encouraging signs.
The whales were abundant off New England generations ago, but they were decimated during the commercial whaling era.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
