US federal officials say it is time to consider the possibility that North Atlantic right whales could become extinct, unless new steps are taken to protect them. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said there are only about 450 North Atlantic right whales left and 17 have died in 2017.
The high year of mortality is coinciding with a year of poor reproduction. There are only about 100 breeding female North Atlantic right whales left.
The official made the comments during a meeting this week of the regulatory New England Fishery Management Council. Mark Murray-Brown, an Endangered Species Act consultant for Noaa, said right whales have been declining in abundance since 2010, with females hit harder than males.
‘The current status of the right whales is a critical situation and using our available resources to recover right whales is of high importance and high urgency,’ he said.
Some recent scientific studies have shed some light on why whale deaths have increased. One, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, stated that the whales move around much more than previously thought.
The stress negatively impacts their ability to reproduce even when they survive entanglement, scientists said. ‘My colleagues are trying to find solutions, so we can find out how they can continue to fish but not entangle whales,’ said a study co-author, Elizabeth Burgess, an associate scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
It also included recommendations to protect the species including developing a long-term plan for monitoring the population trends and habitat use and studying the impact of commercial fishing on right whales.