A right whale surfaces, arching her back and extending her head and fluke out of the water.
Photo provided by FWC
By Cheryl Blackerby
Only about 500 North Atlantic right whales are left in the world. Fortunately for Floridians, these extremely rare behemoths not only migrate along the Florida coast, but also calve here.
“This is the only known calving area,” said Barb Zoodsma, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s not like they’re going to go someplace else. This comes with a lot of responsibility.”
The whales generally calve from December through March, but because of cold weather, they are lingering longer in Florida, she said. A recent air survey found a total of 47 whales including calves off the Florida coastline.
The whales migrate from Miami to Canada, and calve between Florida and North Carolina. A mother and calf were spotted March 15 just offshore south of The Breakers in Palm Beach.
U.S law requires people to stay 500 yards away from right whales. Fines are stiff, in the range of thousands of dollars. NOAA flew a banner over Florida beaches in March reminding people to stay away.
The only real threat to right whales is people, Zoodsma said. And people have almost killed them into extinction.
“They travel close to shore, within 100 yards of the beach or closer. They die from collisions with vessels and entanglement in fishing gear,” she said. “Boats as small as 33 feet are capable of killing calves.”
Right whales got their name from whalers, who said they were the right whales to kill because their blubber contained large amounts of oil. They were easy to kill because they migrated close to shore and had a docile nature.
By the mid-1700s, whalers, largely based in Massachusetts, had decimated the right whale population on the Atlantic coast. The whalers moved on to sperm whales, which had even more oil in their blubber. But the right whale population never recovered, and remain among the most endangered whales in the world.
“We think the population is slowly increasing, but the challenge with a population as small as the North Atlantic right whale is that a even a small mortality rate can have huge implications,” Zoodsma said.
Right whales can grow up to 55 feet long and weigh 55 tons, significantly larger than other coastal species such as humpbacks, grays or Bryde’s, but smaller than blues. A right whale calf weighs roughly 2,000 pounds when it’s born.
Right whales are easy to identify, she said. “They are black, but some of them have white splotches on their ventral surfaces. They don’t have dorsal fins. They have sharply arching jaws and white patches on tops of their heads. The flippers are short and paddle-shaped. When they surface in cold weather, they have a V-shaped blow.”
If you see a right whale, call 877-WHALE-HELP. Boaters are prohibited by U.S. law from operating vessels within 65 feet of right whales. If a whale is sighted, boaters should radio the Coast Guard via channel 16, reduce speed and slowly move away from the whale.
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