Endangered right whale fails to give birth this winter

SAVANNAH, GA. — The winter calving season for critically-endangered right whales is ending without a single newborn being spotted off the southeast U.S. coast, a reproductive drought unseen for three decades that experts say brings the rare species a perilous step closer to extinction.

“It’s a pivotal moment for right whales,” said Barb Zoodsma, who oversees the right whale recovery program in the U.S. Southeast for the National Marine Fisheries Service. “If we don’t get serious and figure this out, it very well could be the beginning of the end.”

Researchers have been looking since December for newborn right whales off the coasts of Georgia and Florida, where pregnant whales typically migrate each winter to give birth in warmer Atlantic waters.

Trained spotters in airplanes who spend the season scouting the coastal waters for mother-and-calf pairs found nothing this season. They wrap up work when the month ends Friday.

Zoodsma said she doesn’t expect any last-minute calf sightings. If she’s right, it will be the first year whale spotters have recorded zero births since survey flights began in 1989.

The timing could hardly be worse. Scientists estimate only about 450 North Atlantic right whales remain, and the species suffered terribly in 2017. A total of 17 right whales washed up dead in the U.S. and Canada last year, far outpacing five births. With no rebound in births this winter, the overall population could shrink further in 2018. One right whale was found dead off the coast of Virginia in January.

“It is truly alarming,” said Philip Hamilton, a scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston who has studied right whales for three decades. “Following a year of such high mortality, it’s clear the population can’t sustain that trajectory.”

Right whales have averaged about 17 births per year during the past three decades. Since 2012, all but two seasons have yielded below-average calf counts.

Right whale researcher Charles “Stormy” Mayo of the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said he was hopeful some calves were born this season off the Carolinas or Virginia, where scientists weren’t really looking.

It’s also possible right whales could rally with a baby boom next year. Females typically take three years or longer between pregnancies, so births can fluctuate year-to-year. The previous rock-bottom year for births — just one calf spotted in 2000 — was followed by 31 newborns in 2001, the second-best calving season on record.

“Right now, the sky is falling,” Zoodsma said. “I do think we can turn this around. But it’s sort of like, what’s our willpower to do so?

“This is a time for all hands on deck.”