Endangered right whale fail to give birth this winter

SAVANNAH, GA. — The winter calving season for criticallyendangered 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 motherand-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.”