In the Spotlight
The North Atlantic right whale is NOAA Fisheries' newest Species in the Spotlight. This initiative is a concerted, agency-wide effort to spotlight and save marine species that are among the most at risk of extinction in the near future.
North Atlantic right whales, which got their name from being the “right” whales to hunt because they floated when they were killed, have never recovered to pre-whaling numbers. These whales have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1970 and have been experiencing a steady population decline for nearly a decade. NOAA and our partners are continuing to prioritize stabilizing and preventing extinction of this species, and this Species in the Spotlight designation will help focus federal and non-federal resources on these many efforts.
Right Whales’ Role in a Balanced Ecosystem
The natural system is balanced through food webs and nutrient transport, with every species contributing to that balance. Right whales play an important role in this balanced ocean ecosystem.
The majority of the Earth's oxygen is produced by marine phytoplankton. These tiny ocean plants also help to absorb CO2, so healthy phytoplankton levels also help to combat climate change. When they defecate at the surface, marine mammals such as right whales provide essential nitrogen and phosphorus to those phytoplankton.
When whales die, they also provide essential nutrient resources to the ocean floor ecosystems. Scavengers consume the soft tissue in a matter of months. Organic fragments, or detritus, enrich the sediments nearby for over a year, and the whale skeleton can provide habitat for invertebrate communities for decades.
Better understanding right whales’ behavior and biology also provides us with information about changing ocean conditions, giving us insight into larger environmental issues that could have implications for human health.
Sometimes we don’t know how vital a species’ role is in maintaining this balance until it’s too late, and sometimes those unforeseen impacts can have a direct effect on our own existence. The Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act recognize that managing species to make sure they can fulfill their role in the bigger picture is to everyone’s benefit. A diverse environment is a healthier environment. It’s part of our responsibility as stewards of the nation’s living marine resources to make sure that we protect right whales and have healthy fisheries.
NOAA’s Commitment to Right Whale Recovery
As the federal agency with the lead on recovering the North Atlantic right whale population, we believe that the right steps, people, and knowledge are in place to help us make decisions that will contribute to recovery and reduce entanglement risk significantly. Our mandate under the Marine Mammal Protection Act has provided the structure, through the Take Reduction Process, to make sure all voices on this issue are heard and that innovation comes from the people who will be most impacted by future regulatory action.
Under the Endangered Species Act, we are looking at how the threats right whales face impact their recovery and how we manage those threats to facilitate their recovery.
Learn more about NOAA’s commitment to saving North Atlantic right whales
Where They Live
North Atlantic right whales are found mostly along the Atlantic coast in shallower waters. Each fall, some right whales travel more than 1,000 miles from their feeding grounds along the coasts of Canada and New England to the warm coastal waters of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Here they give birth and nurse their young.
Population Status
Today researchers estimate there are about 400 North Atlantic right whales in the population with fewer than 100 breeding females left. Only 12 births have been observed in the three calving seasons since 2017, less than one-third the previous average annual birth rate for right whales. This, together with an unprecedented 30 mortalities since 2017 (part of a declared Unusual Mortality Event), accelerates the downward trend that began around 2010, with deaths outpacing births in this population.
Threats
Illustration of how North Atlantic right whales get entangled in fishing gear. Entangled whales sometimes tow fishing gear for hundreds of miles. Credit: WHOI Graphic Services, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Entanglement in vertical buoy lines, or ropes, connected to fishing gillnets, traps, and pots on the ocean floor is one of the greatest threats to North Atlantic right whales. NOAA Fisheries and our partners estimate that over 85 percent of right whales have been entangled at least once. These lines can cut into a whale’s body, cause serious injuries, and result in infections and mortality. Even if gear is shed or disentangled, the time spent entangled can severely stress a whale, which weakens it, prevents it from feeding, and saps the energy it needs to swim and feed. Biologists believe that this additional stress is one of the reasons that female right whales are having fewer calves; females used to have calves every 3 to 5 years, and now are having calves every 6 to 10 years.
Ship strikes are a second major threat to right whales. Their habitat and migration routes are close to major ports along the Atlantic coastline and often overlap with shipping lanes, making them vulnerable to collisions with ships. These collisions can cause broken bones and massive internal injuries or cuts from vessel propellers. As large as right whales are, most vessels are larger, and the faster a vessel is going when it hits a whale, the higher the likelihood of serious injury or death.
Underwater noise from human activities such as shipping, recreational boating, development, and energy exploration has increased along our coasts. Noise from these activities can interrupt the normal behavior of right whales and interfere with their communication with potential mates, other group members, and their offspring. Noise can also reduce their ability to avoid predators, navigate and identify physical surroundings, and find food.
Species Recovery
Recovery Plan
NOAA Fisheries formed a recovery team of scientists and stakeholders to help develop a North Atlantic right whale recovery plan, which was finalized in 2005. The recovery plan helps guide our efforts to prevent extinction of the right whale. These strategies include reducing vessel collisions and fishing gear entanglement, protecting whale habitat, maximizing efforts to free entangled right whales, and monitoring the population. NOAA Fisheries appointed a recovery team in the Northeast and a team in the Southeast to implement the recovery plan. Partnerships are a critical component of North Atlantic right whale recovery.
Critical Habitat Designation
NOAA Fisheries has designated critical habitat for the North Atlantic right whale, which includes a foraging area in the Northeast and a calving area in the Southeast. This designation means that federal agencies must ensure that any activities in these areas do not adversely modify those areas.
Reducing Vessel Strikes
The most effective way to reduce the threat of vessel collisions with North Atlantic right whales is to keep whales and traffic apart. If that is not possible, the next best option is for vessels to slow down and keep a lookout. NOAA Fisheries has taken a number of steps to reduce this threat such as:
- Requiring ships to slow down in specific areas (Seasonal Management Areas) based on right whales’ migration patterns and timing.
- Asking vessels to slow down when whales are seen in an area outside of these Seasonal Management Areas.
- Modifying international shipping lanes.
- Developing right whale sighting and alert systems.
- Requiring large ships to report when they enter key right whale habitats. In return, the vessel receives a message about right whales, precautionary measures to avoid hitting a whale, and locations of recent sightings.
- Regulating how close a vessel or aircraft may get to a right whale. This reduces disturbance to the animal and the potential for negative interaction.
Reducing Entanglement in Fishing Gear
NOAA Fisheries has developed management measures to reduce whale entanglements with the help of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team—a group of advisors consisting of fishermen, scientists, environmental organizations, and state and federal officials. The Team’s Take Reduction Plan requires commercial fishermen to use certain fishing gear types that are less harmful to right whales, and specifies areas where fishing cannot take place when whales are present.
The main focus of our entanglement reduction effort has been to understand where along the East Coast the risk of entanglement is greatest and to reduce line in the water column that could pose a risk to right whales.
Because we have evidence that trap/pot and gillnet fishing gear pose the greatest risk of entanglement to large whales, we have several seasonal fishing closures during times when we know whales will be present. We’ve also required that fishermen use sinking groundline in between their traps and between gillnet panels and the anchoring system. Before that decision, the line would float, sometimes meters off the ocean floor, and whales traveling in between the traps or between gillnets and anchors and would get caught in the line. Sinking groundline is not in the water column, which reduces the risk of entanglement.
We’ve also taken steps to reduce the number of endlines. Endlines connect the first and last traps to the buoys that sit at the surface. By fishing with only one endline where safety allows it, or adding more traps to a set, we’ve managed to reduce the number of endlines. Again, any fishing line removed from the water column helps reduce the risk of entanglement.
All in all, our measures have helped to remove around 42,000 miles of fishing line from the water column across the entire U.S. Atlantic region. That’s enough line to circle the Earth one and a half times. Removing fishing line from the water undoubtedly removes risk of entanglement for right whales and other protected species, even if statistically these benefits are hard to see.
In addition, when entangled whales are reported anywhere along the East Coast, the NOAA-funded Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network is called upon to try to help. The Network is made up of emergency responders from 20 public and private organizations who have extensive training in how to disentangle large whales and increase their odds of surviving. Examining gear removed from entangled animals is one of the key ways for us to determine whether regulations are working and fishing gear modifications are effective.
Overseeing Stranding Response
We work with volunteer networks in all coastal states to respond to marine mammal strandings, including large whales. When stranded animals are found alive, NOAA Fisheries and our partners assess the animal’s health. When stranded animals are found dead, our scientists work to understand and investigate the cause of death.
International Collaboration
NOAA Fisheries is actively collaborating with Canada through ongoing bilateral negotiations on the science and management gaps that are impeding the recovery of North Atlantic right whales in both Canadian and U.S. waters.
