Editor’s note: This story has been updated.
An endangered North Atlantic right whale, one of only about 360 believed to be left on Earth, that was found dead off Georgia’s Tybee Island was likely killed by a boat strike, federal officials announced Friday.
The deceased whale — a one-year-old female born during the 2022 to 2023 calving season to another whale nicknamed “Pilgrim” — was first spotted on Tuesday by a cargo vessel near Savannah, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries division.
On Wednesday, an aerial survey team from Florida’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute located the dead whale about 20 miles off Tybee Island. Soon after, a crew of Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) traveled by boat to capture photographs, attach a satellite tracker and take samples from the whale. Sharks were actively feeding on the carcass and photos show it has been heavily scavenged.
A necropsy completed on the animal Thursday found “evidence of blunt force trauma including fractures of the skull,” injuries that are consistent with a boat strike, NOAA said. The agency added that the results of more tests are still pending and its Office of Law Enforcement has opened an investigation into the whale’s death.
The animal had been seen as recently as early February free of injuries, NOAA said.
North Atlantic right whales are among the rarest large whale species on the planet, and boat strikes and fishing gear entanglements are the greatest threats to the animals. Climate change is also thought to be contributing to their shrinking population.
The waters off the Southeast coast are key to the fight to save them from extinction. Each winter, the animals migrate from the North Atlantic to warmer waters off Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to calve.
This calving season has been another up and down one for the whales.
Since Nov., 17 calves have been seen along the Southeast coast, but two of them were not with their mothers during later sightings, and scientists now assume they are deceased.
A total of 15 is far from the worst calving total in recent years — there were zero spotted in 2018 — but experts say the numbers are not enough to allow the population to recover.
In addition to the whale found deceased off of Tybee Island, another dead right whale was found off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., in late January. The animal’s cause of death was determined to be chronic injuries from entanglement in commercial fishing gear.
A severely injured right whale calf was also spotted recently off the Georgia coast, but experts say there’s a chance the animal could survive.
The death of the whale off Tybee Island comes as NOAA considers expanding speed limits in the whales’ calving zone to include boats measuring 35 feet and above. The move has been opposed by the maritime industry and some Georgia lawmakers, but conservationists say slowing boats down is key to saving the whales and called on President Joe Biden’s administration to act.
“The death of two juvenile North Atlantic whales within three weeks of each other is heartbreaking and preventable,” Kathleen Collins, a senior marine campaign manager with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in a statement. “The right whale graveyard off our eastern seaboard continues to grow and inaction from the administration is digging the graves.”
A note of disclosure
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