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© Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, taken under NOAA permit #26919. Funded by United States Army Corps of Engineers

Birth announcement! First right whale calf of the 2024 calving season spotted

November 29, 2023 - On November 28th, researchers from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute...
© Peter Flood

Two New England-based nonprofits awarded nearly $400k federal grant

© Peter Flood November 20, 2023 - Contact: Jake O'Neill, Conservation Law Foundation, (617) 850-1709,...
Right whale - Regina WDC

North Atlantic right whale population has stabilized

WDC attends Ropeless Consortium and North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium WDC was in Canada this...
Moana, Marineland France

Orca Moana dies suddenly at Marineland

Twelve-year old orca, Moana has died suddenly at the Marineland Antibes theme park facility in...

New findings highlight decline in North Atlantic right whale population

The past five years have seen the population of North Atlantic right whales fall from 482 in 2010 to 458 in 2015 according to a new model used to estimate their numbers. Over the preceding twenty years the findings revealed the population had increased from around 270 whales in 1990 at a rate of just under 3%.

Researchers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the New England Aquarium developed the model, which also reveals that the number of adult females has fallen from 200 to 186 during the same time.

2017 has been a particularly bad year with 14 known deaths so far. Collisions with boat traffic and entanglement in fishing gear are major threats to the slow-moving whales which live off the east coast of the US and Canada. 

State–space mark–recapture estimates reveal a recent decline in abundance of North Atlantic right whales
Richard M. Pace III, Peter J. Corkeron, Scott D. Kraus
Ecology and Evolution Sept 2017