Researchers have found a dead 1-year-old female north Atlantic right whale offshore of Tybee. The whale is the December 2022 calf of north Atlantic right whale #4340, also known as Pilgrim.
NOAA Fisheries was notified of the dead whale Tuesday. On Wednesday, an aerial survey team from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute searched and found the carcass about 20 miles off Tybee. A team from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources responded, attached a satellite tag, and collected photos and samples to identify the individual. Sharks have heavily scavenged the whale carcass.
NOAA Fisheries and its partners are towing the carcass to the north end of Tybee Thursday to perform a necropsy if possible. The juvenile whale’s death is the 38th mortality in the ongoing Unusual Mortality Event that began in 2017. Fewer than 350 individual north Atlantic right whales remain.
The Unusual Mortality Event includes 123 individuals (38 dead, 34 seriously injured, and 51 sublethally injured or ill), NOAA reports. The primary causes of the deaths and injuries are entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes in both U.S. and Canadian waters, which are long-standing threats to the recovery of the species.
In late January, another young female right whale was found dead on Martha’s Vineyard. Researchers determined the cause of death to be entanglement in fishing gear traced to Maine fisheries.
In South Carolina, the six-week-old calf of a whale named Juno was seen in early January with life-threatening lacerations on its head a lip. Researchers have determined the cuts were made by the propeller of a vessel at least 35-feet-long. The calf has been seen alive at least twice since then, once near Amelia Island and once off Sapelo.
NOAA has proposed an expansion of its speed rules to better protect right whales from vessel strikes, but recreational fishers, harbor pilots and some legislators including U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R- St. Simons) have balked at the added restrictions and NOAA has not finalized them.
Conservation groups responded quickly to the news of another whale death.
“Let’s call this what it is: gross negligence by our government leaders. Another dead North Atlantic right whale on our shores – this time off Georgia – is an outrage,” said Oceana Campaign Director Gib Brogan. “Our East Coast shores have become the graveyard for a critically endangered species dying from human causes and the deaths and injuries keep adding up. How many more North Atlantic right whales will die before President Biden and Secretary Raimondo finally release increased protections like the updated vessel speed rule they’re sitting on?”
The International Fund for Animal Welfare was involved in the necropsy of the whale found off Martha’s Vineyard.
“Georgia’s legislators need to get out of the way and let NOAA do its job to save this species from extinction,” said Greg Reilly, Southeast Marine Campaigner for IFAW.
