The annual tally of North Atlantic right whales shows the critically endangered population is slowly rebounding. Figures released today show an estimated 384 individual whales in 2024, up eight from the previous year. However, the 2.1% increase is within the tally’s margin of error.
Each year scientists from the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collaborate to calculate the estimate. Heather Pettis leads the aquarium’s right whale research program. She said the population has been growing since 2020.
“The last four years have given us tremendous hope,” said Pettis. “There’s still some concern and certainly sort of cautious optimism, but it’s been great to have a couple of years of – at least on the population side of things – really good news.”
The population declined sharply between 2015 and 2020 but has been slowly rebounding since. Pettis said ocean warming caused the zooplankton the whales eat to move further north.
“Their food shifted, they found it,” she said. “It took them a little bit, but they found it. And so we need to be able to be better at adapting our protective measures to those potential shifts.”
Entanglements and vessel strikes remain the leading causes of serious injury and death for North Atlantic right whales.
