"People on Cape Cod are extremely spoiled when it comes to the North Atlantic Right Whale," says Scott Landry, Director of the Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team for the Center for Coastal Studies. "Most folks know that by April you can head up to Herring Cove in Provincetown and watch a huge number of Right Whales from the beach."
Right Whales are the rarest of all the large whale species. They’re so rare that our North Atlantic population is individually numbered, with around 500 known to exist.
Each spring the population gathers to feed in Cape Cod Bay.
But once the whales leave Cape Cod Bay, around the beginning of May, Landry says, for the most part scientists don't know where they're going.
It hasn't always been this way. Traditionally, the whales would head to feeding grounds up in the Bay of Fundy, or on Browns Bank to the east of Nova Scotia. But something has changed in the last few years.
Scientists have been mounting expeditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the whales are rumored to be, but they've found nothing conclusive.
Why have the whales moved from their traditional feeding grounds? Climate change would seem a likely cause - but the truth is, scientists don't yet know the reason.
Steve Junker spoke with Scott Landry for WCAI's Pelagic Report. The conversation is posted below.
