North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.

It’s qualified good news though since right whales are still dying — largely from manmade causes — at a faster rate than they can reproduce.  Since 2017, thirty four right whale deaths have been confirmed in waters of the U.S. and Canada, with the leading causes being entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with boats and ships. Together with additional whales documented with serious injuries that they were unlikely to survive, the real death toll could be at least 49, which exceed the 39 births recorded during the same period.  Click here.

As the North Atlantic right whale nears the brink of extinction, NOAA reports that studies that more than 85% of North Atlantic right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once, with about 60% having been entangled multiple times.

While gear modifications and seasonal fishery closures help protect the whales, entanglement in ropes attached to gillnets and traps on the seabed remains one of the greatest threats. Ropeless fishing gear, using time triggered “virtual buoys” and lines that float to the surface when summoned, is an emerging option that could alleviate much of this risk but, unsurprisingly, reactions among fishers in US and Canada are mixed, with considerable opposition claiming that “ropeless gear is not economically viable at this time and there are numerous technical and operational challenges that must be addressed before it can be substituted for gear using vertical lines” Click here

The covid 19 pandemic temporarily reduced one of the other pressures on whales, ocean noise.  Noise pollution from ship engines, trawling activities, oil platforms, subsea mining and other human sources declined significantly last spring, say collaborators in the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, a 10-year plan launched in 2015 to create a time series of measurements of ambient sound in many ocean locations.

Noise levels faded substantially during 2020 at the height of lockdown in March, April and May, starting – like Covid – around China and then spread worldwide.  However, the volume surged back to a new height in the summer as shipping companies rushed to make up for lost time and sound levels have since stabilised close to the average for recent years.  Click here, here and here.

Elsewhere, clickbait stories of happy animals returning to suddenly quiet habitats paint an overly rosy picture of the covid-19 pandemic’s impact on the marine environment despite management having become more difficult, threats continuing or increasing as industry pressed for rollback or suspension of regulation, and much vital monitoring faltering or stalling.  Click here.