- [Ben Prueitt] Hello whale watchers and welcome to our celebration of Georgia Whale Week!
We're glad you could join us today for a lunchtime chat with NOAA experts
studying the North Atlantic right whale. My name is Ben Prueitt, I'm the Outreach
and Social Media Coordinator for the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
Today, I'll be joined by Dr. Eric Patterson and Dr. Caroline Good
who study the North Atlantic right whale for NOAA Fisheries. Their expertise and
efforts play a key part in understanding and protecting
the endangered North Atlantic right whale. For our discussion today,
We'll start with an overview of a Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary,
and then discuss the importance of right whales to the Southeast United States,
how NOAA helps the species, and what you can do
to help conserve the species. If you have any questions throughout this interview
we want to hear about them in our chat feature. Our sanctuary staff will be
keeping an eye out for your questions and comments
throughout this interview.
Whether you're new to the southeast United States or a lifelong resident
you may be familiar with the hidden gem off of our coast, Gray's Reef National
Marine Sanctuary. Gray's Reef is a live bottom habitat
teeming with life and was one of our nation's 14 national
marine sanctuaries comprising the National Marine Sanctuary
System. I wish we had more time to talk about
each of these incredible sites but for now you'll have to visit
sanctuaries.noaa.gov.
Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary was America's fourth national marine
sanctuary designated in 1981 to preserve the extraordinary beauty of
the area and protect the habitat of diverse marine life.
Gray's Reef is located 19 miles off the coast of Georgia,
east of Sapelo Island. The total sanctuary size is 22 square
miles, and the average water depth is 60 feet.
Scientists have documented over 200 species of fish like the Atlantic spade
fish, Black sea bass, many species of grouper
and snapper, seaweed blenny, sheepshead, and other
colorful species. Sharks are also commonly cited and can
be seen at all levels of the water column.
Over 900 species of invertebrates live at Gray's Reef.
Species like tunicates - commonly known as sea squirts -
corals, urchins, and many species of sponges make up the colorful life
protected in the sanctuary. The sanctuary is more than just life found
on the seafloor, the waters and the air above the bottom
are studied and managed in various ways to conserve the sanctuary for
generations to come. The sanctuary plays a role in supporting
recreational fishing and diving, scientific research, and the protection
of endangered species, like the Loggerhead sea turtle,
and our main topic for today the North Atlantic right whale.
Gray's reef is also a part of the southern calving ground for the North
Atlantic right whale, which spans from the coast of North
Carolina all the way to Cape Canaveral in Florida.
I'll now introduce my guests for today. The opinions presented here are those of
the speakers and dot and do not necessarily represent the opinions of
NOAA or those of the speakers organizations.
Dr. Eric Patterson is the Large Whale
Conservation Program Lead in the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle
Conservation Division of NOAA Fisheries. Dr. Patterson, hello, can you tell me a
little bit more about your work with NOAA and specifically those with North
Atlantic right whale? - [Dr. Eric Patterson] Yeah, sure Ben. Hi everyone, glad to be
here today. So yeah as Ben mentioned I work
in the Office of Protected Resources, part of my portfolio includes working on
right whale issues, which there are numerous, and many and
we'll talk about some of those today. My particular role has to do with trying
to help coordinate NOAA's efforts to conserve and recover the species both
across all of our different science centers as
well as our regional offices. So we at headquarters here have a role
in making sure that we're having effective and efficient efforts
to try to conserve and protect the species.
- Well thank you, Eric. Our second guest is Dr. Caroline Good,
a Marine Mammal Ecologist at the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Conservation
Division, also with NOAA Fisheries. Caroline, can
you tell us a little bit about more about your work at NOAA, and specifically
that of North Atlantic right whales? - [Dr. Caroline Good] Absolutely! So I work closely with Eric
at the Office of Protected Resources in Washington, DC
and we have an enormous portfolio of activities, policy initiatives,
programs, scientific assessments all aimed
at recovering and conserving North Atlantic right whales.
So that is a primary focus of our of our work
and we work closely both with our NOAA partners
in the northeast and in the southeast, as well
to recover right whales. - Well thank you for that introduction, Caroline
and Eric. Caroline, I wanted to start with you,
what is so important about the Southeast U.S.
for the right whales? The southeast is critically important
for right whales. Mothers will travel down from foraging
grounds in the greater Gulf of Maine region and
in Canada all the way down to the southeastern
U.S. to give birth to calves each winter.
They generally start arriving in late November-December
and they will stay through January-February-March and begin to then take
their young calves back up north into the calving grounds in early Spring.
And the reason that the moms travel down to this area
to give birth is they appear to seek out waters that are
calm, shallow, close to shore, you know they like to be
separate from other whales with their calves. They're quite
often they're not vocalizing at the same level
they sort of are considered to whisper in many cases with their calves while in
the southeast. And they will stay for for several
months and nurse their calves while they're
in the in the area. And unfortunately that also means that
they spend a great deal of time at the surface which can also make
them vulnerable to vessel strikes during this time period as well.
I should mention that interestingly although the moms are the ones that come
down to calf you also see other members of the population including other adults
and juveniles that come down as well for certain periods of time to spend time
during the winter in the southeast. So it's used by all members of the
right whale population. - Very interesting. Eric, the next question
is for you. I'm curious as to how NOAA monitors the right will populations? - It's
a great question, Ben. And i'll just start by saying it's
something that we do in collaboration with many many partners in the right
whale community up and down the the Atlantic coast, including our
partners in Canada. And it's complicated. We monitor
lots of things about the population, I should say species as they are their own
species. Including the the number of animals,
their health, their genetics, their distribution, whether
there's new births or deaths, and injuries.
So a lot of different aspects of the population. There's a
variety of different platforms that we do this from including aerial surveys so
folks going out with planes and taking pictures and monitoring right whales,
as well as acoustic instruments so listening for right whale calls
in the in the ocean environment, which works particularly well up north not as
much down in the southeast. As caroline
mentioned, that the females, in particular, some of the whales are pretty quiet down
in the southeast on the caving grounds. So we listen for them we also use U.A.S or
drones to take photos, to get measurements of right whales so a
lot of different aspects to monitoring the population.
Rright whales, like many marine mammals are actually individually identifiable.
So they have patterns on their on their their faces
around their mouths, particularly as it relates to their collosities, or these
thickened areas of skin that are inhabited by a variety of
different marine creatures. And using those as well as scars, say
from entanglements, previous interactions with fisheries or
vessel strike scars, or even just other scars that may be natural in nature
we can identify individuals and then we use these and take photographs of these
along with our partners to track the population and the New
England Aquarium maintains a catalog of probably every known right whale has
a picture in there. And they maintain that and using that
scientists, NOAA scientists, as well as our collaborators
are able to do some sophisticated mathematical modeling
to come up with some very precise estimates of the population.
- So Eric, with these studies, can you explain
why there are so few right whales? - Yeah, another good question, Ben. And
a complicated one. So initially the low numbers of right
whales stems from historic whaling days. Right whales were called right whales
because they were the right will to hunt because they floated and they were close
to shore. So they're relatively easy to hunt.
Obviously, we're no longer hunting right whales
and they've been they've had federal protections in place in the U.S. for a
long time. So in the initial years since
protections put in place there was some signs of recovery
but around 2010 the population started declining again
and there's a multiple reasons why that could be. We know that survival rates are
lower for right whales, adult right whales
in particular, for females this has led to a biased sex ratio so
there's fewer females in the population and since they're the ones giving birth
that's highly problematic especially for a marine mammal like right whales that
have very slow life histories. So in addition to survival there's low
reproduction so not only are there fewer females surviving,
their reproduction is low. Now, this may be related to changes in prey
availability that may have to do with changing ocean conditions.
There are certainly some studies that suggest that's the case,
but certainly the most acute problems that right whales are facing are
human-caused mortalities and serious injury from entanglements
in fishing gear, commercial fishing gear, as well as vessel strikes. So all of
those things together with a population that was already at
very low numbers historically from whaling has led to the
situation we're in today. - Interesting Caroline, on the topic of
vessel strikes what is NOAA doing to reduce vessel strikes of right whales?
- Yeah vessel strike is unfortunately a very persistent
problem for right whales. It's a significant source of mortality and
serious injury for them and we essentially have two tools at our
disposal to address the problem of vessel
strike risk. One is to slow vessels down. The second
is to separate whales and vessels to the best of our
ability in space and time. So, one of the cornerstone programs we
have is a mandatory speed restriction in
seasonal management areas up and down on the east coast.
And in these areas vessels that are,
most vessels that are larger than 65 feet are
required to slow to speeds of 10 knots or less
when those zones are active. In addition to that, we also
have, we will declare what are called dynamic
management areas or right wheel "slow zones." When
groups or aggregations of right whales are detected,
in some cases visually in other cases acoustically,
outside of those seasonal management areas we will
request that mariners slow to 10 knots in those zones for 15 days.
When we know that there's been a group of right whales there again to try to
reduce that risk. We've also undertaken a number of
programs to both recommend vessel routes coming in
and out of certain ports. For example, off Florida and Georgia and also up in
the northeast off of Cape Cod. Also, in one case we've moved
shipping lanes so the Boston shipping lane approaches was modified slightly
again to take those shipping lanes, a little bit of
a change in direction so that they avoided a large
known whale foraging ground in that area. So we try to sort of tweak
lanes to make sure that vessels aren't overlapping with whales to the
same extent, as well as slow down vessels. But unfortunately, right whales can be
very difficult to sight. They don't have a dorsal fin, they can
be hard to see, and to take evasive action
on the part of a mariner, so it's a very challenging problem.
In addition, I think sometimes there's a perception that the
only vessels that can harm right whales
are really big tankers and cruise ships and container ships but
believe it or not, vessels of all sizes can cause mortalities and serious
injuries of right whales and are known to do so.
So, we really do stress to all mariners that
slowing down and keeping an eagle eye out for right
whales is the best thing you can do. Especially,
in the Southeast with all those mom calf pairs. Those calves are,
the moms are focused on nursing those calves, growing those calves,
and they're spending a lot of time at the surface. So for
Southeastern mariners it's particularly important for everyone to slow down.
- That's all really good information Caroline. Thank you for for sharing that
and sharing that reminder for anyone out there on a boat. Eric,
you also mentioned entanglement. What is
NOAA doing to reduce entanglements of right whales in fishing gear? - Yeah sure
Ben, so NOAA under the "Marine Mammal
Protection Act," I should say, there's a framework established for NOAA to work
with commercial fishermen as well as state officials, scientists,
researchers, a variety of group of folks that we
convene together under what's called a "take reduction
team." So the one that's focused on right whales among other large whales
that are off the east coast of the U.S. is called the "Atlantic Large Take Reduction
Team." What these folks do is they get
together and come up with recommendations to NOAA
to develop a plan that we could put in place as regulations. For example, to
require certain measures to reduce risk of entanglement to large whales,
including right whales. So really we rely on these folks to
come up with solutions that are going to work both for the commercial fishing
industry, but as well as protect right
whales. So we do have a plan in place that's been in place for a while
that protects right whales and there's numerous measures included in that plan
to protect them from entanglement risk. We are in the process of looking at that
plan and hopefully moving forward with updating that sometime
soon. We're currently reviewing those things right now internally
because we know that entanglements continue to be a risk for right whales.
But some of the measures that are included are things such as sinking
ground lines. So between traps, say particular types of fishing
gears there are ropes that attach them together in a string of line and
if those sink to the bottom they're at lower risk of entangling a right whale
as it swims by. We also have seasonal closures so
closing areas where right whales or other whales may be expected in high
abundance at certain times of the year. We can also reduce the strength of rope,
of ropes themselves which would allow a whale to break free if it gets entangled
hopefully without seriously injuring it or killing it.
We also work with engineers, fishing experts, and gear developers to
come up with new technological solutions that reduce the amount of rope in the
water column. So for example, what some folks term "ropeless fishing
gear" or gear that doesn't have a buoy to the surface that right whales can get
entangled in. So this is sort of a new emerging technology that we're
heavily investing and working with the community on.
I also mentioned that if all else fails and whales do get entangled, as we know
that they do, we also work with our stakeholders and
straining response partners across the coast
to disentangle animals when we can safely without
risking human life. So there's a whole lot of things that we do but it's
certainly a complicated issue.
- Well that's really encouraging to hear that there's a lot of groups that are
involved. Not only NOAA Fisheries, but local
governments and and state governments as well that are
working to protect the species. I'm sure both of you working and
studying these whales for so long have a better
appreciation of the intricacies and nuances of some of the individuals. So
Eric, I had a question for you. Kind of personal, do you have a
favorite right whale? That's a good question, Ben.
I actually don't and I'll tell you why.
I've tried to maintain this throughout my career as a marine mammal biologist.
I try really hard not to pick favorite animals if you will.
Partly because I feel like it allows me to take the emotion a little bit out
of it and be more objective as a scientist,
but it's just sort of something i've never really done.
I have pets, I love to to name my pets, and have favorite pets
but with animals in the wild, I for some reason, I've just never really
done that so I don't have one. - Oh and the same question to you Caroline,
do you have a favorite right whale? I do. I don't have Eric's resolve. I
I do pick favorites even though that is probably bad with wild
animals to do so. But one of my favorite
right whales was a female named 'Piper'. Yes they do have names.
All right whales that are are documented and catalogued by the New England
aquarium, get both a number and frequently a
name as well. Piper was a female that was first
spotted in the early 1990s and frequented a number of different areas.
Of that were, frequently covered by
Right whale researchers. She was photographed a lot, she was documented
over the course of her life, she had three calves,
and sadly was killed in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence in 2015. Piper also survived
two, at least two known entanglements. Both of which interestingly she got out
of on her own and she's in many
ways, indicative of the story of many right whales where
she was seen in many different habitats both in the United States and in Canada
over a number of years. Her calves were well documented,
but she did keep having these unfortunate interactions
with human activities and, ultimately even her death in
Canada, we're not sure what happened. We were
able to recover her carcass but to this day we're not sure what her final cause
of death was. It just shows you how difficult it is
even with these extremely well well-studied animals
to fully understand what's happened throughout their life, the stresses that
they have encountered, and ultimately
what happened to them in the end. - Wow! It sounds like Piper was quite a
fighter through all of her years. To wrap up
our conversation for today Caroline,
what are some things that the public can do
to help conserve right whales?
- The number one thing that folks can do especially,
in the Southeast during the winter time, if you are out on the water
and you're in your boat, please keep an
eye out for right whales. Slow down for them.
Even if you are out kayaking and other things
give them a wide berth. You these moms
are very protective of their calves, they're trying to
separate from other whales, and other activities so the best thing that
we can really do for them is to the best of our ability, leave
them alone. Definitely be careful with your
vessel speed. Slow down whenever possible. They are
much harder to sight for such a large animal. You'd be surprised
even on a clear day they could be hard to spot in advance.
Finally, please feel free to check out the NOAA websites and the
websites of a number of different partners
all along the coast including in the southeast.
If you start googling "right whale" I guarantee you'll find lots of
great information.
- For sure, I know that NOAA fisheries, is very invested in
this conservation of this species and
has plenty of resources available online. So that wraps up our discussion for
today. Caroline and Eric, thank you so much for
your time and walking us through some of the research behind North
Atlantic right whales. It's really a fascinating
world and I'm glad the two of you are working with teams
to help protect these species. I'm glad we got the best and brightest of
our nation doing that. To wrap up, I wanted to
open it up to any final comments from either Caroline or Eric before
we finally sign off.
- I just wanted to "thank you" Ben for the opportunity to come today and speak to
folks and answer some of the questions. Then as Caroline said, I just wanted
to reiterate that there's a lot more information
both on NOAA Fisheries, as well as our partners websites about the right whales.
Yeah that's it. - Yes, thank you so much Ben for having us
on and I just want to reiterate what truly extraordinary animals right whales
are and what an unbelievable effort is ongoing to
save and recover the species, both by folks within NOAA and state
partners, and research partners. There's just an
extraordinary coalition of folks working to improve
their status. - Well thank you both. For those at
home, if you're interested in learning more about
right whales, you can visit fisheries.noaa.gov.
If you're interested in learning more about the Gray's Reef National
Marine Sanctuary you can visit graysreef.noaa.gov
In addition to Caroline and Eric, I'd like to thank the organizers of Georgia
Whale Week. Gray's Reef has been doing this
for quite some time and we're glad to be able to contribute again this
year in a virtual setting. So with that,
thank you everyone and enjoy the rest of your days. [END]