Northern Right Whales in Florida
Winter Issue Creature Feature

The grand sight of a whale splashing in the ocean is usually associated with Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Baja or the Northeast. But not Florida. Despite the Florida peninsula -- with 1,200 miles of coastline -- stretching far across the water toward the Caribbean Sea, few people seem to think of Florida and whales together.

Yet Florida's coastal waters are frequented by several species of whales. And the eastern shore is a special place for northern right whales, which come here almost exclusively to give birth, right now during the winter.

That's extraordinary, but it's even more so knowing that there are only about 300 northern right whales left. They are the most endangered large mammal in the world, by some accounts.

"In the world of natural history, one of the great phenomena is that right whales are having their calves right there off the coast of Florida," said Dr. Jim Hain, a whale expert at Associated Scientists at Woods Hole in Massachusetts. "And in fact, there's this remarkable event that's taking place right in Florida for this small population of endangered whales. Florida's a remarkable place with the manatees, springs, the Everglades -- and the right whales are right there and one of the interesting aspects of what Florida is really all about."

Hain should know. Although he's based in Massachusetts, his work also brings him to Florida in winter when the right whales arrive, to do aerial surveys of the whales and other research. In October 1997, he received a Coastal America Award for his research relating to reducing ship strikes on right whales on their wintering calving grounds -- usually the Atlantic shoreline from southern Georgia to central Florida.

Why Right Whales Are Endangered

Those ship strikes Hain and others studied are a major problem for the whales. Florida is well-versed in the problem of watercraft collisions with another endangered marine mammal, the manatee. But that extent of awareness isn't present (yet) for the right whale, which is even more endangered than the manatee and which faces the same kind of danger from humankind: collisions with ships. Many right whales die in ship strikes, accounting for 30% to 50% of right whale deaths. For their low population, this percentage is staggering.

And like the manatee, fishing gear entanglements are another problem for the right whale. But unlike the manatee, hunting is what reduced right whale numbers to near-extinction status.

In the last century, when whale products like baleen and blubber were in demand, right whales were a favorite. Hunters named the right whale; it was the "right" whale to hunt because it moves slowly, travels close to shore and floats when dead.

An international accord stopped the hunting of right whales in 1935. Scientists believe the right whale population slowly recovered after that, especially after being placed on the Endangered Species List in 1973.

However, recent studies show that things are looking worse for the right whale, which some researchers believe could be extinct within 200 years. The Marine Resources Council of East Florida (MRC) reports that 2001 was especially bad for ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements; last year, a record of 7 right whales, possibly 9, died. Food supply, climate and birth rate are also believed to have an effect on the right whale population.

The situation is something that concerns scientists, especially those who study right whales and work toward their recovery.

"Whenever a species is declining or in such terrible shape as right whales are, it is a message to us that something is wrong in our natural environment," said Barbara Zoodsma, senior wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GDNR) and chair of the Southeast U.S. Right Whale Recovery Plan Implementation Team. "It is our responsibility to care for the environment -- our natural heritage is one part of what makes the U.S. such a unique and great nation. Unfortunately, if we can't care for something as great as a large whale, what can we be counted on to be stewards of?"

Hain also speaks of stewardship when he talks about taking measures to help right whales.

"The thing I like to put forward is the whole idea of environmental stewardship," he said. "It's so important. The politicians and the scientists, there's a limit to what they can accomplish. But once you get the greater body of citizens involved, the critical mass increases dramatically."

That's just what happened when Hain implemented a program involving volunteer whale watchers.

Avoiding Ship Strikes: Volunteers to the Rescue

To understand how the volunteers are helping, it first helps to know about the Early Warning System. Involving several organizations and government agencies, this is a way to involve large ships in the right whales' critical habitat areas and let them know of the whales' whereabouts. Since 1999, ships that weigh 300 tons or more have been required to report when they enter the critical habitat areas off Florida and Georgia (in calving season) or Massachusetts (year-round). These areas are also busy shipping lanes near large ports that get a lot of traffic. In Florida, the U.S. Navy's Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility in Jacksonville sends an automated message to ships in the area with current information about right whale locations and how to avoid hitting the whales.

Jamie Smith, a marine research associate in the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Florida Marine Research Institute (FMRI), says the system has been successful.

"Since its inception, there haven't been any known mortalities due to ship collisions," in these critical habitat areas, he said. "It's a great system."

Volunteers come into this system by reporting a right whale's location so the Navy can update its right whale information. That sounds simple, but all volunteers go through training so they can learn to not only spot a shape in the distance as a whale, but also to be able to tell that it's a right whale.

While some volunteers report whale sightings whenever they happen to see one from the beach or from a condo, Hain's Marineland Volunteer Sighting Network -- a group of volunteers operating within the MRC -- last season began a daily system to watch for whales. Devoting entire mornings during whale season -- Dec. 1 through March 31 -- they staked out on beaches in northeastern Florida just to see if a right whale would swim by.

Volunteer Frank Gromling explained that the group of 70 operated from 5 sectors of 10 miles each laid out along Florida's northeastern coast, and volunteers scouted the shoreline within their respective sectors.

"In the 5 sectors, we had volunteers going to specific survey points within their sectors, stand and watch 15 minutes, then going to the next point, then go back, over a 4-hour period, from 8 to noon," Gromling said. "So we would have 2 to 4 people going from a starting point to survey points within their sector. So that system enabled us to have some really significant sightings."

Hain said the group spotted 11 whales last season using this system.

"At times, it's dull and boring," Hain said. "This last season, we went for 2 weeks without seeing a whale." But then, he said, "Sometimes we have whales 2 days in a row."

Gromling agrees, "There are some days it's flat-out cold, windy and very damp, standing on the coast. And yet [the volunteers] do it willingly with seeming excitement. These people just give their time energetically and do a tremendous job documenting what they're doing."

That documentation is the key to making volunteer sightings work.

"For many years, the ‘conventional wisdom' was that reports from volunteers were of low value," Hain said. "The observers were inexperienced, the information was considered unreliable, the information was incomplete, and there was rarely photo-documentation. In our program, we have addressed this and have demonstrated that with training, protocols and equipment, the volunteer data is (to a high percentage) credible, valuable, complete and photo-documented. We have day-to-day contact between the scientists and the volunteers. The volunteers have the idea there's a partnership there."

Gromling appreciates this point after having thrown himself into volunteering for 2 seasons.

"This group offers quality reports," Gromling said of the Marineland Volunteer Sighting Network. "Without them, there isn't a program. We are doing the real nitty-gritty research of going to the location, observing a whale, identifying the species. Then if it's a right whale, we watch it, track it, record the bearing, distance, GPS locations -- doing all the things that are necessary from a research database point. We prove it's a whale, it's a right whale, we confirm it and take pictures."

Gromling got so involved that he wrote a book about his experiences called Frank's Whales ($14.95). "The book is not technical; it's for the lay person, to get people interested," Gromling said. "I had never been a volunteer in a program like this before. I had always given money for things like this, but it's a lot more fun doing it yourself."

That's the kind of spirit anyone can appreciate, and they do, especially those who lead groups of volunteers like Julie Albert, the coordinator for the Northern Right Whale Monitoring Program at MRC, which operates from sponsorships like those given by Canaveral Port Authority and Brevard Zoo.

"If it weren't for them, all this work between the federal and state agencies wouldn't be happening," Albert said.

The MRC reports that last season, 400 people attended 11 volunteer training classes, giving MRC a total of 720 volunteers from Jacksonville to Boca Raton.

When one of those volunteers reports having seen a right whale, Albert is on the case.

"If there is a sighting, I will go out and confirm it before I report it to the Navy," she said. "We educate the public on how to identify the right whales and how to report them. Then we turn around and report it to the Navy."

When volunteers learn how to spot right whales, Albert said there 5 characteristics that they learn to look for that set right whales apart: a triangular tail, short flippers, a V-shaped spout, lack of a dorsal fin, and callosities, which are horny bumps around the head. Callosities are whitish because of the whale lice that dig into the whale's skin and live there without apparently harming the whales. These callosities are another key to helping right whales recover.

Identifying Harry Potter

"The white callosities are like human fingerprints," Hain said. "If you can get a good photograph, you can find out who that was . . . and you can say, ‘This is the 20th time we've seen this female, and this is her 4th calf, and last time we saw her, she was up in Canada.' A lot of what we know is from that database."

Hain is referring to the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalogue maintained by the New England Aquarium in Boston, Mass. With over 200,000 photographs of more than 400 whales going back to 1935, the catalog is an important tool for researchers. Each right whale that's photographed has a number and sometimes a name -- like Curly, Quasimodo and Harry Potter -- so scientists can track where whales go from season to season, how long they live, if the females give birth and more.

Many organizations use the catalog, such as FMRI's Right Whale Conservation Project. During right whale season, FMRI performs 30 to 40 aerial surveys lasting 6 hours to look for right whales that can be reported and photographed.

Netting Some Help

FMRI also helps when a whale is entangled in fishing gear off Florida's coast. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that 10% to 20% of right whales come into contact with fishing equipment each year.

In September, federal officials banned the nighttime use of straight gill nets during whale season from Savanna, Ga., to Sebastian Inlet in Florida. Florida law already prevents fishermen from using entanglement nets closer than 3 miles from shore, but whales may go beyond that zone. The new nighttime law will help, officials think, because gill nets are often left unattended at night.

Smith, involved in disentanglements, said FMRI takes an additional step when a right whale is entangled: tagging.

"We have a disentanglement equipment cache, and included in that is a satellite tag and a VHF tag," Smith said. This allows the whale to be tracked, but usually only for a short time, as many tags end up falling off. "We've had problems with the tags staying on," Smith said. "Researchers are working on that. We're looking at both implantable and suction-cup tags. But typically, suction cups haven't proven to stay on too long." The Navy has apparently experimented with implanted transmitters to track right whales.

Whether tagging or disentangling, these measures are just additional steps to protect right whales that depend on Florida's warm waters to repopulate their species.

"When a calf is born, they're susceptible to entanglements and ship collisions," Smith said. "They have difficulty submerging. They spend a lot of their time at the surface."

The Pains of Childbirth

Because young whales are usually near the surface, their mothers are, too. Both mothers with young, and pregnant females -- almost the only right whales that migrate to Florida during the winter -- move slowly, making them easy victims of ship strikes and entanglements.

Despite these dangers and a low birth rate, last season was an improvement with 31 calves born, according to MRC. Hopefully, this will be another good season for right whale calves.

"One of the things that I'm partly interested in: When you see these mothers and calves out there, why is it they come to the coastal waters of Florida?" Hain asked. "Why do they have their calves in Florida? There must be an advantage to why they're doing that. What is it about that Florida habitat that makes it advantageous to them?"

Whatever it is, it must be good because of what they have to go through to migrate to Florida. "They're fasting when they come down here," Albert said. "They have to swim 1,400 miles, give birth to a calf, they have to nurse that calf for a few months, then swim 1,400 miles back with no food."

Why don't they eat? Florida's waters don't have the whales' food source, copepods, which are tiny crustaceans that live in much colder waters, Smith said. Mature right whales eat 500,000 calories in copepods each day -- the equivalent of 223 pepperoni pizzas, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

"There's been no observation of feeding partly because the food source isn't here" in the Southeast, Smith explained. "Basically, if it's a good year, they eat a lot in the summer time up north in the cooler waters, and they pretty much get all plump and healthy, then they can live off their fat reserves."

That's why you probably won't see them breach out of the water in Florida; they don't have the energy for that kind of magnificent display, Albert said. Right whales do breach in their summer home, the colder waters around Massachusetts and Canada's Bay of Fundy, where they are known to cavort in social groups.

A Continuing Mystery

Near Canada's maritime provinces, Florida or in between, right whales live out their lives. The temperature dictates how far south pregnant right whales go along Florida's shore, Smith said. If it's a cold winter, they may go as far south as Vero Beach, where they have been spotted in the past. If it's a warm winter, they may not go farther than the St. Augustine area. But usually, the Cape Canaveral area is about as far as they go.

When the pregnant females are in Florida for calving -- along with the occasional juveniles, non-pregnant "helper" females and rare stray males -- no one really knows where the rest of the right whales are.

"During the winter, we can only account for 20% of them," Albert said. We don't know if they go out to sea, head somewhere else or what they do. The Bay of Fundy clears out in the winter. Since they're not seen, we don't know where they are. We just assume they go to deeper water."

Hain asked, "A given season might have somewhere between 30 and 50 whales off the coast of Florida. Where are the other 250?"

It's a mystery that researchers hope to solve, along with just how the pregnant females get to Florida, Zoodsma said.

"We also do not know the exact migration path the whales take between the southern wintering grounds and their northern spring, summer and fall grounds," she said.

Is it possible that when tracking devices are improved, the mystery will be solved? Could knowing where right whales go in winter provide a clue that will keep them from becoming extinct? Those who care about Earth's environmental health and those who have an affinity for these endangered whales hope the answers come soon. Although the right whales' situation is dire, we are on the right track.

"In some respects, Florida has been the model or example for mitigation efforts and protection efforts on the right whale," Hain said. "Florida, in a lot of ways, has successful programs."

Zoodsma stresses that success starts with you and me: "Each of us need to be asking ourselves: How important is it to us to conserve this species for future generations? We're in the proverbial 9th inning, there are 2 outs, and we have 2 strikes against us. As natural resource managers, we don't have a lot of options other than to step into the batter's box and take our best swing, and that's what we intend to do. Home crowd support will go a long way to helping us do that."

More Right Whale Information

To volunteer to spot right whales or to be trained in spotting right whales, please contact the Marine Resources Council of East Florida (321-504-4500). In the early part of whale season, MRC offers training in spotting right whales for those who spend time on Atlantic beaches in the winter.

If you're not usually on the Atlantic beach but want to help right whales, you can adopt one through the New England Aquarium (617-973-5200). For $35, you can sponsor field research on right whales and get a newsletter and other information. Also, Zoodsma suggests letting your elected officials know you are concerned about the welfare of right whales.

And if you spot what you think is a whale, please call 888-404-FWCC or 888-97WHALE. These hotlines are available during right whale calving season, roughly from November through March.

To keep up with whale sightings this season, periodically visit the Web site of the Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility for the U.S. Navy in Jacksonville, which fields all whale sightings in the Southeast during calving season.

Here is a list of other right-whale-related Web sites of interest: