Good news for this population of endangered right whales… but these births also shed light on the rarefaction of births among right whales, stressed, disturbed or even injured due to various human activities.
Caterpillar's very first baby
This is good news for the whale population in Florida: as reported by the Research Institute of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), biologists have spotted two well-known females in the area, Caterpillar and Blackheart, swimming with a calf, in the waters of southeast Florida.
According to the Institute, this is the very first baby for Caterpillar and the second for Blackheart. According to the data available to specialists, Blackheart's very first calf was born 12 years ago! These are North Atlantic right whales.
According to the Whales Live website, they migrate along the East Coast of the United States from October to April, and Florida is even a “winter calving” area for pregnant females.
Female whales give birth every seven to ten years on average
According to the government agency (NOAA), although these births are good news, they show that right whales, an endangered species, are giving birth much less often than in the past. A conclusion that weighs on conservation efforts.
“Three years is considered a normal or healthy interval between right whale births. But today, females have calves every seven to ten years on average.”, explains the government agency, as relayed by Phys.org.
Caterpillar could have given birth before if only…
NOAA specifies that scientists believe that this decline in births is linked to collisions with boats, to their entanglement in fishing gear, in short to stress linked to human activities.
In the case of Caterpillar, the female who recently gave birth to her first calf, she has been of age to give birth for years, according to specialists. However, she was hit by a ship and this may have prevented her from conceiving for a while.
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