Collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear are among the biggest threats to the North Atlantic right whale. /
North Atlantic right whales will soon pass by Space Coast beaches on their yearly migration to South Florida to give birth to the next generation of the endangered species.
And you can help protect them.
The Marine Resources Council, based in Palm Bay, will hold a series of classes to teach novices how to identify right whales. Volunteers then call in right whale sightings throughout the calving season to a hot line that alerts nearby vessels that whales are in the area.
“The more calls, the better,” said Julie Albert, the council’s right whale program coordinator. “We need all the help we can get.”
Unique this year is that one of the classes — this Saturday — will be on a boat that will tour Port Canaveral harbor. Cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and younger. The other local classes are free.
Right whales are among the most endangered marine mammals in the world, with about 400 remaining.
Early whalers gave them their name because they were the “right” whales to kill. They swim slowly and close to shore and float when dead, making them easy to hunt. They yielded large amounts of oil and baleen — an elastic substance once used in buggy whips and women’s corsets.
Collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear are among the biggest threats to the species.
Last year around Christmas, biologists intercepted a 30-foot long, 7.5-ton right whale and removed 150 feet of line — suspected to be from fishing gear — from the whale as it swam near Daytona Beach.
They removed the rest of the line a few weeks later, sedating the animal as it swam near Cape Canaveral.
The January rescue off Brevard was only the second time scientists had been able to perform such a feat: sedating a whale at sea to remove fishing gear.
In February, however, the whale was found dead about 28 miles southeast of St. Augustine during an aerial survey for the whales. The sedation was not thought to be a factor in the whale’s death.
In October, conservation groups filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in Massachusetts to hold the National Marine Fisheries Service accountable for allowing four federal fisheries to injure and kill endangered whales, including the right whale.
“Every single right whale counts when it comes to ensuring the species’ survival, but the Fisheries Service continues to place whales at risk of injury and death,” Sharon Young, marine issues field director for The Humane Society of the United States, said in a prepared statement.