Conservationists fight to save Northern Atlantic right whales from extinction

It's estimated there are fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales remaining. They're dying faster than they can reproduce, and it's largely due to human causes. With so few of the whales left, experts are closely monitoring for new offspring, and as science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports, working to keep this whale from extinction. It was a perfect April morning when we steamed out of Provincetown Harbor in Massachusetts. Cape Cod Bay was glassy as a lake, the visibility unlimited. The right kind of day. Now if we find whales. I assume you're going to say when we find whales. We're always going fishing. This is a fishing trip. Marine biologist Charles Stormy Mayo has been looking for right whales for the better part of 40 years. He is co-founder of the Center for Coastal Studies, a nonprofit committed to saving the whales. I've been on hundreds of cruises. When the first right whale shows up, it's still pretty special. These are very odd creatures, and they live a mysterious, but from a human point of view, a very odd life. It was not long before we hit paywaters. We're seeing at least one individual right up here, like 290 degrees. Soon, there were feeding or skimming North Atlantic right whales all around us. Wow, there's a whole patch of them. There's like a whole bunch, like at least four. About two dozen in all. Is that calf trying to skim? It's got its head out of water. A rare thrill in every sense. North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered. Scientists believe there are fewer than 350 individuals remaining. The future of right whales is dire, and it's dire because the very simple arithmetic of the right whale's population is bad. The mortality rate is outstripping the birth rate. The arrow points to zero. The whales migrate along the North American east coast between Canada and Florida. Humans have made this an increasingly perilous gauntlet. Ship strikes and entanglement with fishing gear are the leading causes of death. Stormy Mayo's team is part of a multifaceted effort to document this demise in hopes that it can be stemmed. Runway 32, clear for takeoff. Clear for takeoff, runway 32. An aircraft chartered by New England aquarium scientists flies 50 missions a year to help track the whales. The humpbacks were at like the northern end of the line, and then the right whales were further out. The aquarium is curator of an extraordinary photographic catalog of right whales dating back more than 80 years. It's a collaboration with researchers at various institutions that aim to collect every photograph taken of a North Atlantic right whale. Let's see, probably Fremata and Padiddle to start with. Whale biologist Philip Hamilton is a senior research scientist at the aquarium. Individual whales are identifiable by experts able to recognize the unique patterns created by lice that live on the whales' heads and behind their blowholes. You've been doing this for a number of years. Can you spot individuals by sight pretty well? Yeah, yeah. It's that obvious in some cases. I realized at one point I probably recognized more whales on site than I did people. Over time, the images and the scars tell a grim forensic story. Once we realized that we were seeing this pattern of scarring from entanglements, and that has been an incredible wealth of information, able to track when and where right whales are becoming entangled. The whales move unpredictably. This season, they gathered in Cape Cod Bay. About half of the known population were here. It turns out the place was brimming with their favorite food, a tiny shrimp-like plankton, a copepod called Callinus finmarchicus. It looks like cinnamon applesauce. Research associate Kristi Hudak gathers plankton samples in the wake of whales to see exactly what they are eating, how much, and at what depth. How does something so big subsist on something so small? That is the ultimate question. Back in the lab in Provincetown, she carefully counts the plankton to determine their density and identify exactly what species the whales are favoring. So at this time of the year, at least, Cape Cod Bay is the ultimate right whale buffet. It looks like it is. The plankton that we collected today is an example. It's unbelievably rich. And these animals are consuming at very high levels. Back of the envelope calculation is they may be taking over 125 pounds of plankton an hour. Unfortunately, their essential pursuit of plankton has led them to troubled waters. Cape Cod Bay is part of one of the fastest-warming ocean regions on the planet, the Gulf of Maine, and so the plankton picture is changing here. It may be the reason the whales began altering their migration patterns in 2015, sending them into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Scientists were caught off guard. And before they could suggest regulations to protect the whales in their new feeding area, a dozen were killed by ship strikes and entanglements with fishing gear. This triggered an unusual mortality event. Researchers have documented 36 right whale deaths and 62 injuries since 2017. We have had several times of big mortalities of whales because they were entering an area where the managers had no idea that right whales were there. But they came in probably searching for food in a changing environment. Given the onslaught they already face, climate could be the final straw. Climate could be the final straw for all of us. There are solutions. Ships can be rerouted or forced to slow down. And there is technology that makes it possible for fishermen to do their jobs without leaving vertical lines dangling in the water. But this has put the desperate effort to save the whales on a collision course with one of the most lucrative fisheries in the world, Maine lobsters. More on that soon when we continue our voyage. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Miles O'Brien on Cape Cod Bay. And on the PBS NewsHour online, something to