A Tortuous Death

A young North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) died off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in August.  The fact that only about 450 of these intelligent whales remain;  every unnatural loss is a tragedy for the species.  Estimates of his age are 1 1/2 years old, only one of five calves born from 2006 to 2017. Sseventeen right whales were lost during that period, enough to classify them as an unusual mortality event by NOAA.  Ship collisions have been a major source of deaths; busy shipping lanes run straight through their feeding grounds.  The agency has asked ships to slow down transiting whale areas.  Scientists surmise the young whale died of entanglement.

For a mammal evolved to live its life in the ocean, drowning is about the most painful death it can experience, as some researcher's have commented, drowning is "a kind of torture".  Perhaps not as bad postmortem disembowelment, but it is right up there on the scale of bad ends.  Named the "right whale" because it floated to the surface after being harpooned to death, the species recovery has been hampered by a slow reproduction rate. Recent research postulates that persistent drag of entanglements in fishing gear-- which ensnares more than 80 percent of North Atlantic right whales at some point in their lifetimes--is hampering females from putting on weight and carrying their calves to term. A consortium of conservationists and fishers are working to develop new gear that is whale friendly.  Progress is slow, and the right whale cannot wait any longer for man to take steps to avoid extinguishing another fellow inhabitant.