It sounds like a crime show episode at sea: In late January 2024, federal regulators learned that a dead female North Atlantic right whale had been sighted near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The whale was towed to shore, where more than 20 U.S. and Canadian scientists converged to perform a necropsy, or animal autopsy.
On Feb. 14, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the whale was #5120 in a catalogue that tracks individual right whales. Further, the agency said, rope that had been deeply embedded in the whale’s tail had likely come from lobster fishing gear in Maine.
Entanglement in fishing gear is a deadly threat to these critically endangered animals. Scientists estimate that before commercial whaling scaled up in the 18th and 19th centuries, there may have been as many as 10,000 North Atlantic right whales. Today, fewer than 360 individuals remain. Almost 90% of them have been entangled at least once.
