On 25 June 2020 another baby Right Whale was found a few miles off the New Jersey coast to have bit the dust. The baby whale born earlier this year was killed by a ship running it over and breaking its back. When the body of the baby Right Whale was examined close-up, it was revealed that the whale had been struck by ships two separate times and it was the last one that killed it outright. This was one of ten calves born to the Right Whale species this year. Two of these calves are already dead from being hit by ships. The first one was killed in January when it was struck by a ship and the propeller tore its face in two.
These ten whale births in 2020 are not enough to even replace the adult whales just lost to natural mortality this year. The low birth rate of this whale species is the true cause of its imminent extinction It is not just these whales are being killed by entanglement in vertical buoy ropes or as here being run over by ship traffic that is leading to their species extinction. Extinction is truly defined as a “lack of births” which leads to no more animals left of a species. Since Right Whales by their biology must live and give birth in coastal bays and inlets of the United States, they get the full deadly impact of the exponentially growing industrialization of the marine environment within 100 miles of the United States coastline, an area which is now called the Urban Sea. In the Urban Sea they get trapped and entangled in the million plus VBR fishing gear deployed by the lobsterpot and gillnet fisheries. The Right Whales and their babies are run over by the ships entering and leaving coastal ports like the ones in Boston and New York City’s.
With the Right Whale now giving birth hardly at all, it is imperative that right now VBR is abolished from the Urban Sea to stop it’s killing any more of the Right Whales. Ruthlessly enforced speed limits on ships entering & leaving US ports must also be imposed. If ship captains violate these speed limits they need to be arrested and their ship seized in order to convince the industry to always obey the speed limits imposed to stop the killing of Right Whales in the Urban Sea of the United States.
Baby Right Whale corpse found floating off New Jersey coast June 25, 2020. The body examination showed cause of death as being struck by a sea vessel. There were also wounds to the head from a separate propeller injury the baby had earlier managed to survive.
