50x07 - Saving the Right Whale

[bunniefuu]

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: It's one of
the largest animals on Earth,

able to swim 50
miles in a single day

and dive to depths of 600 feet.

CHRISTY: Oh, my goodness!

All right, stop right here,
there's one right next to us.

CHARLES MAYO: He's
right, right here, under the bow.

[Christy laughing]

MAYO: There he is!
CHRISTY: Holy shenanigans!

NARRATOR: A great whale
virtually free from predators.

And yet, in ten years,


has disappeared.

MAYO: They're dealing
with an ecosystem that is

very hard to figure out.

NARRATOR: With a life
expectancy of 70 years,

not a single adult is known
to have died of natural causes

in more than a decade.

MOIRA BROWN: Oh, yeah,
it's really got a lot of red on its tail.

Lines in front of the blowholes,

behind the blowholes, two more.

NARRATOR: Now
scientists are racing

to try to understand
these giants

and help them survive.

MAYO: We have a very
limited view on right whales.

BROWN [on radio]: 11:00,
the whale did a backflip.

MARTIN NOËL: Oh, belly
up, that whale is having fun.

MAYO: I view them as a mystery.

They're rife with questions...

[blows out]

and the answers are hard-won.

NARRATOR: "Saving
the Right Whale."

Right now, on "NOVA."

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Every fall,
pregnant North Atlantic right whales

leave their northern
feeding grounds

and swim 1,300 miles
south to the warm waters

off South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida to give birth.

This is the only
known calving area

for North Atlantic right whales.

Between December and March,

the next generation
of calves is born.

But from 2009 to 2018,
the number of births per year

dropped dramatically,
from 39 to zero.

Scientists want to know
why and what it would take

to turn those birth
numbers around.

Barb Zoodsma coordinates
NOAA's right whale

recovery program
in the Southeast.

In February 2020,
she heads out to look

for new calves with
biologist Tom Pitchford.

WOMAN [on radio]: Harvey,
Orion mostly at the surface

and traveling in the
northwest direction slowly, over.

Perfect, we're all set,
thank you very much.

ZOODSMA: The plane
just radioed us, and they said

there's a Alpha
Charlie over here,

and that's code for
an adult and calf.

As a protection measure,
we're kind of cryptic on the radios.

Katie, will you let me know
when you have eyes on 'em?

KATIE JACKSON:
Will do! Thank you.

The right whale count of calves
born thus far in the Southeast,

and that's all the Southeast
United States, is at ten.

It's better than
the seven last year,

and two years ago,
when there was zero.

It's nowhere near enough
to get the population moving

in a positive direction.

Our average calving
interval was three to five years

for a long time, and
what we've been seeing

since 2010 is that just creep
up and up and up and up.

And so we're into the
seven-, eight-, nine-,

ten-year calving interval
for a lot of females.

All right, I'm moving
in a little bit slower.

♪ ♪

ZOODSMA: Look how smooth it is.

These calves are
very weak swimmers

when they're first born,

and so these are
real good conditions

for the calves to
learn how to swim.

When they leave here, they
have hundreds of miles to swim.

They're gonna need
a really strong bond

to make it there together.

NARRATOR: The whales can't stay
in these calm, warm waters for long.

The mothers need to
eat huge quantities of food

in the spring and
summer to survive,

and so by March,
the pairs head north

to the plankton-rich waters
off New England and Canada.

The calves will nurse
for at least ten months

and more than double in size
before they learn to find food.

Most calves stay with their
mothers for about 12 months

before venturing
out on their own.

♪ ♪

PITCHFORD: In
Florida, we work closely

with groups of
citizen scientists

who are extending the
reach of our airplane

by going to the beach

and scanning the
ocean for right whales,

and it can be a huge help.

NARRATOR: This is Lily
Pinkham's first year volunteering

with the Marineland
Right Whale Project.

PINKHAM: The first
thing I saw was a spout.

As time went on, and I started
pointing it out to everybody,

it started putting its
flippers up, and then we saw

that there were two spouts,

and we were able to
identify it as a right whale

because of the V-shaped blow.

That was a good,
that was a big one.

WOMAN: But the first
sighting, that was all

due to Lily.

The first sighting, that
was due to our team,

yeah, that's right. [chuckles]

NARRATOR: The first calf
sighted in the 2020 season was born

to a 15-year-old
first-time mother.

This is female 3560,

named Snow Cone, with her baby.

We won't be able to
identify this calf just based on

what callosities we
see now. Uh-huh, right.

But they darted, they darted
this calf, too, so they have,

they have DNA which
will help identify him later.

And look, the
calf's upside down.

You see both the
pectoral fins. Yes.

WOMAN: Oh, my
gosh! [others laughing]

NARRATOR: As
right whales mature,

roughened patches of skin, like
callouses, form on their heads.

This pattern is unique,
like a fingerprint,

and helps scientists
identify and keep track

of individual whales
over the years.

ELLIS: She's now
been seen off Miami

and possibly the Keys.
[others exclaiming]

They're trying to
confirm that, so...

WOMAN: This
year? Yeah, right now!

Right now.

But generally, it's just
unusual behavior for them,

for any of the right whales
to go south of Canaveral,

so 3560 is going to keep
us guessing for a while.

WOMAN: Yeah.

ELLIS: And so the question is,
will she turn around and come back

or will she go into
the Gulf of Mexico?

WOMAN: Right.

NARRATOR: Right whales
have roamed the North Atlantic

for millions of years.

Marine biologists
estimate that before

commercial whaling took
off in the 16th century,

right whales numbered
in the thousands.

From 2012 to 2022,

the population is estimated
to have fallen from 471

to 336, and the North
Atlantic right whale

is considered
critically endangered.

Now marine scientists
and conservationists

are tracking the whales
over their 1,300-mile

annual migration on
a quest to understand

what's happening to the whales
and what they need to survive.

So apparently, there's
one right whale out here,

maybe two,

based on what the sightings are.

NARRATOR: Nick Hawkins
is a wildlife photographer

on a mission to
document the lives

of the North
Atlantic right whales.

He wants to raise
awareness of the animal

and its plight.

[water spouting in distance]

Hear that? Yeah, right there.

Yeah, that's him.

It's got to be, we'll
get a good shot here.

No one's around,
and... [engine revving]

HAWKINS: Most people don't
see a North Atlantic right whale

for the first time as their
first whale, but I actually did.

When I was maybe eight,

my parents and my grandparents
brought me to an island

in the Bay of Fundy
called Grand Manan.

And we were surrounded by,

like, 40 right whales, you
know, surface-active groups,

and at the time,
I was just, like...

NARRATOR: Very few
great whales behave like this,

frolicking together at the
surface in large groups.

It's a key part of mating,

as males vie for the attention
of usually a lone female.

At 50 tons and 50 feet long,

this competitive
behavior ensures

only the healthiest
whales reproduce.

But since the 1980s,

the average size of a
North Atlantic right whale

has decreased by three feet.

HAWKINS: The Bay of
Fundy was the feeding ground.

Two-thirds of the population
was coming to the Bay of Fundy

every summer and feeding.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The Bay of
Fundy is a northeastern branch

of the Gulf of Maine.

In 2015,

scientists discovered the
whales were abandoning the bay,

and many were going
about 200 miles farther north

to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Marine biologists
believed the whales

were traveling farther
north in search of food.

No one knew whether
the whales' changing habits

would be permanent or temporary.

But the impact was clear.

REPORTER: One, then
two, then six dead whales,

and the death
count hasn't stopped.

REPORTER: With only
hundreds left in existence,

they've suffered
a terrible blow.

REPORTER: "Unprecedented."

That's how scientists describe
this summer's death toll

of 12 North
Atlantic right whales

in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence alone.

HAWKINS: We have
this critically endangered

whale species right
off the eastern seaboard

of the United States and Canada,

and, like, barely
anybody knows about it.

And they're dying at a
rate that's greater than

the entire species'
reproduction.

NARRATOR: In 2017,
scientists documented the deaths

of 17 North
Atlantic right whales,


and five off the U.S. coast...

Nearly four percent of
the population at the time.

The two known causes of death

were vessel strikes and
entanglement in fishing gear.

As the population declines,

whale biologists are focusing
on another critical feeding ground

where things are changing,

trying to figure out why
more and more right whales

are coming here each year.

♪ ♪

Ecologist Charles Mayo has
been studying right whales

in Cape Cod Bay, off the
coast of Massachusetts,

for more than 30 years.

MAYO: He's right
here, he's right here.

We're out of gear.

CHRISTY: Oh, my goodness!

All right, stop right here,
there's one right next to us.

MAYO: He's right, right
here, under the bow.

[Christy laughing]
MAYO: There he is.

CHRISTY: Holy shenanigans!

♪ ♪

Whew!

MAYO: We're seeing five here,

and we probably have


in little groups,

feeding groups.

It's pretty special.

Let me tell you something,
there's a lot of power in that.

CHRISTY: Pec slapping!

That's gorgeous.

MAYO: Look at that mouth open.

God knows... His
mouth is wide open.

Whoa!

NARRATOR: Right whales are
baleen whales that filter plankton,

microorganisms adrift
in the ocean currents.

Healthy adults consume
over 1,000 pounds

of plankton each day during
the spring and summer.

This helps the females build
up a one-foot-thick blubber layer,

giving them enough energy
to survive long migrations

and nurse calves.

[calling]: Christy?
CHRISTY [faintly]: Yeah?

Yeah, I think we
ought to take an in-path.

Up a little bit.

So we turn that...

And that goes over.

All right, clearing.

One meter!

[switch clicks, motor whirring]

Okay, down one meter.

♪ ♪

[switch clicks, motor stops]

MAYO: We're in the
path that the animal had

been swimming, pumping water

from various depths,

collecting plankton
that's coming in.

CHRISTY: Yep,
definitely not much there.

NARRATOR: Today, Mayo's
team is sampling the water,

trying to determine the
quality and quantity of plankton

the whales are
foraging in the bay.

MAYO: So we're trying
to look for layers of food

to in part explain

why the whale is
doing what it's doing,

which is feeding right
close to the surface.

CHRISTY: Two meters!

MAYO: And at the same
time, we're collecting

information from an electronic
gadget that is recording

salinity, temperature,
light penetration,

density of chlorophyll
in the water.

♪ ♪

We're trying to figure out
what these whales need

out of this really
critical ecosystem.

Early on, maybe a quarter

of the population
would come here.

But in the recent
years, maybe 60%,


in this little tiny bay...

It's a tiny place.

That means that
those whales have left

somewhere where they used to go,

and is that because the
offshore areas are failing?

NARRATOR: Marine scientists
have been trying to figure out

why the whales are
changing their habits

and abandoning
the old feeding areas.

♪ ♪

The theory is that
rising water temperatures

are shifting ocean currents
and the locations of plankton,

forcing right whales
outside their normal range

in search of food.

Mayo thinks this is what could
be spurring more right whales

to converge on Cape Cod Bay,

one of the few remaining
plankton-rich areas

along the Atlantic Coast.

Over the last decade,

as the whales have shifted
their migration routes,

they've been exposed
to increased danger.

BROWN: In 2017,

we had the worst mortality
event since we've been

studying this species
in the last 40 years.

NARRATOR: In 2019, the
carcass of a female right whale

known as Punctuation
was found floating

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Scientists think she
was about 38 years old.

Her body was towed to shore

so scientists could try to
determine cause of death.

HAWKINS: It's
a pretty sad sight.

So those are previous
entanglement scars.

Yeah. That white there.

Previous boat strike scar here.

♪ ♪

TONYA WIMMER: This
is really important work.

Everyone knows it all too
well, I think, in Canada now.

So she is a very, very,

very large and exceptionally
well-known animal.

At this point, we do not
know what k*lled this animal.

That is the point
of this entire thing.

There will be a lot of
things discussed here,

especially with these guys.

The information doesn't
go beyond here yet.

It is very important
they get the full,

complete time to
think about everything.

WIMMER: There's
already a lot of speculation,

but at this point,
we don't know.

♪ ♪

HAWKINS: This whale had a
significant wound on its back.

It certainly indicates
being hit by, by a large,

large object.

So just will come down
to the necropsy results.

You know, it's like...

HAWKINS: I mean, this is
certainly not the way I want

to cover right whales, but
it's part of the story, you know?

People need to see it.

I hope I can cover this
and, and do justice for her,

and, and this
whale, and its life.

♪ ♪

Yeah.

Aw, [bleep].

NARRATOR: The necropsy concluded

Punctuation was likely
k*lled by a vessel strike.

She was one of ten right whales
known to have died in 2019.

In 2020, Canada expanded
the ten-knot speed restriction

for ship traffic in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence

in an effort to reduce the
risk of collisions with whales.

♪ ♪

Any time at the surface
puts right whales at risk

of being hit by a vessel.

♪ ♪

When they get together
near the surface,

bumping and splashing,
it's not just for mating.

Whale biologists believe
this frolicking behavior

may also serve an important role

in general social bonding
and even be a form of play.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[seagulls squawking]

NOËL [speaking French]:

MAN [on radio]: Oh, yes!
Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes.

NOËL: My grandfather
was a cod fisherman,

and then they turned
out to fish snow crab.

Then my father
was next in the line,

and then me and my brother
now are having the family business.

I have to say that I wish
to not see too many whales,

because it means where I fish,

it will surely close
in, in, no long.

NARRATOR: Based on the scarring

scientists have
photographed on North Atlantic

right whales, they estimate
that 87% have been entangled

in fishing gear.

The vertical ropes that
connect fishing nets and

crab and lobster
traps to surface buoys

can become wrapped around
whale fins, tails, and heads,

and even get ensnared in baleen
when the whales are feeding.

[motor whirring]

NOËL: Once you
have a vertical line

and a whale in the same area...

[motor whirring]

well, there's a risk.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In an effort
to reduce entanglements,

in 2018, Canada started closing

fishing areas when right
whales were spotted.

In some U.S. waters,
including Cape Cod Bay

and the southern
calving grounds,

all trap fishing has
been suspended

during the right
whale migration.

[motor whirring]

NOËL: When they
see a right whale,

they are closing an area,
not only the area where

the right whale is seen,
but a really large area.

So in mid-May,

maybe there was only eight
or nine whales in the gulf,

pushing fishermen out of these
spaces where fishing was good

to go where others
fishermen are.

With that, it was creating
a higher density of pots

in the same area
and lower catches,

so it was affecting
fishermen a lot.

NARRATOR: In 2020, the crab
and lobster catch in Atlantic Canada

and the U.S. was
valued at $1.6 billion.

In many communities
along the Atlantic coast,

crab and lobster fisheries
are the biggest employer.

While the fishing industry
is aware of right whales,

much of the public
has never seen one,

and even fewer have
seen a mother with a calf.

♪ ♪

After surprising scientists
by heading south to Miami,

right whale mother
Snow Cone and her calf

were spotted in
the Gulf of Mexico,

off the coast of
Venice, Florida.

PITCHFORD: We didn't
hear how 3560 and calf

got into the Gulf of Mexico.

You know, whales follow
these depth contours,

and you can, might imagine
them following the depth contour

into the Florida Keys

and eventually into the deeper
water of the Gulf of Mexico.

NARRATOR: Snow Cone and her
calf were only the third mom-calf pair

known to have traveled
into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here, boaters aren't used
to seeing right whales.

And they likely don't know
it's ill*gal to approach them

within 500 yards.

ERIC WHITE: I'm a charter
captain here in Venice, Florida.

I was going to put my
bait traps out for a charter

that I had the following day,

and I hear, hear
the guys on the radio

talking about a big whale.

So we shot over
there real quick,

and sure enough,
it was a, a whale.

[chuckles]: Pretty big.

Just like you see on TV.

You know, the big...
[imitates exhalation]

blow of air.

[whale exhales]

And they came right up to
me, and checked the boat out,

and the calf was kind of
chilling and hanging out.

[woman laughs]

WHITE [in video]: She's
checking the boat out.

WHITE: As she
turned broadside to us...

[in video]: Oh, my God!

Bow to stern, bro,
that thing's over 40 foot!

WHITE: and you
could see, I mean,

you could definitely
see the eye.

You could see, like, her
mouth and everything.

[exhales]

BLAKE HALL: Me and
my son and a friend of mine,

we went out looking for
dolphin, or mahi-mahi and wahoo.

I had heard that there were
some whales in the area,

but the odds of running
into those two whales

were just so slim, I never
expected that to happen.

[laughs]: It's like winning
the lottery, you know?

How lucky are we, guys?

Fishing trip's so worth it.

I don't care if we catch
anything or not. [man laughing]

HALL: I've seen some

pretty amazing things, but
that one probably tops the list.

♪ ♪

WHITE: A lot of guys who've
been doing this, you know,



have never seen
anything like that in the gulf.

HALL: Mother and her calf
in such beautiful conditions,

and to have my son
with me, it was majestic.

♪ ♪

He'll never, ever forget
that, and neither will I.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Before
commercial whaling,

when North Atlantic right whales

likely numbered
in the thousands,

they thrived on both
sides of the North Atlantic.

After centuries
of whale hunting,

the eastern Atlantic population
is thought to be extinct.

Rare sightings of
right whale adults

off Europe's coastline
are always traced back

to its western population.

But in December 2020,

a newborn calf was seen off
the northwest coast of Africa,

about 300 miles from a
historical calving ground.

Is it possible that right
whales are returning

to this birthplace
from centuries past?

PITCHFORD: A video
emerged of it in very clear water,

North Atlantic right whale
in the Canary Islands,

swimming by itself, you know,
and, and they're following it.

Clear water, good conditions
to see these features

that would tell us that
it's a very young whale.

♪ ♪

JACKSON: The
callosity that we could see

and the size of the animal

all seemed like a young animal

in the early weeks.

Calves are not identifiable,

especially when
they're that young.

Even if that calf's mother
was nearby somewhere

and the both of them
come back over here,

the chances of us being
able to match it are pretty slim.

NARRATOR: Why the
mother gave birth here,

so far from the only
current calving ground,

remains a mystery.

♪ ♪

Back on the North
American side of the Atlantic,

scientists have been trying
to figure out why right whales

are returning here, to
the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

each summer,

instead of their old feeding
ground in the Bay of Fundy,



The answer could be key
to understanding the impacts

of climate change
on marine life.

Moira Brown is a leading
right whale scientist.

Oh, I hate it when the
whales don't get the memo.

Yeah, coming up on seven.

We've seen quite a lot of whales
on about a six-minute dive time,

so we were optimistic this
whale would do the same, but...

WOMAN: Whale's up!

Whale's up.

BROWN: Okay.

WOMAN: I shot it.

BROWN: Shot it!

Keep going, keep going.

♪ ♪

Head's up, about to fluke.

Fluke.

NARRATOR: Since 2018, Martin
Noël has accompanied the scientists

on their research trips in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

chartering his boat after the
close of the snow crab season.

BROWN [on radio]: 11:00, the
whale did a backflip. [murmuring]

Coming out of the water
backwards. Oh, there's a...

Belly up. BROWN [on radio]:
You could see the flippers.

NOËL: Flippers... that
whale is having fun.

NOËL: Doing the
survey with the scientists,

you get to be curious
about which one it is,

and it's interesting.

BROWN [on radio]: Okay,
we're going to stop here.

Copy that.

There seems to be a lot
of whales in the area here,

but there's, it's only a third
of the population that's here,

not all of it.

It's, maybe, they
see 140 individuals.

The right whale has such a
major impact on our fishery

that I think that there's
no way other than

learning a lot about it to
maybe help the situation.

♪ ♪

Crane down!

NARRATOR: Biological
oceanographer Kim Davies

is the chief scientist
on this voyage.

She studies foraging hotspots,
the plankton-rich zones

that sustain
virtually all ocean life.

DAVIES: The thing about
right whales that's so strange,

they move around
a lot in the ocean,

and yet they seem to
predictably return to the same area

every year once they
have discovered it,

so there is some
level of predictability.

The North Atlantic right
whale feeds on a rice-sized

piece of fat-rich
zooplankton called a copepod.

When we used to do these
studies in the Bay of Fundy,

we'd be coming up with
our nets absolutely full.

Here we're missing something.

NARRATOR: So far,
even though the whales

are visiting the
Gulf of St. Lawrence

during the feeding season,
scientists have been unable

to find the high concentrations
of copepods that the whales

used to feed on
in the Bay of Fundy

and the Gulf of Maine.

DAVIES: Here we are
in an area that's clearly

important to them for foraging,
but we don't really have

a very good sense yet of
what they're actually eating.

NARRATOR: When their
favorite food source is scarce,

right whales have been known
to switch to a different prey

and eat less nourishing
species of plankton to survive.

For the first time, Davies
and her team are equipped

with a sounding device that
will allow them to detect prey

within three feet
of the sea floor,

where they suspect the
right whales are feeding.

[motor whirring]

MAN: Crane out.

Crane left.

DAVIES: These questions
are really, really important

to get answers to...

MAN: Crane down.

DAVIES: because
the right whales are here.

This area is important to
them and we want to know why.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: After sampling
several more locations,

Davies and her team
discover that the right whale's

preferred prey, a
species of copepod,

is concentrated
near the sea floor.

Whether there are
enough copepods

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to
sustain right whales is unknown.

Studies of other whale
species have shown that

healthy populations can
adapt to changing food supplies

and increase their birthrates

after a few low
reproductive years.

But the right whale
population has not rebounded

since its calf count
started to decline in 2010.

♪ ♪

MICHAEL MOORE: I thought
back to animal husbandry 101,

which, as dairy
farmers know full well,

that if you don't feed the cow,
she's not going to get pregnant.

One of the ways that
you assess the fitness

of a cow to get pregnant
is to look at its body fat.

NARRATOR: Michael Moore
is a whale trauma expert

at Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts.

His 2020 study shows that

North Atlantic
right whale mothers

on average weigh 21%
less than their close relative

the southern right whale.

MOORE: Photogrammetry
has been around for a long time.

The science and the physics
of it is very clearly worked out.

A flat image, the
camera's horizontal level,

and you have an accurate
measurement of the altitude,

and with that, you do the math.

[camera clicks]

That gives you a good
chance of estimating

the volume of the animal,
and hence its body condition.

[camera clicks]

If you look at
them from the side,

you can see these dips
and hollows behind the neck,

where they've
lost that roll of fat

that the southern
right whales have,

what we call the neck roll.

You know, I spent
time working on

southern right whales in 1997.

They're fit, fat, and happy.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The southern right whales
tend to be clean, unscarred,

and just beautiful animals.

The reason why North
Atlantic right whales

have a body condition
deficit is twofold.

The basis of it, for sure, is,
they need more food to eat.

And with climate change,
there's been a wholesale change

in the availability of the food,

but the second side of it is the
energetic costs of entanglement.

♪ ♪

If the cost of moving
through the water

has been increased by the
rope that you're dragging around,

that's going to be a
significant problem.

It takes, on average, six
months for a right whale

to succumb to
chronic entanglement.

♪ ♪

They're alive, in
pain, for six months.

Those guys are tough mothers.

They really are.

Give nature a chance
and it will come right back.

That's what we're asking for,

is to give the right
whale a chance

to show what it's made of.

NARRATOR: Three months after
Snow Cone and her calf were seen

by boaters in the
Gulf of Mexico,

the calf's body was spotted

floating off the
coast of New Jersey.

♪ ♪

Veterinarian Sarah
Sharp was brought in

to determine cause of death.

SHARP: Unfortunately, a
lot of the necropsies I've done

have, have been really young
animals, two years or less.

♪ ♪

And all of those animals have
been human-impact deaths.

But I think, I think
that 3560's calf

was the youngest of
those that I had necropsied.

About five or six months
at that point, yeah.

Young... little baby.

♪ ♪

ELLIS: When I read the news
that Snow Cone's calf had died,

I mean, I actually cried.

It was like losing a friend,
and now it's sort of hard

to look at the
video from last year

and the pictures of last year.

It felt like losing a friend...
It was really, really sad.

♪ ♪

The whale had been hit once,

was injured, starting to heal,

and then the next,
fatal blow came.

NARRATOR: Snow Cone's calf
was hit twice over several weeks.

The first collision left
propeller chop wounds

from the tip of his
nose to the mid-thorax

and a deep rudder
wound along his abdomen.

The second vessel strike
cut across the calf's tail.

You kind of broke
my heart a little bit.

I didn't know that
calf passed away.

That sucks. [chuckles]

I'm sorry. [breathes deeply]

[clears throat]

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Both
Canada and the U.S.

have a ten-knot
seasonal speed restriction

in some right whale habitats.

But as of 2022, in some
areas, compliance is voluntary,

and does not apply to
vessels under 65 feet.

Nine months after the calf died,

rescuers in Cape Cod Bay

responded to a call
about Snow Cone.

Maria Harvey is an
entanglement responder

with the Center
for Coastal Studies

in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Going in, what we knew was,

there was rope
coming out of the mouth,

two trailing lines,

with a possible twist.

NARRATOR: Entanglements
that involve a whale's mouth

can interfere with feeding.

If the rope becomes
wrapped around a fin or tail,

it will tighten over time.

SCOTT LANDRY: A whale is
essentially moving 24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

And so over time, that rope

can saw, certainly,
through skin,

through blubber, through
muscle, and even into bone.

NARRATOR: Scott Landry leads

the center's
entanglement response,

part of a network of seven teams

situated between Florida
and New Brunswick

that record about


in the North Atlantic each year.

LANDRY: Essentially,
what I was trying to do

was making sure that
we weren't running over

any of her entangling
lines, but also keeping

the people on the bow
as close to her as possible

so that they could
throw the grappling hook

into her entanglement.

LANDRY: Good!

HARVEY: Oftentimes,
we will add flotation

to keep them at the surface.

LANDRY: Put it there!

HARVEY: And
that's called kegging,

the exact same things
that the whalers used to do.

LANDRY: Now, once that buoy was

affixed to her entanglement,
her behavior changed entirely.

HARVEY: Unfortunately,
when an animal is entangled,

they will try and
bolt away from you.

It could just go
in any direction.

Totally erratic.

BOB LYNCH: It's
pretty rough what we do.

They're just out in the
wild living their lives,

and then we're harassing
them the best we can

to sort of improve and give
them a better chance of life.

LANDRY: I see it!

NARRATOR: From 2017 to


right whale deaths

and 20 injuries
expected to cause death

between Florida and
the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Among the cases where
the cause was known,


or serious injuries

resulted from vessel strikes
and 27 from entanglement.

The real culprit
in this is rope.

It is not a particular
target species.

It's not a country.

It is rope in the places where
these animals have to live.

At this point, it
makes it very difficult

for a right whale,
or almost any whale,

to move through
their environments

without becoming entangled.

LANDRY: Snout!

♪ ♪

LANDRY: And any measure that
would reduce the amount of rope

would benefit whales.

I'm talking about reducing
rope, not reducing fishing.

LANDRY: I cut
it, I cut it, I cut it!

LYNCH: Our goal was just
to cut the rope sort of shorter,

and sort of see if she can
then shed it on her own.

What I'm hoping to see the
next time someone sees her

is that there's
no rope left at all.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Rescuers removed
more than 100 feet of trailing line

from Snow Cone.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
biologists are witnessing

for the first time a right whale
that has just become entangled.

Only four hours earlier,
they photographed

this five-year-old
male gear-free.

♪ ♪

Senior scientist Moira
Brown is a member

of New Brunswick's
Campobello Whale Rescue Team.

BROWN: Oh, yeah, it's
really got a lot of red on its tail.

Looks sore.

So I see lines in
front of the blowholes,

behind the blowholes, two more.

There is trailing line
with a dirty white buoy.

So this whale is
thrashing too much

and too unsettled to put anybody
in a small boat near this whale.

So that's off the plate.

What I'm thinking is,
is a telemetry buoy,

the green buoy that we attach.

We'll get Guy to grapple,
and we'll get some of the other

trained people
to belay the line.

I know Kelsey and I are trained.

Okay, let's have
Gina get the drone up

so that we can
look at it from here.

NOËL [on radio]: Yeah,
that's a good idea, I think, copy.

BROWN [loudly]: Ready
to launch? GINA: Ready!

BROWN: Launching!

♪ ♪

[whale groans]

♪ ♪

Okay, there you go.

So is there anything...

Doesn't look like there's
anything behind that.

We can't really
see the trailing line.

It looks like there's two lines

coming out of the
right-hand side of the mouth.

One's going over the
right-hand side of the tail.

One's going over the
left-hand side of the tail.

So it's like she has
it through her mouth

and all coming out
the right-hand side.

♪ ♪

I'm trying to figure if
there's a bitter end here.

♪ ♪

[whale groans]

Trailing line.

Okay, [inaudible],
we've got the trailing line.

Okay, that's good. See it there.

That's what we
want. See, it's going...

I see it.

♪ ♪

BROWN: Gina got a really
good visual on the trailing line.

It looks like it's coming
out of the right fluke blade,

out from underneath the
right fluke blade at times,

but it looks like it's staying
pretty close to the surface,

so it does mean that we
should have an option.

I kind of would just...

I mean, it's tough to watch,
but I kind of just want to

give it a little time to
tire itself out and settle.

[whale groans]

I have never, in all
of my years of seeing

entangled right whales,

I have never seen an
animal react so violently.

♪ ♪

NOËL: When they find a
whale entangled in the gear,

and it's in the gulf, and
it's in the snow crab gear,

they say, "Well, it's, it's
the snow crab's fault,"

and it's hard to say it's
not when you see a buoy

that comes from a crab pot.

NARRATOR: In an effort to
make crab and lobster fishing

safer for whales, engineers
have been working on

new technology designed
to dramatically reduce

the amount of rope
required to fish with traps.

Martin Noël is part
of a group of fishers

testing new technology

which operates
without a vertical line

in the water column.

Instead, the system is designed
to keep the trap's buoy and line

submerged on the sea floor,

attached to a long line
of traps known as a trawl,

until fishers are ready
to haul their catch.

NOËL: Two things
we want to try here:

is the pop-up system working
and can we fish with trawls?

NARRATOR: An acoustic signal
sent from the boat through the water

triggers the buoy's release
and floats the rope to the surface.

I can now press recover,

and it's going to send a
signal, a command, to recover.

When you release
that, it pops up.

The buoy pops up.

♪ ♪

Show us the buoy.

MAN [in French]:

NOËL [in French, on speaker]:

[crew speaking French]

NOËL [on speaker]:

♪ ♪

NOËL [on speaker]:

Ouais. [Noël repeats]

NOËL:

♪ ♪

NOËL: When you
release that, it pops up,

the buoy pops up.

[crew speaking French]

Okay.

NOËL: And on that
lobster cage, attached,

you got ten pots,
one after the other.

It's very different because

once you catch the first
buoy, you cannot stop.

You're attached to the bottom.

You got to be really careful.

♪ ♪

It's positive, because at first,

when we heard about
those pop-up buoys,

we said, "Hey, impossible."

You know, "Push a button,
and a few seconds after,

you see a buoy... it can't work."

But now, we say,
"Hey, well, it exists."

The next step is for us to
see if we can work safely

and efficiently with
those mechanism.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: As of 2022, more
than 60 lobster and crab boats

fished with pop-up gear
in Canada and the U.S.,

and dozens more are awaiting
approval for use in 2023.

As the U.S. and Canada move
toward stricter regulations...

Closing fishing zones,
mandating the use of ropes

that break away more easily,

and possibly expensive
pop-up systems...

Fishers see
increasing challenges

to their livelihoods,
practically and economically.

In late 2021, Snow Cone
was spotted with a second calf.

She is the first known
right whale to give birth

while entangled.

Seven months later,

she was sighted,
still entangled,

but without her calf.

Several weeks after that,

she was seen with a new
entanglement and in poor health.

♪ ♪

[camera clicks]
Oh, there they are.

[man speaking
indistinctly] Just for a sec.

NARRATOR: 15 calves
were born in the 2022 season.

Scientists calculate that
for right whales to recover,

about 30 calves need
to be born each year,

and injuries and deaths
must be dramatically reduced.

MAYO: I view them as a mystery.

They're rife with questions,

and the answers are hard-won.

NARRATOR: A year after
he was spotted entangled,

five-year-old male 4615
has not been seen again.

Five, four, three, two, one.

♪ ♪

HAWKINS: If these
animals are present

in our lives through
media, through storytelling,

when we talk about
regulation changes,

when we talk about changes
in fisheries, in shipping...

[straining]: Un, deux, trois.

HAWKINS: those changes
are going to be more acceptable

to a knowledgeable public,

to a knowledgeable
industry sector.

ZOODSMA: When I
first got in this, I thought...

[slaps]: "I'm going,
I'm going to have,

I'm going to be part of all
of the answers," you know?

"And, and I'm going to work
with government agencies,

and we're going
to get this done."

And I guess I'm a slow
learner, but after 30 years,

it's dawned on me that

governments can't
do this on their own.

It's going to take everybody.

♪ ♪

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