Photo: Courtesy of New England Aquarium
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Scientists with the New England Aquarium have helped develop a new way to track endangered North Atlantic right whales by looking at their food.
The research was a joint effort from the aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, Bigelow Laboratory, and the University of Maine.
Right whales feed on large numbers of zooplanktons called Calanus finmarchicus. In this research, scientists began tracking where these zooplankton would congregate and match that location with the movements of the whale pods.
“You can’t protect whales if you don’t know where they are—and they go where the food is,” Dr. Damian Brady said, who co-author of the new paper and a professor of oceanography at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center.
Dr. Brady added that this discovery allowed the team to map out the whale’s migration movements “more precisely than ever before.”
According to the NOAA Fisheries, the North Atlantic Right Whale is one of the most endangered large whale species in the world. This species was nearly extinct as a result of commercial whale hunting in the 1890s. By 1970, North Atlantic right whales were officially added to the endangered species list.
Dr. Camille Ross, an associate research scientist at the aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center, said that they are hopeful that this ongoing research will further contribute to the conservation efforts.
“With roughly 370 right whales remaining, every single whale is important to the future of the species,” she said.