MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It is baby season for one of the most endangered whales in the oceans. Just about 370 North Atlantic right whales remain, so scientists are ramping up the effort to track them, especially in the Southeast, where the whales migrate to give birth this time of year. Emily Jones of Grist and member station WABE has our report.
EMILY JONES, BYLINE: Most winter days off Georgia's coast, scientists crisscross the waves looking for North Atlantic right whales.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Just wanted to let you know, we are currently circling on at least one alpha. Over.
CLAY GEORGE: Roger that. You want to give me a position? Over.
JONES: Biologist Clay George stays in constant contact with a small plane that's scanning the water for whales and, hopefully, newborn calves. Whale surveys like this are critical to identifying and cataloguing every whale calf that's born, but they're also imperfect.
CATHERINE EDWARDS: Unfortunately, the weather in December, January, February, doesn't always let flights happen.
JONES: Catherine Edwards is with the University of Georgia's Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. She's part of a team listening for whales underwater, which can happen 24/7.
EDWARDS: The biggest success we had from last year is we have the very first confirmed passive acoustic detection of right whales south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
JONES: Passive acoustic detection - basically, supersensitive microphones float around underwater, listening for whale sounds...
(SOUNDBITE OF WHALE SINGING)
JONES: ...Like this one from a right whale. There used to be thousands of these whales, but the 19th-century whaling industry prized them as the right whale to hunt because they're slow and swim near the surface. By the time hunting right whales was banned in the 1930s, there were just around 100 left. They bounced back to nearly 500 by 2010, but now they're back down to about 370 whales. University of South Carolina Professor Erin Meyer-Gutbrod says better monitoring of North Atlantic right whales is vital.
ERIN MEYER-GUTBROD: We're at the point where the loss of a couple of animals could be the difference between recovery and extinction.
JONES: Humans are the main killers of right whales. We hit them with boats. Alerts do go out to boaters when whales are spotted, but the current effort still misses whales. There is a 10 knot, or 11 mile-an-hour, speed limit in whale-sensitive areas, like the coast of Georgia during calving season, but only for large boats over 65 feet long. Many ships go too fast, according to studies by the advocacy group Oceana, and enforcement doesn't happen in real time. And shipping industry groups say the speed limit won't always work for smaller boats, which need to move faster in order to stay safe and maneuver in ocean conditions. Meyer-Gutbrod hopes better tracking can convince vessels to voluntarily slow down to help save right whales.
MEYER-GUTBROD: But as much as we want to see a strengthening of these regulations, we also need to increase effort into motivating higher compliance rates.
JONES: That's a main goal of another monitoring effort on Tybee Island, near Savannah. In a loft at the Tybee Island Marine Science Center, floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view of the shipping channel into the busy port of Savannah. Up there, a monitoring system displays the position and speed of ships moving offshore. Visitors can use an interactive map of the shoreline to track ships and whales in real time. Chantal Audran directs the science center.
CHANTAL AUDRAN: So you can see, almost like a video game, how they are just on top of one another.
JONES: Right now, the exhibit is just here to raise awareness. But one day, Audran hopes it can have a more direct impact. She's waiting on permits that will allow the system to send text message alerts to ships when they go too fast. On Cape Cod, scientists say similar alerts have prompted ships to slow down voluntarily. Audran says, humans have a responsibility to protect right whales.
AUDRAN: To watch a species kind of so rapidly disappear in front of your eyes - it's something you don't often see, an animal lost in a lifetime.
JONES: For the next few months, the whales will do their part by birthing their calves. The scientists will work to spot every one and hope they survive. Several calves born last season are presumed dead, and at least one was killed by a boat strike. For NPR News, I'm Emily Jones in Savannah, Georgia.
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