North Atlantic Right Whales Are Dying in Horrific Ways
Six individuals—more than 1 percent of the population—were found dead just this month, the latest entries in a troubling pattern.
Updated at 11:59 p.m. ET on June 27, 2019
She was called Punctuation, after the small scars on her head that looked like commas and dashes. She was a North Atlantic right whale, one of an estimated 411 left in the world. She was one of just 100 reproductively active females left. She was mother to at least eight calves, and a grandmother to at least two grand-calves. She was about 40 years old when her body was found floating in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on June 20, 2019. Preliminary results from a necropsy suggest that she likely died after being hit by a ship.
It had been a galling month for the many people who care about North Atlantic right whales. Wolverine, a 9-year-old male named after the
