In the North Atlantic, a boat of scientists searches, monitors and protects the rare right whales still alive in the world.

The Shearwater recently spotted three of them in a bay near Boston (USA).

On board, three marine biologists are busy identifying the whales and noting any injuries.

Essential work for the protection of this species, of which there are only 336 individuals left according to experts.

Using a small plane and drones launched from a second boat, researchers are trying to follow the reproduction of

Eubalaena glacialis

, their Latin name.

VIDEO After many hours scouring Cape Cod Bay and a few false alarms, those aboard the Research Vessel Shearwater on a bright April day make their first sighting: three endangered North Atlantic right whales, including a rare mother-calf pair https://t. co/Qy06oOWNrL pic.twitter.com/lDPwKAA7H2

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 18, 2022


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A population in drastic decline

Decimated by the now banned whalers, the right whale (or right whale) remains today under the threat of collisions with boats and fishing nets.

This species of large marine mammals, about twenty meters long and weighing 70 tons, is even more in danger of extinction than tigers or black rhinos.

“Unfortunately, their population has been declining since 2010,” explains Christy Hudak, head of the American research center from which the Shearwater started.

Climate change, which is warming the waters of the North Atlantic, is depleting the stocks of a small crustacean that constitutes plankton and is therefore essential to the diet of right whales.

Fishing and global warming in question

Right whales have been a favorite prey of fishermen for hundreds of years for their blubber and baleen.

The species numbered up to 20,000 individuals, before the arrival of large-scale fishing.

It was then decimated at the beginning of the 20th century.

A spike in births in the early 2000s led to a peak of 483 animals in 2010, but the figure, which has since fallen, plunged in 2017. "Fourteen right whales died in a very short time" after be moved to the Gulf of St. Lawrence where collisions with fishing boats are frequent, explains Charles Mayo, founder of the research centre.

“It is very worrying, because their reproduction rate is very low, while the mortality rate is very high,” continues the official.

These marine giants breed in spring and summer, before traveling up to 1,000 miles south to give birth.

This cycle, whose normal length is three years, currently extends over an average of three to six years.

Specialists believe that behind this declining birth rate lies the stress suffered by females.

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