A 35-foot whale washing up dead on a beach in New York has a subtly unsettling quality. The joggers, the harbor cranes, and the far-off skyline don’t fit the background. Nevertheless, it continued to occur. Minke whales were repeatedly found dead on beaches from Maine to South Carolina, recorded in databases, and photographed by researchers in red-vested uniforms standing over massive pale carcasses in the sand. 28 confirmed deaths had been reported along the East Coast in less than a year by the time NOAA Fisheries formally declared a “unusual mortality event,” which is more than twice the historical annual average of about 12.
Just that figure raised concerns. However, what transpired made the situation feel much more dire. In the same area of the ocean, NOAA was concurrently looking into the mass deaths of three large whale species: humpbacks, North Atlantic right whales, and minke whales. It had never occurred before. During a teleconference, officials verified it themselves, using the kind of cautious, measured language that scientists employ when they don’t want to frighten anyone but are obviously aware of the gravity of what they’re describing.
Human contact was blamed for at least 11 of the minke deaths. Nine involved entanglements in fishing gear; the whales were unable to surface and slowly drowned after becoming entangled in gillnets or trap-pot lines. Two had blunt force trauma, which is consistent with being hit by a big ship. Confirmation of ship strikes is infamously challenging. It is rare for a container ship moving quickly to experience a whale hit; the crew might never even be aware of it. The whale, which weighs up to 20,000 pounds, just vanishes beneath the hull and ends up on a beach days later, with internal bleeding and broken bones serving as proof. Five cases had no necropsy at all, suggesting that many more deaths may not have been examined.
The unanswered question of why the whales were in these areas in the first place complicated NOAA’s investigation. The coordinator of the agency’s marine mammal health and stranding program, Teri Rowles, put it simply. The whales must be in areas they wouldn’t typically be, such as shipping lanes, close to active fishing grounds, or closer to shore than usual, when human interactions result in whale deaths. They are being moved there by something. Changes in the environment, changes in the distribution of prey, and warming water temperatures are all examples of what researchers refer to as “ecological drivers.” It’s an honest expression for a situation that no one yet fully comprehends.
There were eight strandings in Massachusetts, seven in New York, and six in Maine. Given the amount of ship traffic that enters and exits its harbor, New York experienced the steepest increase over its historical averages of any state. Juveniles, or calves and sub-adults, made up about 53% of the dead whales, which raises a different, longer-term concern about the implications for population replenishment over time. There is no threat to mink populations. In US Atlantic waters, there are between 1,400 and 2,500. NOAA was cautious to state that population sustainability is not threatened by the current mortality rates. However, as this develops, it seems that “not yet a crisis” and “not worth worrying about” are two quite different things.
Only one of the 29 stranded minkes that NOAA has responded to since January 2017 has survived. That is a startling figure. An already complex investigation was further complicated when eight whales displayed symptoms of infectious disease. It’s unclear if disease, ship strikes, and entanglement are related, or if the same environmental factors that put whales in perilous proximity to people also impair their immune systems. According to NOAA, the three whale investigations will continue independently for the time being, but if overlapping causes are discovered, they may be combined.
The fact that the ocean is changing more quickly than the laws intended to protect it is difficult to ignore. There are tools that are useful, such as gear modifications, speed limits, and reporting requirements. However, a whale that has been tagged and tracked while migrating up and down the Atlantic coast serves as a reminder of the amount of movement, exposure, and risk that these animals take on during a single season. The inquiry is still ongoing. The whales continue to move. And the solution is still out there, just beneath the surface, somewhere off the coast of New England.
