Rope removed from right whale found washed up on Martha’s Vineyard may be from Maine buoy line, officials say

The endangered North Atlantic right whale was found washed up off Martha's Vineyard.NOAA Fisheries

The rope found embedded in a juvenile North Atlantic right whale that washed up on Martha’s Vineyard on Jan. 28 was consistent with water traps and buoy lines from Maine, federal officials said Wednesday.

NOAA Fisheries said that its analysis of the fishing gear, “including the purple markings on the rope,” found it was consistent with lines used in Maine waters.

The endangered whale, a female, was found near Joseph Sylvia State Beach on the Vineyard, officials said. NOAA Fisheries worked with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and other partners to recover the carcass and conduct a necropsy.

The necropsy “confirmed a chronic entanglement, with rope deeply embedded in the tail, and thin body condition,” the agency said.

Another right whale, a female born in December 2022 to a whale known as “Pilgrim” who has been spotted repeatedly off the Massachusetts coast, was found dead Tuesday floating off the coast of Savannah, Ga., according to the New England Aquarium.

“The right whale was relocated by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s aerial survey team on Feb. 14 about 20 miles offshore, and efforts are underway to tow it to shore in hopes of conducting a necropsy,” the aquarium said in a statement. “The whale has been heavily scavenged by sharks, which could make the ability to tow it ashore and investigate the cause of death more challenging.”

Pilgrim got her name because she was first spotted in 2013 with her mother, known as “Wart,” in Cape Cod Bay near the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Pilgrim and her calf were seen in Cape Cod Bay several times last spring, and the calf was last seen alive in the southeastern United States about two weeks ago, officials said.

“In just over a two-week period, the North Atlantic right whale population has lost two young females,” Heather Pettis, a research scientist in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, said in the statement. “Their deaths, while heartbreaking in and of themselves, also represent the potential loss of dozens of new whales in the population.”

North Atlantic right whales are approaching extinction, with many of their deaths caused by entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes in US and Canadian waters, officials said. Philip Hamilton, senior scientist at the aquarium’s Cabot Center, said more protections are needed to ensure the whales’ survival.

“This has been a tragic month for North Atlantic right whales, beginning with news of a calf seriously injured by a boat propeller and now the death of a juvenile female,” Hamilton said in a statement. “The time to implement bold protections to protect this critically endangered species from human-caused impacts is now if we are to avoid extinction.”