All language subtitles for NOVA.S50E07.Saving.the.Right.Whale.1080p.WEBRip.x264-BAE_track3_[eng]

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
It's one of the
largest animals on Earth,

able to swim 50 miles
in a single day

and dive to depths of 600 feet.

CHRISTY:
Oh, my goodness!

All right, stop right here,
there's one right next to us.

CHARLES MAYO:
He's right, right here,
under the bow.

(Christy laughing)

MAYO: There he is!
CHRISTY: Holy shenanigans!

NARRATOR:
A great whale virtually free
from predators.

And yet, in ten years,
30% of the population

has disappeared.

MAYO:
They're dealing with an
ecosystem that is

very hard to figure out.

NARRATOR:
With a life expectancy
of 70 years,

not a single adult is known to
have died of natural causes

in more than a decade.

MOIRA BROWN:
Oh, yeah, it's really
got a lot of red on its tail.

Lines in front of the blowholes,

behind the blowholes, two more.

NARRATOR:
Now scientists are
racing

to try to understand these
giants

and help them survive.

MAYO:
We have a very limited view
on right whales.

BROWN (on radio):
11:00, the whale did a backflip.

MARTIN NOËL:
Oh, belly up, that whale
is having fun.

MAYO:
I view them as a mystery.

They're rife with questions...

(blows out)

...and the answers are hard-won.

NARRATOR:
"Saving the Right Whale."

Right now, on "NOVA."

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Every fall, pregnant North
Atlantic right whales

leave their northern feeding
grounds

and swim 1,300 miles south
to the warm waters

off South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida to give birth.

This is the only known calving
area

for North Atlantic right whales.

Between December and March,

the next generation of calves
is born.

But from 2009 to 2018,
the number of births per year

dropped dramatically,
from 39 to zero.

Scientists want to know
why and what it would take

to turn those
birth numbers around.

Barb Zoodsma
coordinates NOAA's right whale

recovery
program in the Southeast.

In February 2020,
she heads out to look

for new calves with
biologist Tom Pitchford.

WOMAN (on radio):
Harvey, Orion mostly at the
surface

and traveling in the northwest
direction slowly, over.

Perfect, we're all set,
thank you very much.

ZOODSMA:
The plane just radioed us,
and they said

there's a Alpha Charlie
over here,

and that's
code for an adult and calf.

As a protection measure, we're
kind of cryptic on the radios.

Katie, will you let me
know when you have eyes on 'em?

KATIE JACKSON:
Will do!
Thank you.

The right whale count of calves
born thus far in the Southeast,

and that's all the Southeast
United States, is at ten.

and two years ago,
when there was zero.

It's nowhere near enough
to get the population moving

in a positive direction.

Our average calving
interval was three to five years

for a long time,
and what we've been seeing

since 2010 is that just creep
up and up and up and up.

And so we're into the seven-,
eight-, nine-,

ten-year calving
interval for a lot of females.

All right, I'm moving
in a little bit slower.

♪ ♪

ZOODSMA:
Look how smooth it is.

These calves are very
weak swimmers

when they're first born,

and so these are real good
conditions

for the calves to learn how
to swim.

When they leave here, they have
hundreds of miles to swim.

They're gonna need
a really strong bond

to make it there together.

NARRATOR:
The whales can't stay in these
calm, warm waters for long.

The mothers need to eat huge
quantities of food

in the spring and summer to
survive,

and so by March,
the pairs head north

to the plankton-rich waters
off New England and Canada.

The calves will nurse
for at least ten months

and more than double in size
before they learn to find food.

Most calves stay with their
mothers for about 12 months

before venturing out on their
own.

♪ ♪

PITCHFORD:
In Florida, we work closely

with groups of citizen
scientists

who are extending
the reach of our airplane

by going to the beach

and scanning the ocean
for right whales,

and it can be a huge help.

NARRATOR:
This is Lily Pinkham's first
year volunteering

with the Marineland
Right Whale Project.

PINKHAM:
The first thing I saw was
a spout.

As time went on, and I started
pointing it out to everybody,

it started putting
its flippers up, and then we saw

that there were two spouts,

and we were able to identify it
as a right whale

because of the V-shaped blow.

That was a good,
that was a big one.

WOMAN:
But the first sighting,
that was all

due to Lily.

The first sighting,
that was due to our team,

yeah, that's right.
(chuckles)

NARRATOR:
The first calf sighted in the
2020 season was born

to a 15-year-old
first-time mother.

This is female 3560,

named Snow Cone, with her baby.

We won't be able to identify
this calf just based on

what callosities we see now.
Uh-huh, right.

But they darted, they darted
this calf, too, so they have,

they have DNA which will
help identify him later.

And look, the calf's upside
down.

You see both
the pectoral fins.
Yes.

WOMAN: Oh, my gosh!
(others laughing)

NARRATOR:
As right whales mature,

roughened patches of skin, like
callouses, form on their heads.

This pattern is unique,
like a fingerprint,

and helps scientists
identify and keep track

of individual
whales over the years.

ELLIS:
She's now been seen off Miami

and possibly the Keys.
(others exclaiming)

They're trying to confirm that,
so...

WOMAN:
This year?
Yeah, right now!

Right now.

But generally, it's just
unusual behavior for them,

for any of the right whales
to go south of Canaveral,

so 3560 is going to keep us
guessing for a while.

WOMAN:
Yeah.

ELLIS:
And so the question is, will she
turn around and come back

or will she go
into the Gulf of Mexico?

WOMAN:
Right.

NARRATOR:
Right whales have roamed
the North Atlantic

for millions of years.

Marine biologists
estimate that before

commercial whaling took
off in the 16th century,

right whales
numbered in the thousands.

From 2012 to 2022,

the population is estimated
to have fallen from 471

to 336, and the
North Atlantic right whale

is considered
critically endangered.

Now marine scientists
and conservationists

are tracking the whales over
their 1,300-mile

annual migration
on a quest to understand

what's happening to the whales
and what they need to survive.

So apparently, there's one
right whale out here,

maybe two,

based on what the sightings are.

NARRATOR:
Nick Hawkins is a wildlife
photographer

on a mission
to document the lives

of the North Atlantic right
whales.

He wants to raise awareness
of the animal

and its plight.

(water spouting in distance)

Hear that?
Yeah, right there.

Yeah, that's him.

It's got to be,
we'll get a good shot here.

No one's around, and...
(engine revving)

HAWKINS:
Most people don't see a
North Atlantic right whale

for the first time as their
first whale, but I actually did.

When I was maybe eight,

my parents and my grandparents
brought me to an island

in the Bay of Fundy called
Grand Manan.

And we were surrounded by,

like, 40 right whales,
you know, surface-active groups,

and at the time, I was just,
like...

NARRATOR:
Very few great whales behave
like this,

frolicking together
at the surface in large groups.

It's a key part of mating,

as males vie for the attention
of usually a lone female.

At 50 tons and 50 feet long,

this competitive behavior
ensures

only the healthiest whales
reproduce.

But since the 1980s,

the average size of a North
Atlantic right whale

has decreased by three feet.

HAWKINS:
The Bay of Fundy
was the feeding ground.

Two-thirds of the population
was coming to the Bay of Fundy

every summer and feeding.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
The Bay of Fundy
is a northeastern branch

of the Gulf of Maine.

In 2015,

scientists discovered the whales
were abandoning the bay,

and many were going about
200 miles farther north

to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Marine biologists believed the
whales

were traveling farther
north in search of food.

No one knew whether
the whales' changing habits

would be permanent or temporary.

But the impact was clear.

REPORTER:
One, then two,
then six dead whales,

and the death
count hasn't stopped.

REPORTER:
With only hundreds
left in existence,

they've
suffered a terrible blow.

REPORTER:
"Unprecedented."

That's how scientists describe
this summer's death toll

of 12 North Atlantic right
whales

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
alone.

HAWKINS:
We have this critically
endangered

whale species right off the
eastern seaboard

of the United States and Canada,

and, like,
barely anybody knows about it.

And they're dying at
a rate that's greater than

the entire
species' reproduction.

NARRATOR:
In 2017, scientists documented
the deaths

of 17 North Atlantic
right whales,

12 in Canadian waters
and five off the U.S. coast--

nearly four percent of
the population at the time.

The two known causes of death

were vessel strikes and
entanglement in fishing gear.

As the population declines,

whale biologists are focusing on
another critical feeding ground

where things are changing,

trying to figure out why more
and more right whales

are coming here each year.

♪ ♪

Ecologist Charles Mayo has been
studying right whales

in Cape Cod Bay, off the coast
of Massachusetts,

for more than 30 years.

MAYO: He's right here,
he's right here.

We're out of gear.

CHRISTY:
Oh, my goodness!

All right, stop right here,
there's one right next to us.

MAYO:
He's right, right here,
under the bow.

(Christy laughing)
MAYO: There he is.

CHRISTY:
Holy shenanigans!

♪ ♪

Whew!

MAYO: We're seeing five here,

and we probably have 40 or 50
to the south of us

in little groups,

feeding groups.

It's pretty special.

Let me tell you something,
there's a lot of power in that.

CHRISTY:
Pec slapping!

That's gorgeous.

MAYO:
Look at that mouth open.

God knows...
His mouth is wide open.

Whoa!

NARRATOR:
Right whales are baleen whales
that filter plankton,

microorganisms adrift
in the ocean currents.

Healthy adults consume over
1,000 pounds

of plankton each day
during the spring and summer.

This helps the females build up
a one-foot-thick blubber layer,

giving them enough energy
to survive long migrations

and nurse calves.

(calling): Christy?
CHRISTY (faintly):
Yeah?

Yeah, I think
we ought to take an in-path.

Up a little bit.

So we turn that...

And that goes over.

All right, clearing.

One meter!

(switch clicks, motor whirring)

Okay, down one meter.

♪ ♪

(switch clicks, motor stops)

MAYO:
We're in the path
that the animal had

been swimming, pumping water

from various depths,

collecting plankton
that's coming in.

CHRISTY:
Yep, definitely not much there.

NARRATOR:
Today, Mayo's team is sampling
the water,

trying to determine the quality
and quantity of plankton

the whales are foraging
in the bay.

MAYO:
So we're trying to look
for layers of food

to in part explain

why the whale
is doing what it's doing,

which is feeding right
close to the surface.

CHRISTY: Two meters!

MAYO:
And at the same time,
we're collecting

information from an electronic
gadget that is recording

salinity, temperature,
light penetration,

density of
chlorophyll in the water.

♪ ♪

We're trying to figure
out what these whales need

out of this
really critical ecosystem.

Early on, maybe a quarter

of the population would come
here.

But in the recent years,
maybe 60%,

70% of this population in this
little tiny bay--

it's a tiny place.

That means
that those whales have left

somewhere where they used to go,

and is that because
the offshore areas are failing?

NARRATOR:
Marine scientists
have been trying to figure out

why the whales are changing
their habits

and abandoning
the old feeding areas.

♪ ♪

The theory is
that rising water temperatures

are shifting ocean currents
and the locations of plankton,

forcing right whales outside
their normal range

in search of food.

Mayo thinks this is what could
be spurring more right whales

to converge on Cape Cod Bay,

one of the few remaining
plankton-rich areas

along the Atlantic Coast.

Over the last decade,

as the whales have
shifted their migration routes,

they've been
exposed to increased danger.

BROWN:
In 2017,

we had the worst mortality event
since we've been

studying this species
in the last 40 years.

NARRATOR:
In 2019, the carcass
of a female right whale

known as Punctuation was found
floating

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Scientists think she was about
38 years old.

Her body was towed to shore

so scientists could try
to determine cause of death.

HAWKINS:
It's a pretty sad sight.

So those are
previous entanglement scars.

Yeah.
That white there.

Previous boat strike scar here.

♪ ♪

TONYA WIMMER:
This is really important work.

Everyone knows it all too
well, I think, in Canada now.

So she is a very, very,

very large and exceptionally
well-known animal.

At this point, we do not
know what killed this animal.

That is the point
of this entire thing.

There will be a lot
of things discussed here,

especially with these guys.

The information
doesn't go beyond here yet.

It is very important
they get the full,

complete time
to think about everything.

WIMMER:
There's already
a lot of speculation,

but at this point,
we don't know.

♪ ♪

HAWKINS:
This whale had
a significant wound on its back.

It certainly indicates
being hit by, by a large,

large object.

So just will come
down to the necropsy results.

You know,
it's like...

HAWKINS:
I mean, this is
certainly not the way I want

to cover right whales, but it's
part of the story, you know?

People need to see it.

I hope I can cover this and, and
do justice for her,

and, and this whale, and its
life.

♪ ♪

Yeah.

Aw, (bleep).

NARRATOR:
The necropsy concluded

Punctuation was likely killed
by a vessel strike.

She was one of ten right whales
known to have died in 2019.

In 2020, Canada expanded
the ten-knot speed restriction

for ship traffic in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence

in an effort to reduce the risk
of collisions with whales.

♪ ♪

Any time at the surface puts
right whales at risk

of being hit by a vessel.

♪ ♪

When they get
together near the surface,

bumping and splashing,
it's not just for mating.

Whale biologists believe this
frolicking behavior

may also serve an important role

in general social bonding
and even be a form of play.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(seagulls squawking)

NOËL (speaking French):

MAN (on radio):
Oh, yes! Oh, yes, oh, yes,
oh, yes.

NOËL:
My grandfather
was a cod fisherman,

and then they turned
out to fish snow crab.

Then my father
was next in the line,

and then me and my brother now
are having the family business.

I have to say that I wish
to not see too many whales,

because it means where I fish,

it will surely close in, in,
no long.

scientists have photographed
on North Atlantic

right whales, they estimate
that 87% have been entangled

in fishing gear.

The vertical ropes
that connect fishing nets and

crab and lobster traps
to surface buoys

can become wrapped around whale
fins, tails, and heads,

and even get ensnared in baleen
when the whales are feeding.

(motor whirring)

NOËL:
Once you have a vertical line

and a whale in the same area...

(motor whirring)

...well, there's a risk.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
In an effort to reduce
entanglements,

in 2018, Canada started closing

fishing areas when right whales
were spotted.

In some U.S. waters,
including Cape Cod Bay

and the southern calving
grounds,

all trap fishing has been
suspended

during the right whale
migration.

(motor whirring)

NOËL:
When they see a right whale,

they are closing an area,
not only the area where

the right whale is seen,
but a really large area.

So in mid-May,

maybe there was only eight
or nine whales in the gulf,

pushing fishermen out of these
spaces where fishing was good

to go where others fishermen
are.

With that, it was creating a
higher density of pots

in the same area
and lower catches,

so it was
affecting fishermen a lot.

NARRATOR:
In 2020, the crab and
lobster catch in Atlantic Canada

and the U.S. was valued
at $1.6 billion.

In many communities
along the Atlantic coast,

crab and lobster fisheries
are the biggest employer.

While the fishing industry is
aware of right whales,

much of the public has never
seen one,

and even fewer
have seen a mother with a calf.

♪ ♪

After surprising scientists by
heading south to Miami,

right whale mother Snow Cone
and her calf

were spotted in the
Gulf of Mexico,

off the coast
of Venice, Florida.

PITCHFORD:
We didn't hear how 3560 and calf

got into the Gulf of Mexico.

You know, whales follow these
depth contours,

and you can, might imagine them
following the depth contour

into the Florida Keys

and eventually into the deeper
water of the Gulf of Mexico.

NARRATOR:
Snow Cone and her calf were only
the third mom-calf pair

known to have traveled
into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here, boaters aren't used
to seeing right whales.

And they likely don't know it's
illegal to approach them

within 500 yards.

ERIC WHITE:
I'm a charter captain here
in Venice, Florida.

I was going to put my
bait traps out for a charter

that I had the following day,

and I hear, hear the guys on the
radio

talking about a big whale.

So we shot over there
real quick,

and sure enough,
it was a, a whale.

(chuckles):
Pretty big.

Just like you see on TV.

You know, the big...
(imitates exhalation)

...blow of air.

(whale exhales)

And they came right up to me,
and checked the boat out,

and the calf was kind
of chilling and hanging out.

(woman laughs)

WHITE (in video):
She's checking the boat out.

WHITE:
As she turned broadside
to us...

(in video):
Oh, my God!

Bow to stern, bro,
that thing's over 40 foot!

WHITE:
...and you could see, I mean,

you could definitely see
the eye.

You could see, like,
her mouth and everything.

(exhales)

BLAKE HALL:
Me and my son
and a friend of mine,

we went out looking for dolphin,
or mahi-mahi and wahoo.

but the odds of running
into those two whales

were just so slim,
I never expected that to happen.

(laughs):
It's like winning the lottery,
you know?

How lucky are we, guys?

Fishing trip's so worth it.

I don't care
if we catch anything or not.
(man laughing)

HALL:
I've seen some

pretty amazing things, but
that one probably tops the list.

♪ ♪

WHITE: A lot of guys who've been
doing this, you know,

20, 30 years

have never seen anything
like that in the gulf.

HALL: Mother and her calf
in such beautiful conditions,

and to have my son with me,
it was majestic.

♪ ♪

He'll never, ever forget that,
and neither will I.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Before commercial whaling,

when North Atlantic right whales

likely numbered in the
thousands,

they thrived on both
sides of the North Atlantic.

After centuries
of whale hunting,

the eastern Atlantic population
is thought to be extinct.

Rare sightings
of right whale adults

off Europe's coastline
are always traced back

to its western population.

But in December 2020,

a newborn calf was seen off
the northwest coast of Africa,

about 300 miles from
a historical calving ground.

Is it possible that right whales
are returning

to this birthplace
from centuries past?

PITCHFORD:
A video emerged of it in
very clear water,

North Atlantic right whale
in the Canary Islands,

swimming by itself, you know,
and, and they're following it.

Clear water, good conditions to
see these features

that would tell us that it's
a very young whale.

♪ ♪

JACKSON:
The callosity that we could see

and the size of the animal

all seemed like a young animal

in the early weeks.

Calves are not identifiable,

especially
when they're that young.

Even if that calf's mother
was nearby somewhere

and the both of them come back
over here,

the chances of us being able to
match it are pretty slim.

NARRATOR:
Why the mother gave birth here,

so far from
the only current calving ground,

remains a mystery.

♪ ♪

Back on the North American side
of the Atlantic,

scientists have been trying to
figure out why right whales

are returning here,
to the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

each summer,

instead of their old feeding
ground in the Bay of Fundy,

200 miles to the south.

The answer could be key
to understanding the impacts

of climate change
on marine life.

Moira Brown is
a leading right whale scientist.

Oh, I hate it when
the whales don't get the memo.

We've seen quite a lot of whales
on about a six-minute dive time,

so we were optimistic this
whale would do the same, but...

WOMAN:
Whale's up!

Whale's up.

BROWN:
Okay.

WOMAN:
I shot it.

BROWN:
Shot it!

Keep going, keep going.

♪ ♪

Head's up, about to fluke.

Fluke.

NARRATOR:
Since 2018, Martin Noël
has accompanied the scientists

on their research trips
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

chartering his boat after the
close of the snow crab season.

BROWN (on radio):
11:00, the whale did a backflip.
(murmuring)

Coming out of the water
backwards.
Oh, there's a...

Belly up.
BROWN (on radio):
You could see the flippers.

NOËL:
Flippers-- that whale
is having fun.

NOËL:
Doing the survey
with the scientists,

you get to be curious
about which one it is,

and it's interesting.

BROWN (on radio):
Okay, we're going to stop here.

Copy that.

There seems to be a lot
of whales in the area here,

but there's, it's only a third
of the population that's here,

not all of it.

It's, maybe,
they see 140 individuals.

The right whale has such
a major impact on our fishery

that I think that
there's no way other than

learning a lot about it
to maybe help the situation.

♪ ♪

Crane down!

NARRATOR:
Biological oceanographer
Kim Davies

is the chief scientist
on this voyage.

She studies foraging hotspots,
the plankton-rich zones

that sustain
virtually all ocean life.

DAVIES:
The thing about right whales
that's so strange,

they move around a lot
in the ocean,

and yet they seem to predictably
return to the same area

so there is some level
of predictability.

The North Atlantic right whale
feeds on a rice-sized

piece of fat-rich zooplankton
called a copepod.

When we used to do these studies
in the Bay of Fundy,

we'd be coming up
with our nets absolutely full.

Here we're missing something.

NARRATOR:
So far, even though the whales

are visiting
the Gulf of St. Lawrence

during the feeding season,
scientists have been unable

to find the high concentrations
of copepods that the whales

used to feed on
in the Bay of Fundy

and the Gulf of Maine.

DAVIES:
Here we are in an area
that's clearly

important to them for foraging,
but we don't really have

a very good sense yet
of what they're actually eating.

NARRATOR:
When their favorite food source
is scarce,

right whales have been known
to switch to a different prey

and eat less nourishing
species of plankton to survive.

For the first time,
Davies and her team are equipped

with a sounding device that will
allow them to detect prey

within three feet of
the sea floor,

where they suspect
the right whales are feeding.

(motor whirring)

MAN:
Crane out.

Crane left.

DAVIES:
These questions are really,
really important

to get answers to...

MAN:
Crane down.

DAVIES:
...because the right whales
are here.

This area is important to them
and we want to know why.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
After sampling
several more locations,

Davies and her team discover
that the right whale's

preferred prey,
a species of copepod,

is concentrated
near the sea floor.

Whether there are
enough copepods

in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to
sustain right whales is unknown.

Studies of other whale species
have shown that

healthy populations can adapt
to changing food supplies

and increase their birthrates

after a few low
reproductive years.

But the right whale population
has not rebounded

since its calf count
started to decline in 2010.

♪ ♪

MICHAEL MOORE:
I thought back to
animal husbandry 101,

which, as dairy farmers
know full well,

that if you don't feed the cow,
she's not going to get pregnant.

of a cow to get pregnant
is to look at its body fat.

NARRATOR:
Michael Moore is
a whale trauma expert

at Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts.

His 2020 study shows that

North Atlantic
right whale mothers

on average weigh 21% less than
their close relative

the southern right whale.

MOORE:
Photogrammetry has been around
for a long time.

The science and the physics of
it is very clearly worked out.

A flat image,
the camera's horizontal level,

and you have an accurate
measurement of the altitude,

and with that, you do the math.

(camera clicks)

That gives you a good chance
of estimating

the volume of the animal,
and hence its body condition.

(camera clicks)

If you look at them
from the side,

you can see these dips
and hollows behind the neck,

where they've lost that
roll of fat

that the
southern right whales have,

what we call the neck roll.

You know,
I spent time working on

southern right whales in 1997.

They're fit, fat, and happy.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The southern right whales
tend to be clean, unscarred,

and just beautiful animals.

The reason why
North Atlantic right whales

have a body condition deficit
is twofold.

The basis of it, for sure,
is, they need more food to eat.

And with climate change,
there's been a wholesale change

in the availability of the food,

but the second side of it is the
energetic costs of entanglement.

♪ ♪

If the cost of moving through
the water

has been increased by the rope
that you're dragging around,

that's going to be
a significant problem.

It takes, on average,
six months for a right whale

to succumb
to chronic entanglement.

♪ ♪

They're alive, in pain,
for six months.

Those guys are tough mothers.

They really are.

Give nature a chance
and it will come right back.

That's what we're asking for,

is to give the right whale
a chance

to show what it's made of.

NARRATOR:
Three months after Snow Cone
and her calf were seen

by boaters in the
Gulf of Mexico,

the calf's body was spotted

floating off the coast
of New Jersey.

♪ ♪

Veterinarian Sarah Sharp
was brought in

to determine cause of death.

SHARP:
Unfortunately, a lot of the
necropsies I've done

have, have been really young
animals, two years or less.

♪ ♪

And all of those animals
have been human-impact deaths.

But I think,
I think that 3560's calf

About five or six months
at that point, yeah.

Young-- little baby.

♪ ♪

ELLIS:
When I read the news that
Snow Cone's calf had died,

I mean, I actually cried.

It was like losing a friend,
and now it's sort of hard

to look at the video
from last year

and the pictures of last year.

It felt like losing a friend--
it was really, really sad.

♪ ♪

The whale had been hit once,

was injured, starting to heal,

and then the next, fatal blow
came.

NARRATOR:
Snow Cone's calf was hit twice
over several weeks.

The first collision
left propeller chop wounds

from the tip of his nose
to the mid-thorax

and a deep rudder wound
along his abdomen.

The second vessel strike
cut across the calf's tail.

You kind of broke my heart
a little bit.

I didn't know that calf
passed away.

That sucks.
(chuckles)

I'm sorry.
(breathes deeply)

(clears throat)

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Both Canada and the U.S.

have a ten-knot seasonal
speed restriction

in some right whale habitats.

But as of 2022, in some areas,
compliance is voluntary,

and does not apply
to vessels under 65 feet.

Nine months after the calf died,

rescuers in Cape Cod Bay

responded to a call
about Snow Cone.

Maria Harvey
is an entanglement responder

with the Center
for Coastal Studies

in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Going in, what we knew was,

there was rope coming out
of the mouth,

two trailing lines,

with a possible twist.

NARRATOR:
Entanglements that involve
a whale's mouth

can interfere with feeding.

If the rope becomes
wrapped around a fin or tail,

it will tighten over time.

SCOTT LANDRY:
A whale is essentially moving
24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

And so over time, that rope

can saw, certainly, through
skin,

through blubber, through muscle,
and even into bone.

the center's
entanglement response,

part of a network of seven teams

situated between Florida
and New Brunswick

that record about
36 entanglements

in the North Atlantic each year.

LANDRY:
Essentially,
what I was trying to do

was making sure
that we weren't running over

any of her entangling lines,
but also keeping

the people on the bow
as close to her as possible

so that they could throw
the grappling hook

into her entanglement.

LANDRY:
Good!

HARVEY:
Oftentimes, we will add
flotation

to keep them at the surface.

LANDRY:
Put it there!

HARVEY:
And that's called kegging,

the exact same things
that the whalers used to do.

LANDRY:
Now, once that buoy was

affixed to her entanglement,
her behavior changed entirely.

HARVEY:
Unfortunately,
when an animal is entangled,

they will try
and bolt away from you.

It could just go in
any direction.

Totally erratic.

BOB LYNCH:
It's pretty rough what we do.

They're just out in
the wild living their lives,

and then we're harassing them
the best we can

to sort of improve and give them
a better chance of life.

NARRATOR:
From 2017 to 2022,
scientists have documented

34 North Atlantic
right whale deaths

and 20 injuries expected
to cause death

between Florida
and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Among the cases
where the cause was known,

13 of the deaths
or serious injuries

resulted from vessel strikes
and 27 from entanglement.

The real culprit in this
is rope.

It is not
a particular target species.

It's not a country.

It is rope in the places where
these animals have to live.

At this point,
it makes it very difficult

for a right whale,
or almost any whale,

to move through
their environments

without becoming entangled.

LANDRY:
Snout!

♪ ♪

LANDRY:
And any measure that would
reduce the amount of rope

would benefit whales.

I'm talking about reducing rope,
not reducing fishing.

LANDRY:
I cut it, I cut it,
I cut it!

LYNCH:
Our goal was just to
cut the rope sort of shorter,

and sort of see if she can
then shed it on her own.

What I'm hoping to see
the next time someone sees her

is that there's no rope left
at all.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Rescuers removed more than
100 feet of trailing line

from Snow Cone.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
biologists are witnessing

for the first time a right whale
that has just become entangled.

Only four hours earlier,
they photographed

this five-year-old male
gear-free.

♪ ♪

Senior scientist Moira Brown
is a member

of New Brunswick's
Campobello Whale Rescue Team.

BROWN:
Oh, yeah, it's really got
a lot of red on its tail.

Looks sore.

So I see lines in front of
the blowholes,

behind the blowholes, two more.

There is trailing line with
a dirty white buoy.

So this whale is
thrashing too much

and too unsettled to put anybody
in a small boat near this whale.

So that's off the plate.

What I'm thinking is,
is a telemetry buoy,

the green buoy that we attach.

We'll get Guy to grapple,
and we'll get some of the other

trained people
to belay the line.

I know Kelsey and I are trained.

Okay, let's have Gina
get the drone up

so that we can look at it
from here.

NOËL (on radio):
Yeah, that's a good idea,
I think, copy.

BROWN (loudly): Ready to launch?
GINA: Ready!

BROWN:
Launching!

♪ ♪

(whale groans)

♪ ♪

Okay, there you go.

So is there anything...

Doesn't look like
there's anything behind that.

We can't really see
the trailing line.

It looks like there's two lines

coming out of the
right-hand side of the mouth.

One's going over
the right-hand side of the tail.

One's going over the left-hand
side of the tail.

So it's like she has it
through her mouth

and all coming out
the right-hand side.

♪ ♪

I'm trying to figure
if there's a bitter end here.

♪ ♪

(whale groans)

Trailing line.

Okay, (inaudible), we've got
the trailing line.

Okay, that's good.
See it there.

That's what we want.
See, it's going...

I see it.

♪ ♪

BROWN:
Gina got a really good visual
on the trailing line.

It looks like it's coming out
of the right fluke blade,

out from underneath
the right fluke blade at times,

but it looks like it's staying
pretty close to the surface,

so it does mean
that we should have an option.

I kind of would just...

I mean, it's tough to watch,
but I kind of just want to

give it a little time to
tire itself out and settle.

(whale groans)

I have never,
in all of my years of seeing

entangled right whales,

I have never seen an animal
react so violently.

♪ ♪

NOËL:
When they find a whale
entangled in the gear,

and it's in the gulf,
and it's in the snow crab gear,

they say, "Well, it's,
it's the snow crab's fault,"

that comes from a crab pot.

NARRATOR:
In an effort to make
crab and lobster fishing

safer for whales,
engineers have been working on

new technology
designed to dramatically reduce

the amount of rope required
to fish with traps.

Martin Noël is part of
a group of fishers

testing new technology

which operates without
a vertical line

in the water column.

Instead, the system is designed
to keep the trap's buoy and line

submerged on the sea floor,

attached to a long line of traps
known as a trawl,

until fishers are ready
to haul their catch.

NOËL:
Two things we want to try here:

is the pop-up system working
and can we fish with trawls?

NARRATOR:
An acoustic signal sent from
the boat through the water

triggers the buoy's release and
floats the rope to the surface.

I can now press recover,

and it's going to send a signal,
a command, to recover.

When you release that,
it pops up.

The buoy pops up.

♪ ♪

Show us the buoy.

MAN (in French):

NOËL (in French, on speaker):

(crew speaking French)

NOËL (on speaker):

♪ ♪

NOËL (on speaker):

NOËL:

♪ ♪

NOËL:
When you release that,
it pops up,

the buoy pops up.

(crew speaking French)

Okay.

NOËL:
And on that lobster cage,
attached,

you got ten pots,
one after the other.

It's very different because

once you catch the first buoy,
you cannot stop.

You're attached to the bottom.

You got to be really careful.

♪ ♪

It's positive, because at first,

when we heard about those
pop-up buoys,

we said, "Hey, impossible."

You know, "Push a button,
and a few seconds after,

you see a buoy-- it can't work."

But now, we say,
"Hey, well, it exists."

The next step is for us to see
if we can work safely

and efficiently
with those mechanism.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
As of 2022, more than 60
lobster and crab boats

fished with pop-up gear
in Canada and the U.S.,

and dozens more are awaiting
approval for use in 2023.

As the U.S. and Canada move
toward stricter regulations--

closing fishing zones,
mandating the use of ropes

that break away more easily,

and possibly expensive
pop-up systems--

fishers see
increasing challenges

to their livelihoods,
practically and economically.

In late 2021, Snow Cone
was spotted with a second calf.

She is the first known
right whale to give birth

while entangled.

Seven months later,

she was sighted,
still entangled,

but without her calf.

Several weeks after that,

she was seen with a new
entanglement and in poor health.

♪ ♪

(camera clicks)
Oh, there they are.

(man speaking
indistinctly)
Just for a sec.

NARRATOR:
15 calves were born in
the 2022 season.

Scientists calculate that for
right whales to recover,

about 30 calves need to be born
each year,

and injuries and deaths
must be dramatically reduced.

MAYO:
I view them as a mystery.

They're rife with questions,

and the answers are hard-won.

five-year-old male 4615
has not been seen again.

Five, four, three,
two, one.

♪ ♪

HAWKINS:
If these animals are present

in our lives through media,
through storytelling,

when we talk about
regulation changes,

when we talk about changes
in fisheries, in shipping...

HAWKINS:
...those changes are going to be
more acceptable

to a knowledgeable public,

to a knowledgeable
industry sector.

ZOODSMA: When I first got in
this, I thought...

(slaps):
"I'm going, I'm going to have,

I'm going to be part of all of
the answers," you know?

"And, and I'm going to
work with government agencies,

And I guess I'm a slow learner,
but after 30 years,

it's dawned on me that

governments can't do this
on their own.

It's going to take everybody.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪