Member-only story
The Right (Whale) Stuff
Bestselling author Carl Safina goes fishing for a better lobster trap
Carl Safina is the bestselling author of 10 books and a world leader in ocean conservation. He contributed this guest post.
During the early days of whale hunting by sailing ship, one whale species was the “right one” to go after. They were particularly slow, and they floated when killed. This “right” whale was quickly hunted to near-extinction. They never recovered to their former tens-of-thousands and in recent decades their numbers have teetered on the brink. Around 330 North Atlantic right whales remain alive, up from about 250 in 1990 but down alarmingly from nearly 500 in 2011. What’s killing them? While the direct hunting that Herman Melville called, “so remorseless a havoc” has long been banned, humans remain the major cause of death. But now the killing is accidental. Ironically, that is harder to control. You can ban hunting. You can’t ban accidents. However, it’s not that simple — and it’s not that intractable.
Between 2010 and 2018, there were 107 cases of tangled North Atlantic right whales; nearly half died or suffered serious injury.
The majority of harm to whales of various species comes from them getting tangled…
