LEILA FADEL, HOST:
An endangered species of whale has had a promising number of new babies.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHALE CALL)
FADEL: The New England Aquarium has been counting, and 18 North Atlantic right whale calves were born so far this breeding season.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Right whale? That what you said - right whale?
FADEL: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: I mean, what does that mean?
FADEL: We asked Nora Ives. I'm not an expert. She's a marine scientist with Oceana, and she told us this.
NORA IVES: The North Atlantic right whale is called the right whale because it was the right whale to hunt. So they're slow. They're large. They're coastal. They're a baleen whale, and we're really good at hunting them.
MARTÍNEZ: The right whale to hunt. See, now that makes sense. And she says humans decimated the right whale population through commercial whaling. Today there are two main threats to the right whale population - fishing gear and then getting hit by boats. There used to be thousands of right whales. Now the entire population is estimated to be around 380.
FADEL: Ives says in ideal circumstances, a North Atlantic right whale might have a calf every three years. But stress is making that interval longer, with some whales having calves every seven to 10 years.
IVES: These whales, and these females in particular, are overcoming incredible odds - getting sliced and diced by a boat, healing and still managing to put on enough blubber to sustain a healthy pregnancy and give birth and then nurse that baby. But that's why these birthing intervals, we think, are taking so long.
MARTÍNEZ: For a critically endangered species, every calf counts.
IVES: We'd have to have about 50 calves per season, we estimate, which just isn't possible with the number of reproductively active females in the population. Anything above 20, I would be over the moon - would be a real great advantage and increase for the population.
MARTÍNEZ: She says that while the right whale was once the right whale to hunt, it's now the right whale to save.
(SOUNDBITE OF MODEST MOUSE SONG, "THE WHALE SONG") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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