After almost two For decades, the baby whale returned, as a mother, with her own baby. Julie Albert, director of the Right Whale Sighting Network at the nonprofit Blue World Research Institute, first sighted the North Atlantic right whale known as Callosity in 2007, when it was still a calf, swimming off the coast of Florida.
Immediately, she said, the whale stood out. Like other North Atlantic right whales, it had calluses, patches of thick, white, rough tissue on its skin. But unlike any other known right whale, this one had these markings on its back.
“That’s how it got its name,” Albert explains. “It’s definitely a person.” Then, on New Year’s Eve 2025, Callosity Back returned to Florida. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission received a call that an unidentified whale and her calf had been spotted off the state’s east-central coast. Albert describes how she and her colleagues ran to the pool deck behind a nearby beachfront hotel to get a better view and soon realized it was Callosity Back.
“I’ve been waiting 19 years to see this mother,” Albert says. Whale watchers, joined occasionally by hotel guests, watched the mother and calf swim for hours, until night finally fell.
Callosity Back’s calf is just one of 21 baby right whales documented at the time of writing this article during the current calving season, which runs from mid-November to mid-April. It is unusual to see so many whales born so early in a single season. The researchers counted only 11 last year, for example.
In 2024, only 384 North Atlantic right whales remained in the wild, according to an estimate published last October. The species they once numbered in the thousandsbefore commercial whaling almost made these animals disappear in the 18th and 19th centuries. North Atlantic right whales never recovered and are now on the brink of extinction.
The baby boom is good news, says Albert. But this does not change the overall situation of these animals, which remain seriously threatened. A series of ship strikes, or entanglements with fishing gear, could easily kill enough North Atlantic right whales to reverse the species’ fortunes again, as happened in 2017when 18 right whales died in just six months. That year also saw the Tragic death of whale rescuer Joe Howlettwho was killed after cutting the fishing lines of a North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
People who monitor and protect right whales and know the detailed history of these animals will tell you that a burst of calves, while wonderful in itself, is no guarantee of the long-term survival of the species. But conservationists say right whales are still worth defending because their small population could grow further, given the chance.
Callosity Back was born a survivor. Her mother is one of only two North Atlantic right whales to have given birth in the cold waters of the Northeast, far from the usual calving grounds off the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. (Right whale calves are born without blubber, meaning exposure to cold water during the first weeks of their life could kill them.)
Right away, researchers continually monitor right whale hatchlingsand were surprised by the 21 new arrivals. “In the 1980s and 1990s, we only went over 18 a few times, just to give a little context,” says Phil Hamilton, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium. “I hope that number could increase.”
Several females having given birth in the past, but not in the last three years, are currently present in the birthing areas. It is therefore possible that there will be an even higher number of pups by the time spring arrives. Nevertheless, large variations from year to year are to be expected in such a small population of animals, Hamilton points out, and it would be wise to consider long-term demographic trend– which since around 2010 has been significantly declining.
There is, however, other good news to consider: No North Atlantic right whale deaths have been recorded in 2025, Hamilton says, although there have been a few injuries. In December, for example, a male right whale called Division was spotted entangled in fishing gear– long lines wrapped around its head and mouth, even cutting off the animal’s vent. Rescuers managed to cut off some of the equipment, but it’s possible that sea lice could infect the wounds the lines had already made on Division’s skin, says Tonya Wimmer, conservation director and co-executive director of the Marine Animal Response Society, a charity in Canada. “He’s losing weight, so it’s not a good image for him,” she said.
North Atlantic right whale watchers constantly monitor the health of each whale, tracking their travels along the east coast of North America as sightings occur, and noting each new calf that appears. THE New England Aquarium North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog contains millions of records, including photographs and written contributions documenting right whale sightings over the decades. Calves, in particular, always attract a lot of interest. “A newborn calf is very adorable for those of us who love right whales,” says Hamilton. “You can see them nursing their mother or lying on the mother’s back.”
Hamilton and his colleagues are even working on a system that uses photogrammetry (putting together photos to create a 3D model of something) to measure the size and shape of female whales so they can determine if one is pregnant. It is possible to make a similar assessment by eye if the whale is far enough along, and pregnancy tests can also be done by analyzing hormones in the animals’ feces.
But getting so close to these whales comes with an emotional burden. “It wasn’t until I started this work that I heard the term ‘compassion fatigue’ in the right whale community,” says Albert. “It’s heartbreaking sometimes. They don’t have a happy story.”
Joel Cohen, wildlife photographer and Right Whale Sighting Network volunteer, knows that encouraging news during calving season is sometimes cruelly outweighed by what happens next. End of December 2022, he took the first photographs of a right whale calf born to a mother named Pilgrim, after being spotted along the Canaveral National Seashore. “A few weeks later we had a great drone video of mom and her calf,” he recalls. Cohen and his colleagues could even tell it was a small female when she rolled onto Pilgrim’s back.
About a year later, the peregrine calf returned to Florida as a juvenile. “She spent many hours, very close to shore, entertaining many people who were able to see her,” Cohen says. But just nine days after this appearance, terrible news arrived. An aerial survey team spotted a North Atlantic right whale carcass off the coast of Georgia. “She was hit by a ship,” Cohen said. He and Albert attended the necropsy, during which scientists discovered, among other injuries, fractures in the young whale’s skull. “I still feel the loss and I’m still dealing with it,” he says.
Cohen, who lives near the beach, adds that since the death of the pilgrim’s calf, he sometimes has nightmares. “I wake up, I open the blinds and there is a mother and a baby dead on the beach,” he said. “It’s an emotional toll.”
But there are reasons, beyond recent calving success, to be at least a little optimistic about the future. Wimmer praises significant regulatory interventions in Canada to protect right whales, for example. “They have implemented dynamic fishing management: if whales are spotted, fishermen will be removed from an area,” she explains.
Gliders – torpedo-shaped ocean craft –have increasingly contributed to monitoring the presence of whales in relation to navigation over the last few years. This is part of efforts to reduce ship strikes. Conservationists say if ships and pleasure craft slow down in areas frequented by right whales, and if people keep their distance from the animals when they are sighted, it will improve their chances of survival.
“We want everyone to see the whales, but you have to do it from land,” says Cohen. THE Right Whale Sighting Network has a hotline people can call to report the potential presence of North Atlantic right whales off the coast of Florida. Despite the disastrous consequences of the loss of the basking calf two years ago, Cohen says he is more confident than ever in the ability of North Atlantic right whales to recover as a species. He knows of whales that have lost calves, for example, but then given birth to new ones a few years later.
“You see this resilience,” he says, explaining why he is so dedicated to fighting for these whales. “It makes you want to fight even more.”
