‘Shouldn’t exist’: Whale that disappeared from Atlantic hundreds of years ago spotted off Mass.
A rare whale that has been extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for more than 200 years was recently spotted in the water off the coast of Massachusetts, the New England Aquarium announced Tuesday.
An aerial survey team confirmed the sighting of a gray whale in the Atlantic about 30 miles south of Nantucket on Friday, March 1, the Aquarium said in a news release.
“I didn’t want to say out loud what it was, because it seemed crazy,” said Orla O’Brien, an associate research scientist in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.
O’Brien, who has been flying aerial surveys since 2011, says the animal repeatedly dove and resurfaced as it appeared to be feeding. The aerial survey plane circled the area for 45 minutes, allowing observers to capture stunning photos.
“My brain was trying to process what I was seeing because this animal was something that should not really exist in these waters,” said research technician Kate Laemmle, who was also in the plane. “We were laughing because of how wild and exciting this was—to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic hundreds of years ago!”
Gray whales are regularly found in the North Pacific Ocean and are easily distinguished from other whale species by their lack of a dorsal fin, mottled grey and white skin, and dorsal hump followed by pronounced ridges.
The species disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean by the 18th century but in the last 15 years, there have been five observations of gray whales in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, including off the coast of Florida in December 2023, according to the Aquarium.
Aquarium scientists said that they believe the gray whale seen off New England on Friday is the same whale sighted in Florida late last year.
Scientists also pointed to climate change to explain the strange sightings, noting that the whale may have traveled through the ice-free Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean in Canada.
The Northwest Passage has partly been free of ice in the summertime in recent years due to rising global temperatures, allowing gray whales to potentially travel through it, a feat that wouldn’t have been possible in the previous century, according to scientists.
“This sighting highlights how important each survey is. While we expect to see humpback, right, and fin whales, the ocean is a dynamic ecosystem, and you never know what you’ll find,” O’Brien added. “These sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic serve as a reminder of how quickly marine species respond to climate change, given the chance.”
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