US Navy
Marine Species Monitoring
Right whale calf sighted off Virginia!
Each winter, a portion of the North Atlantic right whale population—namely pregnant females—travel from their summer feeding grounds off New England and Canada to give birth to their calves off the coast of the Southeastern United States. Typically, the new calves are born in the warm coastal waters off Florida or Georgia, with a only a few having been observed off South Carolina. The number of calves born each year is tracked very closely, as there are fewer than 70 breeding females left and only about 370 whales in the entire population - every addition to the population is critical. The U.S. Navy has helped fund seasonal aerial surveys over the southeast calving grounds for close to 20 years with the intent of locating North Atlantic right whales and notifying mariners to watch out for these animals, especially vulnerable mom/calf pairs.
North Atlantic right whale #4540 with her first known calf off Virginia Beach, VA. Photo by HDR Inc.
On Wednesday, December 18, 2024, vessel and aerial survey teams set out from Virginia Beach, VA on a very different mission—to locate an entangled right whale that had been reported in the area the day before as part of a coordinated response to assess the situation and hopefully provide insight into future disentanglement efforts. While that whale was not located, the team did come across something a little more hopeful, but extremely unexpected for our survey area this time of year. Towards the end of the survey day, as the sun was beginning to dip low in the sky, the vessel team with researchers from HDR Inc. located a North Atlantic right whale a few miles from shore—but next to that whale was a tiny surprise. It was a young calf alongside its mother! The vessel called the HDR/NAVFAC LANT aerial survey team to help collect photographs from the air to identify the individual. Photos from both the vessel and plane, as well as a drone piloted from the vessel, were sent to colleagues at Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and New England Aquarium so they could hopefully provide the identity of the mother.
Aerial view of North Atlantic right whale #4540 with her first known calf off Virginia Beach, VA. Photo by HDR Inc.
The mother is NARW #4540, a 12-year-old whale, and this is her first known calf! This is only the third fully documented calf of the 2024-25 calving season. As far as we know, this is the first time a newborn calf has been spotted off Virginia this early in the calving season and could mean it was born close by rather than what is thought to be the typical calving area hundreds of miles to the south.
Left side view of North Atlantic right whale #4540 with her first known calf off Virginia Beach, VA. Photo by HDR Inc.
Meanwhile, acoustic monitoring buoys off the coast of Cape Charles and Norfolk, VA detected very clear right whale upcalls this week and have had fairly regular fin whale and humpback whale detections as well. Our field team has also had several humpback whale sightings in the past month, so whale season is in full swing here in the Mid-Atlantic!
For more information on right whales, check out these links:
- The 2025 calving season
- Recent sightings on WhaleMap
- Our work in the Mid-Atlantic
- The NARW catalog
- Information on vessel slow zones
Our research is led by HDR Inc., funded by United States Fleet Forces Command, and managed by Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Atlantic under the U.S. Navy’s Marine Species Monitoring program. All scientific activities are conducted under NMFS scientific research permit #28184.
