A North Atlantic Right Whale Baby Boom Is On—but the Species Remains at Risk

After nearly two decades, the baby whale came back—as a mother, with a baby of its own. Julie Albert, director of the Right Whale Sighting Network at Blue World Research Institute, a nonprofit, first laid eyes on the North Atlantic right whale known as Callosity Back in 2007 when it was still just a calf, swimming off the coast of Florida.

Immediately, she says, the whale stood out. Like other North Atlantic right whales, it had callosities—patches of thick, white, rough tissue on its skin. But unlike any other known right whale, this one had those markings on its back.

“That’s how she got her name,” says Albert. “She’s definitely an individual.” Then, on New Year’s Eve 2025, Callosity Back returned to Florida. A call came through from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to say that an unidentified whale and her calf had been spotted off the state’s central-eastern coast. Albert describes how she and her colleagues raced to the pool deck behind a nearby beachside hotel to get a better view and soon realized it was Callosity Back.

“I’ve been waiting 19 years to see this mother,” says Albert. The whale observers—joined occasionally by hotel guests—watched the mother and calf pair swimming for hours, until darkness finally fell.

Callosity Back’s calf is just one of 21 right whale babies documented at the time of writing during the current calving season, which spans from mid-November to mid-April. It is unusual to see so many of these whales born so early in a single season. Researchers counted only 11 last year, for example.

In 2024, just 384 North Atlantic right whales were left in the wild in total, according to an estimate published last October. The species used to number in the many thousands, before commercial whaling almost wiped out these animals during the 18th and 19th centuries. North Atlantic right whales have never recovered and are now on the brink of extinction.

The baby boom is good news, says Albert. But it doesn’t change the overall picture for these animals, which remain in great jeopardy. A series of collisions with vessels, or entanglements with fishing gear, could easily kill enough North Atlantic right whales to flip the species’ fortunes the other way again, as happened in 2017, when 18 right whales died during a period of just six months. That year also saw the tragic death of whale rescuer Joe Howlett, who was killed after cutting fishing lines off a North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The people who monitor and protect right whales, and who know these animals’ stories in great detail, will tell you that a flurry of calves, while wonderful in itself, by no means guarantees the species’ long-term survival. But right whales are still worth fighting for, conservationists say, because their tiny population could yet swell again—if it gets the chance.

Callosity Back was born a survivor. Her mother is one of only two North Atlantic right whales ever documented to have given birth in chilly northeastern waters, far from the usual calving grounds off the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. (Right whale calves are born without blubber, meaning that exposure to cold water in the first weeks of life could kill them.)

Right now, researchers are continually watching for newborn right whales, and have been surprised by the 21 new arrivals. “In the 1980s and 1990s we only got over 18 maybe a couple of times, just to give that some context,” says Phil Hamilton, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium. “I’m hopeful that number might go up.”