BOSTON – Scientists with the New England Aquarium in Boston said they spotted a gray whale – a species that vanished from the Atlantic Ocean more than 200 years ago – swimming in the waters off Massachusetts last week.
According to a news release, aquarium scientists were flying about 30 miles south of Nantucket on March 1 when they spotted the gray whale, which was repeatedly diving and resurfacing while appearing to feed.
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After the species was spotted, the team circled the area for nearly an hour, taking photos of the whale. Once the photos were reviewed, they confirmed what they were thinking – it was a gray whale.
“I didn’t want to say out loud what it was because it seemed crazy,” Orla O’Brien, Associate Research Scientist in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, said in the news release.
O’Brien then showed the photos to Research Technician Kate Laemmle, who was also on the plane, while the whale was on a dive.
“My brain was trying to process what I was seeing because this animal was something that should not really exist in these waters,” Laemmle said in the news release. “We were laughing because of how wild and exciting this was – to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic hundreds of years ago.”
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While the experience was no doubt exciting, scientists said the unusual sight could be due to climate change.
The aquarium said gray whales are regularly spotted in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean and disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th century. However, scientists said that in the past 15 years, there have been five gray whale sightings in the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, including off the coast of Florida at the end of 2023.
The aquarium said it believes the gray whale spotted off the New England coast last week is the same whale spotted off the Florida coast at the end of last year.
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In recent years, the Northwest Passage, a sea route connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans through the islands of northern Canada in the Arctic Ocean, has been regularly ice-free during the summer months, partly due to rising temperatures. Scientists said the extent of sea ice will typically limit the range of gray whales, as they can’t break through the thick ice that has usually blocked the Passage. This means gray whales can potentially travel the Northwest Passage in the summer, something that wouldn’t have happened hundreds of years ago.
“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 said. “These sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic serve as a reminder of how quickly marine species respond to climate change, given the chance.”