A good news story about a North Atlantic right whale for once. Calvin, born in 1992 was orphaned due to a ship strike when she was just eight months old, and had been thought to have died from injuries sustained during an entanglement three years ago. But she has just been spotted again for the first time since 2022, amongst a pod of 60+ whales and seemingly recovered from her ordeal.
Calvin is one of the remaining 70 North Atlantic right whale females of reproductive age, having given birth four times according to the New England Aquarium. She has also survived as many as eight different entanglements in her 30+ years.
Tens of thousands of cetaceans are entangled in fishing gear every year and injured or killed, decimating vulnerable populations and pushing some species towards the brink of extinction. Our monitoring work plays a vital part in helping to identify hotspots where cetaceans are vulnerable to bycatch, so please visit www.orca.org.uk/donate to help support this vital work.