IN AWE OF RIGHT WHALES: CLF's Adilson Gonzalez Morales shares his first sighting of a rare North Atlantic right whale--and how we can help make sure it's not his last.

PositionCONSERVATION

GROWING UP IN THE ARID DESERT OF SOUTHWEST MEXICO, I DREAMED OF SEEING THE OCEAN. Yet I never thought that one day, I would sail the Atlantic and encounter one of the rarest whales on the planet--the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

For months, I had been reading about right whales and the lethal threats that they have faced for generations. I had grown increasingly passionate about the urgent need to save them, but, with fewer than 370 North Atlantic right whales left on the planet, seeing one in person seemed like a pipe dream. When a spot opened up on an expedition to Cape Cod Bay with scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the New England Aquarium, I jumped at the chance to tag along.

We set sail just after sunrise on a chilly April morning and soon received word of a mom and calf north of Provincetown. As we approached the area, we spotted the gentle whoosh of a whale's blowhole. Then, we saw a fluke. It was indeed a North Atlantic right whale, a 16-year-old female named Millipede. A long propeller scar marred her right side and gear entanglement marks dotted her fluke--tragic signs of the human-made dangers these whales face today.

Then, a smaller blow appeared close to Millipede. It was her newborn--a calf that had already defied the odds by surviving the harrowing migration to northern waters from right whales' winter feeding and calving grounds in Florida and Georgia.

Watching Millipede and her calf play together, I stood in awe, overwhelmed by their magnificence. Millipede's baby was a light of hope for the future of the species itself.

Not every calf has the same luck. Only 18 babies were born this season, and, sadly, one lived only for a few short weeks. He died when a recreational boat struck him off the Florida coast.

While 18 may seem like a high number, that birth rate is not enough to save right whales from extinction. That's why we need measures that make the ocean safer for calves to survive and for their mothers to be healthy enough to give birth and raise their babies.

I don't know if I will ever see Millipede, her calf, or any other North Atlantic right whale again. I hope so, and I wish that, somehow, they knew what was happening on our boat that day.

I wish they knew that we--and...

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