The 2025-2026 calving season for North Atlantic right whales has been encouraging, and even amazing.
With the season winding down, the most encouraging part is that 22 calves have been spotted – the most since 2011 – and so far none have been lost.
As for the most amazing part, that might be what DNR documented while watching two moms – right whale catalog numbers 3101 (nicknamed Harmonia) and 3860 (Bocce) – and their calves off Cumberland Island on Jan. 6. Researchers were paying close attention because the four whales were often within a body length of each other as they rolled around at the surface. (Think play date for right whales.)
But it wasn’t until reviewing photos afterward that the crew confirmed something seldom seen: Harmonia and Bocce had exchanged calves. At least for that time.
DNR senior wildlife biologist Jessica Thompson, who leads the agency’s work with marine mammals, said calf exchanges are rarely observed in whales and there is little information on such incidents, including why they happen. “We just don’t know,” Thompson said.
Before Jan. 6, only three calf exchanges involving North Atlantic right whales had been recorded. Two moms swapped calves in 1987 and 1997, and three adult females did so in 2016. Interestingly, Bocce was part of the three-moms exchange. As far as scientists know, the calves in each of those incidents stayed with their adopted mothers. But the swap last month was temporary, Thompson said.
“We were able to determine that because of the collaborative monitoring effort in the calving grounds and the quality of photography by vessel and aerial survey teams. We could identify the calves by their different lip shapes and cyamid patterns, even though their callosities hadn’t formed.”
A biopsy sample taken a week later from the calf associated with Bocce could confirm that the calves returned to their moms.
WINTER WHALE UPDATES
Young whale beached in Virginia; (right) Millipede’s calf breaching in Georgia (CMARI, NOAA permits 24359, 26919)
- Right whale No. 3520 (Millipede) and her calf – DNR’s first mom-calf pair this winter, spotted Dec. 4 – were seen off Blackbeard Island Feb. 10. The two had returned from a long journey around the tip of Florida and into the Gulf. After being seen on Georgia’s coast in December, boaters reported the pair off west Florida, the Florida Keys and even Texas. By February, they were back in Georgia, with the DNR vessel and Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute plane survey teams even catching the calf breaching (above).
- Last month, 18 of the season’s 22 mom-and-calf pairs, as well as eight adult females that could calve, were seen off Georgia and Florida, the core calving grounds. But migration is calling. Some whales reported in the Southeast this winter have been seen since in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts. Yet boaters should still be on the lookout for whales, slow down where they’re present and report sightings via 877-WHALE-HELP (877-942-5343), the U.S. Coast Guard (marine VHF ch. 16) or the Whale Alert app. Reports can help avoid boat strikes. Check the app or whalemap.org for sightings.
- A 3-year-old female whale was reported dead on a Virginia beach Feb. 10. The whale was the third calf of right whale No. 3293 (Porcia). All three have died, the previous two from entanglement in commercial fishing gear, according to the New England Aquarium. The cause of the latest death is being investigated.
- A right whale partially freed from fishing rope by DNR and partners in December was found floating dead off North Carolina in January (below). After the rescue attempt, the 4-year-old male known as No. 5217 (Division) swam to New England and then returned south. Monitoring showed its condition declining even as bad weather and distance from shore stymied efforts to remove the remaining gear.
Sharks scavenge what’s left of Division off North Carolina (CMARI/NOAA permit 5217)