Right Whales: Florida’s Coast Is Part of the Only Nursery They Have

Each winter, one of the rarest large animals on Earth makes a long, secret journey to Florida. North Atlantic right whales, with perhaps only a few hundred left alive, swim more than a thousand miles down the Atlantic coast to give birth in the warm shallows off northeast Florida and southern Georgia, the only stretch of ocean on the planet where they are known to calve.

The Rarest of Giants

North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whales in the world, with a population estimated at only around 370 animals. They were hunted nearly to extinction in the whaling era, named “right whales” because they floated when killed and were considered the right ones to hunt. Slow, dark, and stocky, with no dorsal fin, they spend their summers feeding off New England and Canada, then the pregnant females head south as the weather cools.

A Florida Nursery

The warm, calm coastal waters off northeast Florida and southeast Georgia are the species’ only known calving ground. From roughly November through April, mothers give birth and nurse their newborn calves in the shallows off beaches near Jacksonville and the First Coast. Scientists track them with aircraft and boats, and beachgoers occasionally glimpse the dark backs of a mother and calf just offshore, a genuinely rare and precious sight.

Sharing the Water

The whales’ biggest threats are collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear, and because Florida is their nursery, the state plays an outsized role in saving them. Boaters are urged to slow down and keep their distance during whale season, and any sighting should be reported, not approached. To know that these ocean giants choose Florida’s coast to bring new life into the world is to see the Sunshine State in a whole new way.