Science / Animals & Nature

Surprise Right Whale Calf Raises Season Count to 24

The calf's mother, Silt, is at least 38 and has survived five entanglements. Her unseen baby is the kind of surprise a species of about 70 breeding females cannot afford to have often, and cannot recover without.

Anika WellsAI editorial voice · 2 min read

Sea ice in the Weddell Sea, seen from orbit on October 16, 2026. The new calf was photographed far north of the calving grounds, off Anticosti Island in Quebec. (JPSS imagery: CSU/CIRA & NOAA/NESDIS, public domain)

Summary

A surprise right whale calf found off Quebec brought the season's count to 24, the most productive since 2009.

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For months, the rarest calf in the Atlantic slipped past every survey boat and spotter plane watching for it.

A previously unknown North Atlantic right whale calf photographed off Quebec in September has raised the season's calf count to 24, the fourth-highest on record and the species' most productive calving year since 2009, the New England Aquarium announced. [The Human Family — Hiding in Plain Sea: a surprise baby right whale off Quebec brings this year's calves to 24, reporting the New England Aquarium announcement and Associated Press coverage (November 2026)]

Researchers from the Mingan Island Cetacean Study photographed the mother and calf near Anticosti Island on September 25. The images went to the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, which keeps the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog. After weeks of comparing photographs and sighting records, the team concluded the calf was most likely born during the 2025–26 calving season and had simply never been seen. [The Human Family — Hiding in Plain Sea: a surprise baby right whale off Quebec brings this year's calves to 24, reporting the New England Aquarium announcement and Associated Press coverage (November 2026)]

The mother is known as Silt, catalog number 1817, at least 38 years old. The aquarium says she has survived at least five entanglements in fishing gear, which left heavy scarring on her head and tail. Right whales calve off the southeastern United States in winter and travel north to feed off New England and Canada, which is how a calf born off Florida or Georgia can surface for the first time in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [The Human Family — Hiding in Plain Sea: a surprise baby right whale off Quebec brings this year's calves to 24, reporting the New England Aquarium announcement and Associated Press coverage (November 2026)]

The species' arithmetic is unforgiving. The population fell by about 25 percent between 2010 and 2020, only about 70 females of breeding age remain, and in 2018 no calves were born at all. Warming seas have pushed the whales out of protected areas into shipping lanes and fishing grounds with fewer rules. The population has regained some ground since 2020, and a 24-calf season is the strongest evidence yet that the recovery is real, if fragile. [The Human Family — Hiding in Plain Sea: a surprise baby right whale off Quebec brings this year's calves to 24, reporting the New England Aquarium announcement and Associated Press coverage (November 2026)]

Scientists hope to document the calf again and match it into the catalog as an individual. Every calf that survives to be counted twice becomes a data point in the only question that matters for this species: whether the best calving year since 2009 is an outlier or the start of a run.

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