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<\/a>Biologists first spied Eg2301 entangled in fishing line in September 2004, but they were unable to cut the lines loose. The whale died five months later. Photo by New England Aquarium<\/p><\/div>\n
Eg2301 carried the gear for six to nine months, an energetically costly effort, with the ropes sometimes impeding her breathing and feeding. The whale\u2019s baleen shows that in the summer of 2004, thyroid hormones surged\u2014a sign of increased energy use and thermal stress. It tells of how the whale started burning fat as she began to starve. It reveals that, physiologically, Eg2301 remained in distress for the rest of her days.<\/p>\n
The keratin recorded other events as well. Deposits of carbon and nitrogen (the ratios of which change as an animal moves between food webs) marked her annual migrations, some 3,000 kilometers, between Canada and the eastern United States\u2014travels confirmed by spotters\u2019 records. Fluctuating thyroid hormones, which regulate metabolism, tracked as expected, with seasonal fluctuations in prey. And a long progesterone peak into 2002 highlights a successful pregnancy\u2014a biochemical timeline that syncs with sightings of Eg2301 and a calf later that year.<\/p>\n
More than just lending chemical corroboration to what is already known, the baleen diary quantifies the whale\u2019s experiences. Comparing and contrasting hormone spikes, for example, let Lysiak calculate the stress level of different experiences and the toll each took on the animal\u2019s health. For Eg2301, pregnancy and entanglement, which affected different stress hormones, were by far the most taxing events she experienced in the eight years recorded by the baleen.<\/p>\n
With careful analysis, such data could point researchers to the time and place of a stressful event, which, for entanglement, could even mean pinpointing the offending gear\u2019s owner. (In this case, ownership wasn\u2019t clear.)<\/p>\n
Such knowledge can be useful in conservation efforts. Until recently, ship strikes were the biggest killer of this critically endangered species. But adjustments to ship traffic patterns have substantially cut down on lethal hits. Now, \u201cmany fishermen have shifted to rope that\u2019s strong as steel,\u201d Knowlton says, \u201cand that\u2019s escalated whale deaths in the last dozen years.\u201d More than 80 percent of North Atlantic right whales\u2014whose population numbers fewer than 500\u2014show the scars of encounters with fishing gear.<\/p>\n
With so few whales remaining, \u201cindividual whale losses matter,\u201d Lysiak says. She says this new baleen analysis technique has the potential to give each whale a voice. Especially when researchers otherwise couldn\u2019t know a whale\u2019s timeline or cause of death, baleen could add valuable new information to help push for better management of the species.<\/p>\n
But for Lysiak, the work goes beyond constructive outcomes, like demanding the development of whale-safe fishing gear: Eg2301\u2019s story hit her emotionally as well as intellectually. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to disconnect because this happens out of sight, but our effect on these animals can be horrific,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cEg2301\u2019s story will always stay with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
*Correction: This erroneously said centimeters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The North Atlantic right whale drifted in the currents off the North Carolina coast, her diminished 30-tonne body gone slack. For months, the 12-year-old whale known as Eg2301 had been bound by 10-millimeter-thick fishing line* that lacerated her left pectoral <\/p>\n