Rare Whale Spotted Off Coast of Massachusetts for the First Time in Over 200 Years

For the first time in over 200 years, a gray whale was spotted just off the Massachusetts coast. It was such a rare find that the scientists who spotted it didn’t dare to say anything until they were 100% sure it was the gray whale. 

Scientists have always wanted to study this whale, as it is one of the only creatures that has not been studied. However, one ended up being washed up on the shore in New Zealand in 2024. While it wasn’t alive, it gave the scientists some insight into the whale to help them gain more knowledge about it.

The New England Aquarium thought they saw one of the area’s right whales, which they spot regularly off the East Coast. However, circling back, it was unmistakably a gray whale because of its mottled gray color and triangular head shape.

“My head was spinning a little and I thought I knew what it was, but I wanted independent confirmation,” said Orla O’Brien, associate research scientist with the aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. “We started getting giddy and saying to each other, this is insane.”

One whale just off the coast of New Hampshire in the Atlantic Ocean was mid-breach and ended up hitting a small fishing boat, sending the two men on board flying into the ocean.

The species with rising deaths is the humpback whale, once a famous sight along the East Coast. Many people are saying the reason for the rise in fatalities is due to offshore windfarms and that these need to be stopped before more whale deaths occur.

As they weren’t close enough and hadn’t seen it enough times, they needed to try and get a closer look to check if they were right. So they circled the area for around 45 minutes.

“I didn’t want to say out loud what it was, because it seemed crazy,” said O’Brien. “My brain was trying to process what I was seeing because this animal was something that should not really exist in these waters,” said another research technician, Kate Laemmle.

Depending on location, it’s also easy to tell whether it’s a gray whale. They are more commonly spotted in the Pacific Ocean and are rarely found in the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea. 

Even though they were hunted almost to extinction, they are thankfully still in existence. They can grow up to 49 feet long and weigh around 90,000 pounds. They also tend to travel 10,000 to 14,000 miles per trip.

These whales were nearly hunted to extinction by humans. However, commercial whaling moratoriums and conservations have helped keep the species afloat. Gray whales are now a protected species.

The gray whale was last seen in the 18th century, but there have been just five sightings of the species over the last 15 years, with the previous one being just off the Florida Coast in December 2023. This is a sign that gray whales are potentially going through a comeback.

Even though it is easy to distinguish a gray whale from any other whale species, it isn’t always easy to distinguish one gray whale from another.

Other unusual sights include one off the coast of Namibia in 2015. In 2011, another gray whale was spotted off the coast of Israel. At the time, researchers attributed the rare sightings to warming ocean waters.

“I don’t expect that we’ll see a brand new population of gray whales in the Atlantic anytime in the very near future,” said Liz Alter, a biology professor at the California State University in Monterey Bay. “But it shouldn’t surprise us if we start to see a steady trickle of gray whales arriving in the Atlantic.”

The main reason appears to be climate change. As the planet gets warmer, this warms water and causes ice to melt. The melting ice of the Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, allows gray whales to travel freely between the two. 

“They’re going all the way up to the Arctic to feed already, so they’re quite close to these newly ice-free areas that would allow them to pass through,” said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.

The prey that gray whales rely on for their survival is dying out due to warmer waters. Since 2019, the disappearance of tiny crustaceans that sperm whales feed on has killed between 25 and 50% of gray whales living in the eastern Pacific. Many of the whales that survive the lack of food are emaciated.

The gray whale the team spotted might not find its way back to the Arctic. Once the Arctic summer ends, gray whales will find that the Northwest Passage will have frosted over again. This probably happened last year, forcing this gray whale to migrate south to Florida. “I don’t see this as a positive,” said Regina Guazzo, a researcher with the Whale Acoustic Reconnaissance Project at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific in San Diego.

“Ice melting will impact the Arctic food chain that the whales depend on, and the additional freshwater could mess up the global ocean circulation patterns. This could have huge impacts on weather, temperature and food supply,” said Guazzo.

The fact that gray whales are starting to travel between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans due to climate change shows how resilient they are and how quickly they can adjust to climate change.

“These sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic serve as a reminder of how quickly marine species respond to climate change, given the chance,” said O’Brien.

This is because the ocean is a dynamic ecosystem. You never know what you will find there, and sometimes, you can find an incredibly rare sighting that could change everything.

“It’s almost definitely going to happen. But it’s going to take a lot of trial and error on the part of the whales,” said Stewart. These whales will need to find new food sources and establish a breeding area where the whales can reproduce. “It’s not something that we will witness with our eyes in real-time, but it’s cool to see what may be the start of it,” said Stewart.