Lack of endangered whale babies raises alarm among scientists

Euronews

20-05-2025

A vanishing species of whale gave birth to so few babies this birthing season that it has raised alarms among scientists and conservationists who fear the animal could go extinct.
The whale is the North Atlantic right whale, which numbers only about 370 and has declined in population in recent years. The whales give birth to calves off the southeastern United States from mid-November to mid-April, and federal authorities have said they need to have at least 50 calves per season to start recovering.
The whales didn't come anywhere near that number this year. The calving season produced only 11 mother-calf pairs, scientists with the New England Aquarium in Boston said.
The lack of baby whales underscores the need for their protection, conservationists said Monday.
North Atlantic right whales are vulnerable to entanglement in marine fishing gear and collisions with large ships.
'They're also reproducing more slowly than they used to,' said the International Fund for Animal Welfare in its calving season report card.
"This is likely due to stress from entanglements, navigation among busy maritime traffic, increasing ocean noise, and the changing distribution of their food sources."
The calving season did have some bright spots. Several females gave birth for the first time, and that gives hope for the future, the aquarium said in a statement. The whale population only has about 70 reproductive females left.
'With past calf counts ranging from 39 to zero, we never know how any calving season will unfold. While the calf count is relatively low this year, I am encouraged by four new mothers being added to the reproductive pool,' said Philip Hamilton, senior scientist in the Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.
The whales can weigh up to 45,360 kilograms and were heavily exploited during the era of commercial whaling. They've been protected for decades, but have been slow to recover.
In recent years, scientists have said the whales have strayed from established protected zones in search of food, and that has put them at elevated risk of entanglements and collisions.
The whales migrate from the south to New England and Canada to feed on tiny ocean organisms.
India's plans to double steel production by the end of the decade could jeopardise its national climate goals and a key global target to reduce planet-heating gas emissions from the steel industry, according to a report released Tuesday.
The report by Global Energy Monitor, an organisation that tracks energy projects around the globe, said efforts to decarbonise steelmaking are gaining traction around the world.
However, in India, the world's second-largest steel-producing nation, overwhelming reliance on coal-based technologies presents a big challenge.
'India is now the bellwether of global steel decarbonisation,' said Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, project manager of the Global Iron and Steel Tracker at GEM and report co-author.
'If the country does not increase its plans for green steel production, the entire sector will miss an important milestone. So goes India, so goes the world.'
Currently, up to 12 per cent of India's greenhouse gas emissions, which go into the atmosphere and heat the planet, come from steelmaking. That number could double in five years if steel is produced in line with the government's plans, according to the report.
At the same time, India wants to produce 500 gigawatts of clean power - enough to power nearly 300 million Indian homes - by the end of this decade. The South Asian nation recently crossed the milestone of installing 100 gigawatts of solar power, most of which was installed in the last 10 years.
By 2070, India also aims to go net zero, that is, it will either eliminate all carbon dioxide pollution it emits or cancel it out by using other methods, such as planting trees that absorb carbon.
Steel production is one of the most carbon-intensive industries, responsible for nearly 9 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The International Energy Agency has set a target for 37 per cent of global steelmaking capacity to rely on lower-emission electric arc furnaces by 2030.
Current projections by GEM show the world reaching just 36 per cent — a shortfall largely due to India's coal-heavy pipeline.
India plans to expand its steel production capacity from 200 million to over 330 million tonnes per year by 2030. According to the new data, over 40 per cent of global capacity in development - about 352 million tonnes per annum - is in India, with more than half of that using coal-based capacity.
'India is the only major steel-producing nation that has so much coal-based capacity in the pipeline,' said Henna Khadeeja, a research analyst with GEM who also worked on the report.
India's steel sector releases approximately 2.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of steel, roughly 25 per cent more than the global average. China, the world's largest steelmaker, has managed to keep its emissions lower per tonne by producing more scrap-based steel and retiring older coal-based plants.
India's heavy dependence on coal for steelmaking is driven by a combination of factors: low-cost domestic coal, a relatively young fleet of blast furnaces that still have 20–25 years of operational life left, and a lack of natural gas and steel scrap.
The country's scrap recycling ecosystem remains informal, and high-quality iron ore is scarce.
'There is potential for India to change course,' said Khadeeja of GEM. 'Much of the planned capacity is still on paper. Only 8 per cent of it has actually broken ground. This means there is still a window to shift toward lower-emission technologies.'
The consequences of producing carbon-polluting steel may go beyond climate goals. While India's steel exports are only a small share of its overall production, they could suffer as major markets like the European Union begin enforcing carbon border taxes next year.
'India may be better off tolerating some short-term pain of technological upgrading to make its steel cleaner for long-term competitiveness gain,' said Easwaran Narassimhan of the New Delhi-based think tank Sustainable Futures Collaborative.