{"id":2185061,"date":"2025-01-02T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2185061"},"modified":"2024-12-28T09:47:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T08:47:10","slug":"right-whales-can-live-130-years-or-longer-research-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/right-whales-can-live-130-years-or-longer-research-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Right Whales Can Live 130 Years or Longer, Research Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have estimated that bowhead whales \u2014 the longest-living whale species \u2014 can live more than 200 years.<\/p>\n

It was once thought that the bowhead\u2019s cousin, the right whale, had an average lifespan of about 70 to 80 years, but new research has revised that estimate to more than 130 years \u2014 nearly twice as long!<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the standpoint of physiological scaling, these superannuated ages should not be unexpected. Whales are the largest living animals, and body size is highly correlated with longevity,\u201d the authors of the study wrote.<\/p>\n

The researchers worked with Indigenous subsistence hunters from Utqia\u0121vik, Alaska. They used chemical analysis of bowhead whales that had been killed to demonstrate that they are able to live more than two centuries, a press release from University of Alaska Fairbanks said.<\/p>\n

The chemical evidence was corroborated by harpoon tips from the 19th century being recovered from bowheads killed during modern hunts.<\/p>\n

Right whales are more closely related to bowheads than any other species and appear to have similar lifespans. Like their cousins, right whales filter their food through baleen plates and make seasonal migrations to birthing grounds.<\/p>\n

The names given to right whales were sadly from whalers considering them to be the \u201cright\u201d whales for hunting because their thick blubber caused them to float after they had been killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndustrial whaling, which for most species ended only 60 years ago, would have required any individuals now aged over 100 years to have survived at least 40 years of intense whaling, and any individual over 150 would have had to survive 90 years of that same intense hunt,\u201d the authors wrote in the study. \u201cGiven that many whale species were reduced to less than 10% of their original population size, and the population minima for most species were reached in the mid-20th century, that degree of whaling would have rendered superannuated individuals extremely rare or completely absent from the age structures of most populations. Consequently, extremely old whales may not be part of the demographic makeup of current whale populations, even if they historically existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers looked at four decades of data that had been collected through photo identification programs tracking critically endangered North Atlantic right whales \u2014 who live along North America\u2019s Atlantic coast \u2014 and Southern right whales, found south of the equator, the press release said.<\/p>\n

The research team constructed survivorship curves \u2014 graphs showing how many of a population survives to each age \u2014 using the data, which are similar to those insurance companies use in the calculation of human life expectancies.<\/p>\n

Their analysis showed that Southern right whales can live longer than 130 years \u2014 with some possibly living to 150 years \u2014 rather than the 70 to 80 years that had been previously thought.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Southern right whale in Pen\u00ednsula Vald\u00e9s, Argentina. Francois Gohier \/ VW Pics \/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In contrast, the team found that the average North Atlantic right whale lifespan is only 22 years, with few individuals living past 50.<\/p>\n

Associate professor Greg Breed with University of Alaska Fairbanks explained that the stark contrast between the lifespans of bowhead and right whales is mostly due to human impacts.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Atlantic whales have unusually short lifespans compared to other whales, but this isn\u2019t because of intrinsic differences in biology, and they should live much longer,\u201d Breed, who is lead author of the study, said in the press release. \u201cThey\u2019re frequently tangled in fishing gear or struck by ships, and they suffer from starvation, potentially linked to environmental changes we don\u2019t fully understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A North Atlantic right whale swims off with a small amount of fishing rope after a disentanglement effort. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, taken under NOAA research permit #15488<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Breed has been studying marine mammals for years, including seals. Certain seal species have lifespans of up to 50 years. Narwhals can live a century or more.<\/p>\n

Breed noted that there have been significant underestimations of whale lifespans in the past due to lack of whale aging data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know how to age baleen whales until 1955, which was the very end of industrial whaling,\u201d Breed explained. \u201cBy the time we figured it out, there weren\u2019t many old whales left to study. So we just assumed they didn\u2019t live that long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new research could provide valuable information for future conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo attain healthy populations that include old animals, recovery might take hundreds of years,\u201d Breed said. \u201cFor animals that live to be 100 or 150 and only give birth to a surviving calf every 10 years or so, slow recovery is to be expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study highlights the essential nature of cultural knowledge in whale communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a growing recognition that recovery isn\u2019t just about biomass or the number of individuals. It\u2019s about the knowledge these animals pass along to the next generation,\u201d Breed said. \u201cThat knowledge isn\u2019t just genetic \u2014 it\u2019s cultural and behavioral. Older individuals teach survival skills. Younger animals learn by observing and copying the strategies of the older ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breed and his colleagues plan to expand their research to additional whale populations and explore the possibility of other whale species currently believed to have lifespans of roughly 80 years living much longer. The researchers hope to discover more about whaling\u2019s impact on the number of long-lived individuals in current populations and predict when they will recover to pre-whaling population numbers.<\/p>\n

The study, \u201cExtreme longevity may be the rule not the exception in Balaenid whales,\u201d was published in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes was first published by EcoWatch on 23 December 2024. Lead Image: A Southern right whale in Patagonia, Argentina. Foto4440 \/ iStock \/ Getty Images Plus.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

What you can do<\/h2>\n

Help to save wildlife by donating as little as $1 \u2013 It only takes a minute.<\/p>\n