An aerial survey team from New England Aquarium recently made an amazing discovery. They spotted a gray whale in the Atlantic Ocean, despite the species being extinct there for more than 200 years.
Gray whales roamed the Atlantic Ocean until the 18th century before disappearing in these waters due to whaling. They are now exclusively living in the Pacific Ocean, although there were some sightings of gray whales in the Mediterranean Sea and off the coast of Florida in the past 15 years.
“My brain was trying to process what I was seeing because this animal was something that should not really exist in these waters,” said New England Aquarium’s research technician Kate Laemmle in a press release. “We were laughing because of how wild and exciting this was—to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic hundreds of years ago!”
According to experts, the re-emergence of gray whales in the Atlantic Ocean waters is due to climate change. Northwest Passage, which connects Pacific and Atlantic, has been ice-free during the summer in recent years, allowing gray whales to travel between the two oceans.
“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 New England Aquarium’s associate research scientist Orla O’Brien.
