After no sightings last year, endangered right whale calf spotted off Florida coast

A North Atlantic right whale.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

For the first time in nearly two years, a critically endangered right whale calf was spotted off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, last Friday, swimming next to its mother.

During the winter, right whales usually make their way to the coasts of Florida and Georgia from Maine and Canada for calving season, but last year, no calves were spotted along the Atlantic seaboard. "The real key is that this mother-calf pair is a strong indication that this year is going to be a more active calving season for us and I look forward to seeing bunches of new moms and calves," Frank Gromling, a member of the Marineland Right Whale Project, told the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.