A BABY boom has raised hopes of a revival of the endangered North American right whale, which was fished to near-extinction in the 18th century and still is being battered by shipping off the East Coast of America.

Researchers at the New England Aquarium in Boston report that 27 whales were born in a near-record calving season, boosting the worldwide population to almost 350.

Nevertheless, the whales have already suffered heavy losses running the gauntlet of East Coast shipping on their way from their calving grounds off Florida and southern Georgia to the Bay of Fundy in Canada. At least five whales have been killed by ships and fishing equipment in the past six months, including at least two pregnant mothers and two females that were of breeding age. A sixth whale was injured last month when it was hit by a 43ft yacht travelling at 20 knots off Cumberland, Georgia. Scientists fear that it may not survive.

The whales, which grow to an average length of 15 metres (49ft), form one of three populations of right whale in the world. The others inhabit the North Pacific and the South Atlantic. They were called “right whales” because their thick layer of blubber kept them afloat when dead, making them easy to bring aboard and the “right” whale to kill.

The number of North Atlantic right whales is so small that researchers have identified nearly every individual from the unique wart-like “callosities” on their heads.

Although this calving season is the second-best on record, after 31 births in 2001, and comes after alarmingly low reproduction rates in the 1990s, scientists fear that more animals are dying than are being born. Researchers at the New England Aquarium estimate that more than 72 per cent of the surviving right whales carry scars from entanglements with ropes at sea and that up to 84 of them become entangled every year.

Scott Kraus, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium, appealed to vessels within 30 miles of America’s East Coast to sail at under ten knots.

“It’s like a squirrel trying to cross the road,” he said. “If you are driving down the road at 65 miles per hour, the squirrel is dead. But, if you are driving at ten miles per hour the squirrel has a chance.”

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