Department of Marine Resources Marine Mammal Research Right Whale Survey Update

By Sarah Leiter, DMR Division of Marine Mammal Research

The Division of Marine Mammal Research Survey Program (NMFS Permit No. 27858) has been conducting monthly aerial and vessel surveys for North Atlantic right whales since July of 2024. The Program has completed an Annual Report summarizing aerial and vessel survey work conducted in 2025. This report is available on the DMR website https://www.maine.gov/dmr/science/right-whale/monitoring/visual-surveys.

Most notably, despite conducting 14,694 nautical miles of systematic aerial survey effort and 2,259 nautical miles of systematic vessel survey effort, monthly surveys detected no North Atlantic right whales in Maine waters in 2025.

In addition to North Atlantic right whales, the surveys collect data for all marine species, with a primary focus on large whales. In the table, large whale sighting totals are shown seasonally for winter (January, February and March), spring (April, May, and June), summer (July, August and September) and fall (October, November, and December). Most sightings were of humpback, minke and fin whales.

Though North Atlantic right whales were not detected by DMR’s monthly systematic surveys in 2025, a large aggregation of over 90 right whales was detected by another survey team in Maine waters in January of 2025. The photo of two right whales, below, was taken during a response survey DMR conducted in response to those detections of Jeffery’s Basin facilitated by Maine Marine Patrol on January 19, 2025.