Endangered Right Whale Makes Way From Panhandle to the Northeast

Updated: Tue 12:47 PM, Jun 08, 2004

The New England Aquarium saw the whale and her calf last week in the waters of the Great South Channel, off the Cape Cod elbow.

In January, the errant pair were found in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Panama City. It was the first confirmed sighting of right whales in the Gulf of Mexico in more than 20 years.

Usually right whales come up the east side of the Florida Peninsula. In the Gulf, the pair had to deal with water up to 20 degrees warmer than normal and they had to navigate nearly a thousand miles of unfamiliar territory to reach the Atlantic coast, where they knew their way.

Now the whale is nicknamed Derecha, which means right in Spanish, because of her penchant for Mexico and the warm Gulf waters.

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