{"id":360049,"date":"2025-12-20T14:03:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T14:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360049\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T14:03:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T14:03:21","slug":"boaters-warned-to-steer-clear-of-endangered-whales-off-merritt-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360049\/","title":{"rendered":"Boaters warned to steer clear of endangered whales off Merritt Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. \u2013 A new warning has been issued for boaters near Merritt Island after a critically-endangered North Atlantic right whale was spotted with her calf off the coast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">There are thought to only be about 380 North Atlantic right whales left in the wild. Boat strikes present one of the biggest dangers to North Atlantic right whales, mainly because they\u2019re very dark and don\u2019t have dorsal fins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cAll large whales, including North Atlantic right whales, actually fertilize our ocean basins,\u201d Marine Scientist Norah Ives said. \u201dSo, every other breath you take, that oxygen that you\u2019re taking in is from the ocean and the whales fertilize the tiny plants at the surface of the ocean that create that oxygen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Calving season runs through mid April. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">It\u2019s illegal to approach a right whale within 500 yards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">[MORE MERRITT ISLAND: Gas plan proposal sparks concerns]<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kiwhtN\">Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. \u2013 A new warning has been issued for boaters near Merritt Island after a critically-endangered&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[34722,7224,192,2808,34080,103583,79,34688,201],"class_list":["post-360049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-brevard-county","tag-endangered","tag-environment","tag-florida","tag-merritt-island","tag-right-whales","tag-science","tag-whales","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}