In a game of scientific telephone, if you find the food, you find the whales--and sound the alarm. North Atlantic right whales sometimes gather at Jeffrey's Ledge, a 62-mile-long underwater ridge about 25 miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. It was a cold and windy week last January, when a group of Maine lobstermen couldn't haul in their traps from Jeffrey's Ledge. The reason why surprised everyone.

At least 18 new baby North Atlantic right whales have been spotted swimming with their mothers. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. While most of us were feasting on holiday foods over the past few weeks, the New England Aquarium was busy counting North Atlantic right whale () mom-calf pairs off the coast of Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. "Congrats to all of these North Atlantic right whale moms!" reads a social media post by the aquarium highlighting six recent sightings, including Juno--an over 40-year-old mother with her ninth documented calf spotted on December 27. On January 8, the count jumped up to 18 calves, according to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium .

The North Atlantic Right Whale (Right whale) is one of the most endangered whale species in the world with only about 368 remaining off the east coast of North America. A decreasing trend and low reproduction rates, combined with high levels of human activities – such as shipping and fisheries – underscore their precarious situation. Efficient tracking of their numbers, migration paths and habitat use is vital to lowering the number of preventable injuries and deaths and promoting their recovery. One of the frequently used methods to monitor whales is called passive acoustics technology. Right whales vocalize a variety of low-frequency sounds such as moans, groans, pulses and even belches.

One of the world's most endangered whales was spotted swimming with a newborn in the waters off South Carolina's Hilton Head island. A drone camera captured footage of a 50-ton North Atlantic right whale and her calf frolicking about four miles from shore. According to the boat captain who spotted the pair on Friday, the mother was 50 feet long and the calf was close to 15 feet. The North Atlantic right whale is among the rarest of marine mammals, with less than 400 left in the world. Collisions with boats and entanglement in lobster nets are the main reason they are critically endangered.

A comprehensive new study of North Atlantic right whales has found the species is significantly smaller and less healthy than southern right whales and could be wiped out in the next 20 years without intervention. The study, the largest of its kind, was organized by Dr. Fredrik Christiansen or Aarhus University in Denmark and involved 12 research institutions across five countries. The team used a fleet of drones to capture images of right whales in the North Atlantic and three major regions in the southern hemisphere. A team of researchers organized by Dr. Fredrik Christiansen or Aarhus University in Denmark used drones to photograph right whales around the world and found North Atlantic right whales are far smaller and less healthy than their southern hemisphere counterparts Using a technique called'aerial photogrammetry,' the team correlated basic information about whale width and length to make determinations about the general health of the whales. In an interview with National Geographic, Christiansen said the team was shocked to find the North Atlantic right whales'looked like a runway…you could basically set up a tent on their backs.'

To the untrained eye, zebras in Kenya probably all look alike. But each animal's black and white markings are like a fingerprint, distinct -- and invaluable for scientists who need to track the animals and information about them, including their births, deaths, health and migration patterns. Traditionally, getting this kind of information has been an invasive and labor-intensive process. But breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and crowdsourcing of photos of individual animals are beginning to change the conservation game. Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit Wild Me has developed AI to pick out identifying markers -- the stripes on a zebra, the spots on a giraffe, the contours of a flukewhale's fin -- and catalog animals much faster than a human can.