In the Water Without a doubt the most magnificent denizen—if
only part-time—of the southeastern coast is the North American
right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), which can approach 60 feet in
length. Each year from December to March the mothers give birth
to their calves and nurse them in the warm waters off the
Georgia coast in an eons-old ritual. (In the summers they like
to hang around the rich fishing grounds off the New England
coast, though biologists still can’t account for their
whereabouts at other times of the year.) Their numbers were so
abundant in past centuries that the Spanish name for Jekyll
Island, Georgia, was Isla de las Ballenas (“Island of the
Whales”). Whaling and encounters with ship propellers have taken
their toll, and numbers of this endangered species are dwindling
fast now, with less than 500 estimated left in the world.
Another of humankind’s aquatic cousins, the Atlantic bottle-
nosed dolphin (Ursiops truncates), is a well-known and frequent
visitor to the coast, coming far upstream