Officials with the federal government say it's time to consider the possibility that endangered right whales could become extinct unless new steps are taken to protect them.
North Atlantic right whales are among the rarest marine mammals in the world, and they have endured a deadly year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there are only about 450 of the whales left and 17 of them have died so far in 2017.
The situation is so dire that American and Canadian regulators need to consider the possibility that the population won't recover without action soon, said John Bullard, the Northeast Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries.
The high year of mortality is coinciding with a year of poor reproduction, and there are only about 100 breeding female North Atlantic right whales left.
"You do have to use the extinction word, because that's where the trend lines say they are," Bullard said. "That's something we can't let happen."
Bullard and other NOAA officials made the comments during a Tuesday meeting of the regulatory New England Fishery Management Council.
Mark Murray-Brown, an Endangered Species Act consultant for NOAA, said right whales have been declining in abundance since 2010, with females hit harder than males.
The US and Canada must work to reduce the human-caused deaths of the whales, Murray-Brown said. Vessel-strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are two frequently cited causes of the whales' deaths.
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