The aerial survey may help in coordinating efforts to protect the whales, hunted nearly into extinction in the past two centuries, the researchers at NOAA said. "We're excited because seeing 44 right whales together in the Gulf of Maine is a record for the winter months, when daily observations of three or five animals are much more common," said Tim Cole, who heads the team at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

"Right whales are baleen whales, and in the winter spend a lot of time diving for food deep in the water column. Seeing so many of them at the surface when we are flying over an area is a bit of luck."

Many female North Atlantic right whales head south to Florida and Georgia to give birth in the winter, NOAA said in a statement. But scientists know little about where other right whales go in winter.

Only 325 of the giant mammals are known to survive...