North Atlantic right whales – which can weigh as much as 70 tons – pay a high price for dragging hundreds of pounds of rope and fishing gear for thousands of miles for days or months, sometimes years, according to a study published today in the journal “Current Biology.” Lobster-gear entanglements are stunting the growth of the endangered species, the study concluded. Researchers from NOAA, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, New England Aquarium in Boston and Oregon State University analyzed photographs from aerial surveys and drones to determine that right whales are exhibiting the stunted growth — due mostly to entanglement — and that females appear to be producing smaller calves.