A team from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources was documenting the second North Atlantic right whale calf of the season about 4 miles offshore of the Florida/Georgia border on Wednesday when they received an urgent message.

North Atlantic right whales have returned to their calving grounds off Georgia earlier than expected. Or at least two of them did.

Six endangered North Atlantic right whales have died in June, four of them this week. This brings Georgia's state marine mammal even closer to extinction.

The Georgia coast is a central calving spot for North Atlantic right whales; however, last year, no new calves were spotted there, and that caused great...