Every one of Florida’s 53 documented Rice’s whale records comes from GBIF; none are logged on iNaturalist, underscoring how rarely this Critically Endangered whale is seen alive near the coast. The state hasn’t assigned it a NatureServe rank (SNR), though its G1 global rank reflects how little population data exists anywhere in its range.
Records cluster tightly around two months, 28 in May and 22 in October, with almost every other month at zero. That two-month clustering more likely reflects when survey vessels were active in the Gulf than any real seasonal pattern in the whale’s presence.
