10/07/2009

#21: End of the Season

Our field season in the Bay of Fundy has ended. It was a demanding and exciting season this year with all sorts of media coverage, interesting whales, and unusual whale distributions. We had a few of different research vessels on the water this season and were able to cover a large area of the Bay of Fundy and Roseway Basin.



The r/v Nereid went out 23 times and the r/v Callisto was able to get out 7 times, both surveying the Bay of Fundy. During the last week of August into early September, a few members of our team set out to Novia Scotia for a 10-day long survey of the Roseway Basin Area To Be Avoided. The last time a thorough population survey was conducted in Roseway Basin was in 2006. We were able to document 20 of the 39 mother and calf pairs this season and so far we have identified 141 right whales in the Bay of Fundy and approximately 40 more in Roseway Basin. These numbers will be sure to grow once the data is fully processed.



In August, a story ran on the front page of the Bangor Daily News about our research. The story ran on their website with a great video displaying a typical day as a right whale researcher. In September, Chris Corday from the Canadian Broadcasting Center came to video interview our team for a spot on the CBC's The National.

We saw a number of interesting whales as well, one in particular, Pico (#3270), who swam to the Azores last January. It is usual to have a right whale sighting in the eastern Atlantic and we were all curious if we would see Pico again. Pico is an example of how right whales can and do travel outside of their typical migration route along the east coast of the United States and Canada. Other interesting whales sighted in the bay were Ruffian (#3530), who, last January, sustained injuries all over his head and body on his migration to the southeast habitat, and Calvin (#2223) and her calf who were sighted once in the calving grounds this past winter and not again until September.



Right whale distributions were noticeably different this year compared to previous years. Right whales sightings near the wolves (a chain of islands miles north of the usual habitat) we last recorded during the early 1980s. That's 30 years ago!

The weather turned foul during the last week of the field season so we packed up the research station and headed south back to Boston. We are always sad to leave the bay knowing that whales are still in the bay, but this year find some closure knowing that foul weather continues to haunt the bay.

Now back in Boston, we have to prepare for the Biennial Marine Mammal Conference in Quebec City, the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium and the Southeast field season in Fernandina Beach, FL starting December 1st.

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posted by Jonathan at 10:43 AM 2 Comments



9/28/2009

#20: A Season of Unusual Sightings

As our season is winding down, we've been thinking about some of the unusual sightings we've had over the past couple months. We've mentioned some of them in earlier blog entries, like the unprecedented number of right whales off The Wolves (the island chain many miles north of the usual habitat) and the crazy cloud we saw in early September. But there have been other things that have caught our attention and made us wonder: What's going on this year?

One of the avian species we see every year are puffins, the cute football shaped black birds with the colorful striped beaks. Typically we only see four or five on any given day, but this year was a different story. Nearly every day we were out this season we had lots of puffins--puffins alone, in pairs or trios and occasionally in flocks of 8-12! And in late August we even had a rare sighting of an albino puffin! Why all the puffins? We have no idea, but we've certainly had fun watching them.


There were two other bird species that seemed much more prevalent this year than in the past: Northern Fulmars and Jaegers. Fulmars are usually found offshore, so the number of sightings we've had is surprising. What's great about fulmars is that they always seem a little curious about us. They literally turn their heads to check us out as they fly by.



Jaegers are aggressive seabirds that engage in kleptoparasitism--harassing other birds to force them to drop food they are carrying. As with puffins and fulmars, we've had a bumper crop this year. Find out more about all three of these interesting seabirds here.



The Bay was hopping with Bluefin tuna, especially in September. It's always exciting to see schools of these magnificent fish leaping out of the water as they pursue their unlucky prey.



In addition to the birds in the Bay of Fundy, we've also had an influx of humpback whales in areas that are usually the exclusive domain of right whales. It's not that humpbacks aren't seen in the Bay, they are, but they tend to aggregate further to the south and east. In years past, a big humpback count would be three in one day, but on a recent trip we counted 15! One of the humpbacks spent several minutes flippering, i.e. slapping it's long (12')pectoral fin against the water. Quite a bizarre sight when you're used to the black , paddle-shaped and comparatively stubby flippers of the right whale. The latin name for humpbacks is Megaptera novaeangliae, which means "big-winged New Englander"... it's easy to see why it got that name!



All of these species are not uncommon in the Bay of Fundy, but what has been interesting is the number of them. Why are so many humpbacks, fulmars, jaegers, puffins and tuna in the Bay this year? And could there be any correlation with the right whales' unusual northerly distribution, not seen in 30 years? Nature, as always, holds puzzles that we have yet to figure out.

To see more photos of unusual species we saw this season click here.


Photo Captions:

1) An albino puffin in the Bay of Fundy

2) A fulmar checks us out as it flies by the boat

3) A parasitic jaeger looking for trouble

4) T he back half of a leaping tuna

5) A humpback whale waves it's long flipper in the air

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posted by Marilyn at 7:17 PM 0 Comments



9/27/2009

#20: Other Species Seen on Roseway Basin

In addition to North Atlantic right whales, we were lucky to see several other species of marine mammals, fish and birds during our trip to Roseway Basin. Following is a short list of some of the different species of animals seen:

Fin whale, Sei whale, Humpback whale, Minke whale, Pilot whale, Killer whale, Common dolphin, White-sided dolphin, Harbour porpoise, Mola-mola (Sunfish), Basking shark, Blue shark, Tuna, Northern Gannet, Greater shearwater, Wilson storm petrel, Leech's storm petrel, Northern fulmar, Pomerine jaeger, Parasitic jaeger, Black backed gull, Herring gull, Atlantic puffin, Phalaropes.


From left: mola mola (sunfish) and common dolphin

Here's a slideshow of more images:



Check out a similar slide show from this season's Aerial survey blog here.

-Yan

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posted by Jonathan at 3:32 PM 0 Comments



9/25/2009

#19: The Right Whale Team on CBC News

North Atlantic right whales were a feature story on the CBC this week. The story features some great footage of whales in Surface Active Groups and diving. There are also some interview clips of our Canadian team members, Moira and Yan.







Click here to watch the news story.






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posted by NEAQ at 11:00 AM 0 Comments



9/22/2009

#18: A day on Roseway Basin

Our days on Roseway were long and action packed! Here's a log of a full day on Roseway Basin, from a Wednesday evening to a Thursday evening.

Wednesday, Sept 2

10-11:30 p.m.: On the night watch. Each crew member takes a 1.5 hour watch each night. At night we are drifting (not under power) and so I need to watch the radar to ensure that we don't drift near any other vessels. I watch the radar screen and watch out the wheelhouse windows for lights on the horizon. If a vessel comes within 3 miles of us, I will wake the Captain and he will decide whether or not we need to maneuver around the other vessel. My watch tonight is uneventful and I wake Jon at 11:30 p.m. to take the next shift. I'm glad to head to my bunk for a good night's rest!


Thursday, Sept 3

5:30 a.m.: Moe (who had the last night watch) wakes up the rest of the crew so we can get dressed, eat breakfast and be on watch by 6 a.m. Everyone is a bit tired since this is our third day at sea.

6 a.m.: Moe and I take the first watch and head to the top of the wheelhouse to look for whales. It's a beautiful day for surveying! The water is very calm and there's good visibility, so spotting blows should be easy today. It's going to be a busy day.....it's only 6:45 a.m. and we've already found our first whale!


11 a.m.: The whales are pretty spread out today. We've surveyed for several hours and found six right whales. For many of these whales, this is the first time we've seen them during our survey of Roseway Basin. Over the past two days we covered the eastern to mid sections of the Roseway Basin Area to be Avoided (ATBA) and found a heavy concentration of whales. (Read Moe's full post about the ATBA here.) Today, we are surveying the western section of the ATBA so we can get a more complete picture of what part is being utilized.


12:20 p.m.: I'm famished! We're taking a quick lunch break to revitalize the team!

1:16 p.m.: Success! We just obtained a biopsy sample from right whale #1036! (You can search for this individual's sighting history and photos on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog.) This whale was first seen in Cape Cod Bay in 1970 and has never been biopsied before. #1036 has a very cryptic sighting history. After it's first sighting, it disappeared for 12 years. It was finally found again in 1982 in Roseway Basin. This whale seems to prefer offshore habitats as it is mostly seen in the Great South Channel (east of Cape Cod) and in Roseway Basin. This biopsy sample will determine whether #1036 is male or female and how it is related to others in the population!




3:30 p.m.: After photographing a single right whale, I spotted a tall dorsal fin out of the corner of my eye. Seconds later Moe called up on the radio; "Did you guys see an orca?" We all immediately went on high alert to re-sight the lone orca. Sighting an orca in the North Atlantic is a rare occurrence. Most of us had never seen a wild orca before, so we were all very excited about this sighting! We photographed the dorsal fin and the saddle patch just behind the dorsal fin so that researchers can identify the individual.


4:45 p.m.: Throughout our survey today we have seen fin whales, sei whales, common dolphins, harbor porpoise, basking sharks and several ocean sunfish. We've also seen tuna feeding on large schools of fish.




6:30 p.m.: This is the perfect ending of our trip. For the past hour, we've watched a single right whale display head pushing. Head pushing is a behavior in which the whale lifts it's chin out of the water and then forcefully pushes it's chin back down on the water. The force creates a "bow wave" that is very impressive. Yan lowered his hydrophone into the water so we could hear the "gunshots" that accompany this behavior. A "gunshot" is a percussive sound made by right whales. At this point, we don't know what the purpose of this behavior is or how they produce the "gunshot" noise. The whales are constantly reminding us how much more we can learn about them!

7 p.m.: We have packed up our equipment and are heading back to Metaghan, Nova Scotia. Traveling at 9-11 knots, we should arrive around 2 a.m. We're all exhausted, but excited to get back to Lubec and share our findings with the rest of the right whale team!

Photo Caption:
1) Eg#1112 displaying head pushing behavior
2) Sei Whale
3) Yan with biopsy dart
4) Video: Eg#1112 displaying head pushing behavior

-Cyndi

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posted by Cyndi at 8:39 AM 0 Comments



9/21/2009

#17: Cool cloud sighting in the Bay of Fundy

Recently the Right Whale Research Team photographed a very unusual cloud during one of the surveys in the Bay of Fundy. Here's a photo:



We sent the photo to an expert and here's what we found out about our amazing sighting.

Caption: Monica and Philip under the "Morning Glory" cloud.

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posted by Marilyn at 10:00 AM 1 Comments



9/19/2009

#16: Calvin returns to the Bay

Great news! Calvin, #2223, one of the most famous right whales in the population, has returned to the Bay of Fundy. We sighted her on Sept 2 with her calf of the year by her side. This was her first sighting in northern waters since giving birth on the southeast U.S. calving ground early this year.

For those of you who don't know her story, Calvin was born in 1992 and it was during her first summer in the Bay of Fundy that her mother, Delilah, was killed by a shipstrike, leaving Calvin an orphan. We didn't think Calvin would survive without her mother, but amazingly she did. She was named (before her sex was known) after the character in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.

Like that little boy, Calvin the right whale showed resourcefulness and a surprisingly independent nature. Since then we've watched her grow up and have followed her exploits in the various habitats in which she's been sighted. In 2000, she became entangled in fishing gear but luckily was disentangled by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in 2001. She still bears the scars on her head, body and peduncle from that experience. And in 2005 Calvin became a mother for the first time and brought her calf to the Bay of Fundy, just as her mother had done 13 years earlier.

Over the years Calvin's story has been used to illustrate the troubling issue of ship strikes--they are the leading cause of right whale mortality--and to help move the shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy so they no longer cut through the main concentration of whales.

You can read more about Calvin and her namesake student scientists, The Calvineers, in the 2008 blog. Calvin is also one of our sponsorship whales, so if you'd like to follow her in the future you can sponsor her or visit the Catalog website.
Marilyn

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posted by Marilyn at 10:26 AM 0 Comments



9/16/2009

#15: Mavynne entangled and freed

Mavynne, #1151, is a mom this year. She and her calf were seen by our team for the first time this season on August 28, up off the Wolves. Apparently the pair did not stay in the Bay of Fundy for long as Mavynne was found severely entangled on September 4, on Jeffrey's Ledge, 25 miles off the coast of New Hampshire.



Fortunately our colleagues from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies who specialize in large whale disentanglement were able to respond and remove all the gear from Mavynne. No one has seen her since that time and we don't if she and her calf are still together. You can search for sighting histories and photos of Mavynn (#1151) on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog.

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posted by Amy at 12:00 PM 0 Comments



9/13/2009

#14: Pico seen!

Last January, we reported on a very unusual and exciting sighting- a female right whale seen off the Azores. Shortly after the sighting, the whale, #3270, was given the name of Pico- the name of the island near where she was seen. Amazingly, the shape of the island matches the shape of Pico's bonnet (see picture below).


Because it is so unusual to see a whale from the western North Atlantic so far to the east, we all wondered when and where we would see her next. Well, three days ago, we got our answer. Pico was seen in a surface active group in the Bay of Fundy. Pico was first sighted in 2002 and has never given birth to a calf that we know of. We will be following her future sightings very closely! You can too at the right whale Catalog web site.




Philip

Photos:

1) Pico Island in the Azores south of which 3270 was sighted (Google maps)
2) Aerial photograph of Pico- right whale 3270 (Photo: NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center)

3) Pico in the Bay of Fundy on September 10, 2009 (New England Aquarium)

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posted by Philip at 8:42 AM 1 Comments



9/11/2009

#13: Pictures from Roseway Basin

On September 4th, a few members from our team set off to Nova Scotia to survey Roseway Basin Area to be Avoided for 10 days. The team saw over 60 right whales and a bunch of other marine mammal species.



Here are some pictures from their trip.



Stay tuned for more on the Roseway trip, including video!


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posted by Jonathan at 11:00 AM 0 Comments



9/07/2009

#12: Half day on the water



We were able to get on the water today for a half day trip. The winds were calling for light this morning and were predicted to pick up to 15 knots in the early afternoon. After being stuck on land the past three days due to wind, we were itching to get back on the water. Our morning was calm and sighting conditions were clear enough to see Digby's Neck in Nova Scotia.

We surveyed south of Grand Manan as far east of the shipping lanes. We started off to a slow start with only two right whales by 10 a.m. But all that changed by about 12pm when we saw a large social active group (SAG) in the distance. As we approached the SAG, 3 miles from where we were, whales started heading in all directions. The wind had already picked up by then and sighting conditions were making it difficult to stay with the whales. We managed to photograph 9 whales in the SAG and Philip was able to identify 8 of them on the spot! Truly impressive.

Here is a short clip highlighting our day out:


Stay tuned to hear all about our 10 day trip to Roseway Basin were we say 60 right whales!

-Jonathan


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posted by Jonathan at 5:25 PM 0 Comments



9/02/2009

#11: Ruffian's amazing recovery

During a recent trip out to sea, one of the whales we sighted for the first time this season was #3530, a whale we named "Ruffian" back in February of 2008. This sighting was a very exciting one for us because Ruffian had been horribly wounded by an entanglement in some kind of fishing gear prior to January 2008, and though he was no longer entangled, we did not expect him to survive due to the extensive injuries he had sustained. (See all of Ruffian's sightings by searching for #3530 on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog.)












He was sighted a few times after that, but the last shipboard photos were taken in April 2008 by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS), and at that time he still looked terrible. But last Friday we got our first really good look at him in more than a year and we were thrilled with what we saw: his many wounds had healed, leaving only a few white scars on his back, head and tail. Although we don't know his age, Ruffian (named for his "roughed-up" appearance) is a young whale and that was probably the leading reason for his remarkable recovery. Young mammals in general have an enhanced ability to heal compared to older animals.



Entanglement in fishing gear is still one of the biggest threats facing right whales. Nearly 75% of the whales in this beleagured population carry entanglement scars, and we know that at least 20-30 right whales have died or been fatally wounded from entanglements. We are grateful that Ruffian is one of the lucky ones...

-Marilyn

Photo captions:
1)Ruffian with severe entanglement scarring, photographed by Georgia DNR in February 2008
2)Ruffian, wounds healed, in Bay of Fundy, August 2009 (photo NEAq)


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posted by Marilyn at 8:28 AM 5 Comments



8/29/2009

#10: Moms in strange places

Well, it turned out that what we discovered in our last blog entry was just the tip of the iceberg! We went out to sea on Thursday with the wind blowing and the forecast for the winds to remain strong all day. We were going on gut instinct (and a big dose of hope) that it would be better than forecasted and were right! We had good conditions and found a large group of right whales east of South Wolf Island- 20 miles north of where we usually see them. And one of the pressing questions of this season (Where are all the mothers and calves?) was answered! We had 7 calves in one day and most of the mothers had not been seen yet this season.



Another one of the questions may have been answered as well. I wrote about the whale Tips in post #7 and wondered why we see him only once a season when he comes to the Bay of Fundy. Well ... Tips has been seen repeatedly off East Quoddy light on Campobello, New Brunswick for the last week. One of the whale watch boat captains says he has the latitude and longitude written down and goes there daily to see him. It is rare for a right whale to show such specific site fidelity. Maybe Tips really likes this northern area and has been spending his summers in this area where we rarely survey.


But as each question is answered, new ones come up. Why are many of the whales so far north? The last time many right whales were this far north during the summer was back in 1980 and 1981--nearly 30 years ago! It almost certainly has to do with the distribution of food, but we are not equipped aboard the R/V Nereid to do the necessary oceanographic sampling to determine what has changed.



On Friday, we had an unusually broad picture of right whale distributions. We had 40 right whales in this northern area, the R/V Callisto had another 20 whales in the middle of the Grand Manan Basin, a whale watch boat had 15 right whales to the west near Grand Manan Island, and our research team on Roseway Basin south of Nova Scotia had 20 whales there--nearly 100 whales in a single day!



Stay tuned to see how this distribution changes, if at all, over the coming weeks...


Photo caption:
1) Punctuation and her calf
2) A right whale breaching off South Wolf Island
3) A whale flukes off the Wolves

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posted by Philip at 11:30 AM 1 Comments



8/27/2009

#9: Right Whales in our Backyard!

Last night, dinner was small and quiet; the reason is because half our team has gone! Yesterday morning at 4:30 a.m. half the team woke up and drove to Bar Harbor, Maine where they then caught a ferry to Nova Scotia. Once in Nova Scotia the team met up with the captain of the boat that has been chartered to conduct surveys out on Roseway Basin. Roseway Basin, an area located approximately 25 to 30 miles south of Nova Scotia. Roseway Basin is an important summer right whale habitat and we were fortunate enough to have funding this year to conduct surveys of the area for a short period of time over the summer. While the Roseway team is offshore, without Internet access, we will be able to update you with some ongoing news from Roseway Basin since we will have daily communication with them via satellite phone.



In the mean time with half the team gone and a thick blanket of fog cast over most of the Bay of Fundy the remaining team took advantage of aquiet house to catch up on some work. However, with the extended forecast not looking favorable for the next few days we all were starting to feel a little frustrated. However, just after lunch the house received a call from a friend who owns a local whale watch boat. "Right whales just off White Horse Island" I heard Philip say.

It was with excitement that we jumped at the chance to get on the water. The whales were only about half an hour from our dock which sure beat our typical two hour commute to work whales each day. We joked about how nice it was to be heading down to the boat at 12:30 p.m. instead of our typical 5:30 a.m. departures. We quickly arrived on site and chatted with a few local whale watch and recreational boats that were also very excited to see right whales so close.

Many of the whale watch boats that operate locally don't venture far offshore into the Bay of Fundy and typically sight many minke and fin whales so it was a great treat for them also to have right whales within their vessel's range.

We ended up documenting a mom/calf pair (Catalog #2791 and her calf) and a single whale a bit further to the east ("Tips" Catalog#1124). You can search for more sighting data and photos of these individuals on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog. Amy chatted on the radio to the whale watch boats about the IDs of the whales while I recorded data and Philip and Candace photographed from the Nereid's bow.

Today we sit in again in the fog and wind, with the forecast remaining much the same for the next few days. A few of us are holding onto a small amount of hope that tomorrow could turn out to be a day on the water while others just find some comfort in the fact that we got on the water yesterday even if for a short amount of time.


Photo Caption:
1) Catalog #2791 and her calf swim close to shore as onlookers get a rare treat.
2). Catalog #1124 "Tips"


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posted by Monica at 8:30 AM 1 Comments



8/22/2009

#8: Bangor Daily News

On Thursday, two reporters from the Bangor Daily News accompanied us on our survey of the Bay. Their story, photographs and footage captures what a day is like for researchers in the Bay of Fundy.

Click here to read the article.


Here is the video that ran with the story:







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-Jonathan

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posted by Jonathan at 11:58 AM 0 Comments



8/21/2009

#7: Interesting matches in the Bay

We are all in the house processing this season's data as Hurricane Bill approaches from the south. Luckily the forecast of 45-55 knots (52 to 63 mph) has diminished to 30-40 knots for Sunday. Still no weather to be at sea, but less dangerous for our boat in the harbor. Meanwhile, we will all settle in and match whales.


We have identified 57 whales so far and there are some interesting stories among them. There are a number of big, old males here and one of them, "Tips" (Eg #1124 in the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog), has a particularly unusual sighting history. Seen most years from 1980 to 1991, he disappeared for nine years before being re-sighted off Massachusetts in 2000. He hadn't been seen in the Bay of Fundy for 16 years until he visited in 2007. Now, he seems to come in for a single day each year and then moving on. We will be curious to see if that pattern continues this year; I suspect we will not see him again until next August.


Another interesting story this year involves the mothers and their calves. With the record calving of 39 calves this year, we expect to see a lot of mother/calf pairs in the Bay this season. We did see seven of them early in the season, but have only seen two in the last 11 days (the most recent unusually close to Grand Manan island).



While it is not uncommon for the mother/calf pairs to be somewhat segregated from other whales, it is unusual not to see them at all! Are they still here but not in the broad box that we survey? Have they moved on to another area? And, with the exception of the mothers, why are all but three of the adult whales in the Bay big males? With a few days of bad weather ahead of us, it will be a while before we can continue our surveys and collect the necessary clues to potentially answer these and other questions. Stay tuned!

- Philip


Photo caption:
1) Whale #1124, Tips, in the the Bay of Fundy- 2009,
2) A map of the Bay of Fundy with Grand Manan Island,
3) The calf of #3440 off North Head, Grand Manan.

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posted by Philip at 12:57 PM 1 Comments



8/19/2009

#6 Life at the field house

Upon our annual migration to Lubec, Maine we find ourselves reunited with our "Fundy Family." For the eight weeks of the season we all live together at the field house. The field house was built at the turn of the century. The house was owned by the Mulholland family for generations and was at one time divided to accommodate two families.



It's great fun to listen to the local townspeople reminisce about the people who lived in this house long ago. Since the Aquarium has owned the field house, we have turned a living room into our main office, a back kitchen into an equipment room and closets into bedrooms.


The house has kept it's charm with its original heating registers from the 1900s, antique wallpaper, and hardwood floors. We have made minor improvements such as bringing in internet service, remodeling the kitchen and replacing the 57 windows to protect the house during the harsh Lubec winters. As with any old house, there are a multitude of home improvement projects that we work on as time allows.


The real fun is the dynamic of 9 full-time researchers and many visiting researchers living in the house together. During stretches of long weather, we buckle down in the house and set to work, doing photo analysis and matching the whales we've seen in the field. On these days in we tend to mill around the kitchen alot. Our volunteer cook, Betty, has to chase us out of the kitchen so she can get dinner ready! While living and working together can be challenging at times, it also comes with the benefit of having a built-in family dynamic. We lean on each other in tough times, celebrate each others achievements and take off in troupes for hikes, bike rides and soccer.



At the end of the day, we all congregate in the kitchen for dinner. Dinners can vary from an "intimate" dinner between the 9 full-time researchers to a large, boisterous gathering of over 20 people. No matter how many are in attendance, dinner is always a lively event with great food, stories from the field (present events and past) and lots of laughter!

-Cyndi

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posted by Cyndi at 11:09 AM 3 Comments



8/17/2009

#5: Two Seriously Scarred Whales Show Signs of Previous Entanglements

Part of the work we do at the New England Aquarium is to figure out how frequently right whales get scars from entanglements and vessel strikes. All images of each individual right whale are carefully reviewed to look for subtle and not so subtle evidence of these and to determine the time frame in which the interaction must have occurred. (Click photos to enlarge.)














The findings of this longterm scar coding study are provided to NOAA Fisheries Service (who supports the scar coding work) on a regular basis to help inform their management efforts aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of these events. NOAA Fisheries has implemented numerous measures in U.S. waters over the years for how, when and where fishermen set and configure their fixed fishing gear based on knowledge of right whale distribution and the types of gear found on right whales and other large whale species. For more details about these measures, visit the NOAA Whale Take Reduction Plan.

Over the 6 days at sea so far in the Bay of Fundy, we have seen two animals with severe entanglement scarring. The first animal and the one of most concern to us is Baldy's 2009 calf (Eg # 1240). The pair was seen together on August 9. We were so excited to see that Baldy and her calf had made the long migration from the southeast U.S. calving grounds to the Bay of Fundy. Baldy is one of the older known reproductive females in this population and she has given birth to 8 calves from 1974 to the present. (see our previous post about Baldy's story).

Our excitement upon finding the pair was quickly tempered when we saw major entanglement wounds on the tail stock of the calf--deep cuts into the leading edge of the fluke and peduncle. These are the sort of injuries that make you cringe to think of the pain this calf obviously endured and how hard it must have struggled to break free of the entangling line. The pictures of this calf's wounds speak for themselves, showing gruesome evidence of the problem these animals face. The overall condition of the calf is clearly compromised and its skin towards the aft part of its body looks grey and is peeling significantly, and the tail and body are partially covered by orange cyamids which also can be indicative of poor health.

We are very concerned about the prognosis for this calf. If we see them again this season, we will collect and compare photographs to this initial sighting to see if the calf's condition has changed. Hopefully this little one can survive this ordeal.

The second animal with serious scarring was seen on August 16. Although we have not yet matched it to the catalog, it appears to be a yearling. The tail region has many raw, wrapping scars indicative of a fairly recent entanglement interaction. This animal will likely survive this ordeal but the stress caused by the struggle to break free of the gear and the resulting injuries could be compromising this animals' long term health.

The solution to eliminating or reducing such severe entanglements remains elusive. But we continue to monitor the occurrence of these events, provide this information to the federal government, and constantly work towards finding solutions that will protect the whales and allow fishermen to fish.

Photo Caption:
1-4) A series of pictures showing the the entanglement scars on Baldy's calf.
5-8) Unknown juvenile with entanglement scars on peduncle and leading edge of the fluke.

-Amy


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posted by Amy at 4:49 PM 1 Comments



8/14/2009

#4: 3 Days Straight on the Water!

August is proving to be a great month for surveys. We were able to get out the past three days! The winds were light Wednesday and Thursday and sighting conditions were excellent for surveying the bay. Conditions Friday were not as nice; the sea was calm in the morning, but quickly picked up early in the afternoon. Luckily, we were close to home when the weather turned sour. The ride home through the Grand Manan Channel was wet, but short and we made it to the dock at 2:30 p.m.

The Bay was as calm as a lake both Wednesday and Thursday. At one point Amy took a picture of her reflection in the water while the boat was moving. Such calm conditions allowed us to cover a good portion of the bay. We surveyed the southern part of the bay as far east as the shipping lanes.

On Wednesday, we sighted a lot of right whales near the shipping lanes and noticed an oil tanker in the outbound shipping lane. Moe radioed Fundy Traffic and notified them of the presence of right whales in the area. Fundy Traffic responded immediately, notifying the oil tanker of the whales position. We were all very pleased with how quickly Fundy Traffic responded.

There seems to be a lot of activity in the bay this year. Thursday, we sighted 14 humpback whales, 27 right whales and 407 harbor porpoises! That's quite an improvement compared to the 2 right whales we saw on our first day out. To date, we have sighted 33 individual right whales, which includes 7 of the 39 mother and calf pairs seen in the southeast calving grounds this past winter.




The weather is marginal for the next couple of days. We are watching the weather forecasts closely and hoping for the winds to drop low enough for us to get out on the water.

Stay tuned for more posts about who we've sighted and more exciting stories of our adventures in the Bay of Fundy!

- Jonathan


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posted by Jonathan at 5:33 PM 1 Comments



8/11/2009

#3: First Week On The Water

Tuesday's first boat day was a good shakedown cruise even though only two right whales were found. The survey was extensive covering much of the Critical Habitat area. We learned, for whatever reason, that there were few right whales in the Bay of Fundy this year on August 4, compared to many whales at the same time last year.



Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be office days for the Team. The two days ashore gave us time to get all the boat and office systems running smoothly, not to mention time to get our personal gear in order. By Friday morning the weather looked good and the well tuned Team and research vessel, the Nereid, were off at 6 a.m. to find if any of the other 400 or so known right whales had settled into the Bay of Fundy for their summer forage.

As soon as we began the regular transect southward, hugging the east side of Grand Manan Island, we came across whales, humpback whales. Although the Team's mission is to survey for right whales, there are other research teams surveying humpbacks and the Aquarium Team photographed these three to send the images on to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, which maintains the photo catalogue for humpbacks. Symbiosis is a process that pervades the science world, and research teams often help each other out when it does not impede their own work.



Two hours later we started spotting right whales, and three were documented in the southern part of the survey area. No more whales were seen until well after noon. By then we were surveying in the northern part of the area. A mother and its calf popped up very near the boat. The Team almost immediately identifies them as EG #2791 and her new calf (find this individual and others on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog). Two mom and calf pairs made it to the feeding grounds, only 35 more to account for in the next two months of surveying. That's right, this past year there were more right whale births than ever recorded before. Good news to be celebrated cautiously, for the population growth still remains well below recovery levels.

There are many things going on in the Bay of Fundy in addition to right whale surveys. We heard an emergency broadcast that there was a severe storm packing 60 mile per hour gusts of wind in Passamaquoddy Bay. The storm was close enough for us to see but far enough away to monitor and stay clear of. The Bay is a unique place and during the many hours of survey we get to see harbor porpoise, gray and harbor seals, white sided dolphins, shearwaters, storm petrels, phalaropes, schools of tuna and even basking sharks which we occasionally see breaching. Many species sightings are recorded and the information shared with other research teams. There is not a day without some sort of surprise. Today we had a couple. While on watch I saw an odd shaped animal in the water that I was hard pressed to identify, and we actually slowed down to investigate. Upon closer look it was a large gray seal with a good size fish hanging out each side of its mouth. It was nonchalant as it slipped away with its prize leaving us wondering what it would do with such a catch.



The other surprise came on the way in. We called it a day when the wind began to strengthen and the weather on the horizon looked unpredictable. We headed diagonally across the survey area straight for North Head on Grand Manan Island, the quickest way home. We sighted and documented one more right whale on the way making a total of six for the day. We even saw two more right whale flukes in the distance leading us to believe that the Bay was starting to fill up. But for a couple of hours we could see on the horizon, toward Grand Manan, multiple high straight blows from a group of finback whales, the second largest whale in the world. We had to investigate this spectacle. Soon, voluminous blows of about twenty finback whales surrounded us. The videos are sufficient comment about the experience.

-Bill

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posted by Jonathan at 3:43 PM 1 Comments



8/06/2009

#2: First Day on the Water

We packed up the Boston office into our truck early Monday morning and headed north. Various cars packed to the brim showed up at the Lubec, Maine field station (photo album here) throughout the weekend. It always takes longer than expected to brush away the cobwebs and establish a functional office after the house has been dormant most of the winter. But we didn't have much time to acclimatize before jumping on the boat the very next day.



We were worried the weather wouldn't be conducive to surveying since there has been so much fog here over the past week, so when Tuesday, August 4, looked clear we grabbed the opportunity to get out on the water. After a long debriefing in boat safety and a few practice drills, we headed south out to the Bay of Fundy past Grand Manan. It was a beautiful day out on the water despite the thin layer of fog early in the day making it hard to distinguish a blow.

When our visibility was reduced considerably (less than one nautical mile at times) we would sit stationary for a period, and set up a listening station. Shutting down the engine, the blower and inverter so there was no interfering noise we would all sit in the midst of the fog and listen for blows. In fact it turned out that the Bay was relatively quiet and we were worried that we would get 'skunked' (have no sightings for the day).

Reports from locals suggested that there was nothing but a few fin whales around, and only a small number of right whale sightings a couple of weeks ago. However, in the last hour we had a sighting of a mom calf pair (EG # 2145 and calf). It was very exciting for me to see the pair and know that they had made the long migration successfully. Mom had a lot of mud on her head (see image) which may be an indication that she had been feeding on the ocean floor. Since I have a lot more experience observing these whales in their southern calving grounds where they do not feed, it is interesting to witness them performing different activities. Right whales are typically skim feeders but their food source (copepods) are found much deeper in the water column here in the Bay of Fundy and so it is not uncommon to see whales come to the surface with mud on their heads. It is good to see #2145 up here so early starting to fatten up after her extensive fasting period. She certainly deserves it after travelling approximately 3,000 miles, giving birth, nursing, not feeding the entire time, and with her 2009 calf close by her side, hopefully picking up a few hints along the way.

On the ride home the fog had rolled back in, so we relied on our radar and the crews' navigational skills to get us safely back to the dock. The next day brought more thick fog and so we caught up on data protocols and organizing the office. Luckily Friday looks to be giving us great conditions and we should get back out to see who else is in the area. We will keep you updated on all our latest news and look forward to your comments, but that's all for now.

You can search for all of the individual whales mentioned in this post on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog.

- Jess

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posted by Jonathan at 4:21 PM 2 Comments



7/23/2009

#1: 2009 Season Starting Soon!

Once again, we are preparing to begin our field season in the Bay of Fundy. This year will be our 30th consecutive season! We are expecting this season to be an exciting one. We saw record numbers of calves born in the Southeast U.S. this past winter (read more about them in our aerial survey blog) and expect to see most of them in the Bay this summer. We are also going to survey Roseway Basin for the first time since 2006! Our season is scheduled to start August 3rd so keep checking the blog to hear all the interesting and exciting adventures of the New England Aquarium's right whale research team.


-Jonathan

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posted by Jonathan at 1:16 PM 0 Comments