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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Labels: #3: First Week On The Water, 2009 Season, Bill, Right Whale

The Eagle Is Down, But Not For Long

While the Calvineers were on the Island Cruises Whalewatch from Campobello Island, NB, they witnessed the rescue of an eagle that was stranded in Cobscook Bay. See the previous entry, # 17, Calvineers Visit, Day 2, for a detailed account of the whale watch that day. The following is an account of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team's (CWRT) efforts to rescue a distressed bald eagle.

The news of an eagle that was in the water and unable to fly off came to Mackie Green, captain of the whale watch boat, Mister Matthew, over his VHS radio from another whale watch boat. They had unsuccessfully tried to help the eagle and knew that Mackie was part of the CWRT. Mackie took us to the struggling eagle and he and Robert tried to get a large life ring under the bird. Each time the eagle insisted on jumping off the life ring. After three tries they tried one of Meredith Houghton's suggestions, which was to tow a large log floating in the debris to the eagle so it could get on something natural. Good idea but the eagle would have nothing to do with it.

Meredith Olivari explained the event, "When we saw the poor eagle in the water I became sad, I felt so bad for it; trying to lift it's tired wings out of the water and swim back to the far-off shore. Meredith and I had some great ideas about how we could save the eagle and we were a little annoyed that the crew wasn't trying our ideas. Finally they tried one but it did not work."

Meredith Houghton gives an account of the rescue: "...we were lucky enough to witness something that hardly ever happens to a whale watch group! We heard over the radio that a bald eagle was stranded in the water, its feather's waterlogged and couldn't fly! We named it Perry, and it was trying desperately to swim to shore, but with the strong current, the eagle wasn't making much headway. Captain Mackie sped over to see what we could do to help the distressed animal. After trying many different methods, including a life ring, a log and a winter jacket, the CWRT came over to help. They got the eagle out of the water and ended up putting him on a beach where they could keep an eye on him until he flew away. It was so amazing to see the scientists and rescue crew at work, and it was such a good feeling when they saved the eagle, because we knew that it would be safe now."

As the eagle was rejecting the log the CWRT rescue zodiac came into view. When it was close enough to see the driver Meredith Houghton exclaimed, "Look! It's Moe Brown from the Whale House!" Moira (Moe) Brown is trained in all sorts of marine rescues and handles a boat expertly. As soon as Moe maneuvered the boat alongside the eagle her two colleagues put a bag over the eagle's head to calm it down and then carefully hoisted the disheveled animal into the rescue boat. Everyone cheered and there were a couple of tears noticeable also. The eagle did not have any broken bones and seemed quite vigorous. It was let go on a deserted beach where it walked up to some ferns and spread its wings to dry. The student scientists experienced yet another event that showed them how exciting being a scientist could be. Not only that, they were learning that woman scientists are very good at what they do. There is absolutely no reason why they, too, could not become a scientist who does great work in the field as well as the office.

Photo Captions:

1) Struggling Eagle
2) First Rescue Attempt
3) Moe and the CWRT Rescue Team

All Photos taken by Bill McWeeny

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Labels: 2008 Season, animal rescue, Bill, Calvineers, CWRT, eagle, Moira

Team members Amy Knowlton and Moe Brown were up before 5:00 AM checking the weather but the forecast for heavy winds forced them to cancel the Nereid's surveying efforts for the day. Because the Nereid did not go out the two Merediths got to sleep in until 7:30. After breakfast, which is "on your own" at the Whale House, the student scientists and Mr. McWeeny drove into Canada to Campobello Island to go on the Island Cruises Whale Watch with Mackie Green. In addition to running the whale watch boat, Mister Matthew, Mackie is on the Campobello Whale Rescue Team (CWRT). "Not only will we see whales and other sea creatures but we just might hear some stories of rescued whales." Meredith Olivari said hopefully. She was not disappointed. Robert, Mackie's first mate and fellow CWRT teammate, told us all about a rescue they did two years ago of a right whale caught in some fishing gear up near St. John, New Brunswick. "The work sounds exciting and dangerous, " Meredith Houghton commented thoughtfully.

The boat ride took us out past East Quoddy Lighthouse on Campobello's North Head. (East Quoddy Lighthouse has a red cross on it and should not be confused with the red striped West Quoddy Lighthouse in the United States.) The wind was light but Cobscook Bay was all churned up with the incoming tide running very strong around all sorts of islands, rocks and jetties. Harbor porpoise fed skillfully in the eddies using a bubble feeding technique to round up their prey while swarms of screeching gulls snatched up scraps of fish left over at the surface. Soon enough we were upon a couple of minke whales. Here is Meredith Olivari's account:

"Whale watching off Campobello Island was awesome and we saw three Minke whales. Meredith and I named all the whales we saw. The first whale was Jacqueline and her smaller friend Brady. It seemed that if we gave the whales names we would have a stronger connection with them, almost like a human connection, and that way we kind of remember them better like people we meet or like new friends. When we moved to a different part of the bay we spotted a large Minke and for some odd reason the name Lars immediately popped into my head, Lars the Swedish Minke. I told Meredith and together we came up with this whole story about Lars like he came from Swedish waters and, since he was quite playful, was enjoying the "warm" Canadian bay. Lars came right up by the boat and we could see him very well, he was smooth and slick and we admired him while we could but in just a couple seconds he was gone, into the ocean again."

Meredith's "game" of naming the whales has some very practical uses in the world of science. Jane Goodall named her chimps with very descriptive names (David Gray Beard) and could tell immediately which family an individual was from by the first letter in its name. The Right Whale Research team has named many right whales with descriptive names (Crescent, Stumpy, Stripe) and some names that describe a whale's behavior like Shackleton for a right whale that explored the Delaware River up to Philadelphia. The student scientists intuitive act of naming the whales they saw may come in handy if they become scientists and if they learn to use descriptive and not just "cute" names.

The highlight of the whale watch was the rescue of a creature in grave danger. An eagle had fallen into the water and was unable to fly. It could swim for a while but would eventually die if it were unable to reach land. The description of the event will appear in a subsequent posting entitled "Calvineers Visit: The Rescue".

Back in Lubec, at the Whale House, the Calvineers had left over pastas for lunch. During lunch they had quite a story to share with the scientists who had been working at their computers all morning. After lunch the student scientists learned how to match right whales. The image coding they had been doing would now pay off by helping them find matching images of unknown pictures of whales. Each series of pictures of a whale taken during a survey day (there can be 30 or 40 or more sightings each survey day) has to be matched to a known picture of the same whale. This is the beauty of DIGITS. The program saves hours of searching by using the coded images. Meredith Houghton explains, "Matching was definitely much harder than coding, but we managed to match a whale with Mr. McWeeny and Amy's help. We correctly identified the whale as Eg #2360! The next whale we tried to match did not go so well, and after looking through over 1000 pictures, we found one that was almost exactly the same, and marked it as an unsure match. It felt so awesome to be sitting behind a computer, doing the same exact things that the scientists here do everyday!

The student scientists spent a good two hours matching just two animals and gained an appreciation for the amount of work that goes into maintaining the data base for the scientific community. Meredith Houghton wished that we could stay in Lubec for another week helping the team.

The day was coming to an end and soon the two, would be scientists would be on their way back to Castine, ME. They both thought the experience was one they would always remember, and Meredith Olivari had this final thought: "Well, if anything, I certainly learned that there is one thing these scientists and whales really have in common; they each have HUGE appetites!"


You can match whales to with the new right whale matching game!

Stay Tuned for the Calvineers' description of the exciting eagle rescue by the Campobello Whale Rescue Team.

Photo Captions:
1) Mackie Green shows the Calvineers what it's like to be a captain.
2) The Calvineers in front of East Quoddy Head
3) Struggling Eagle

All photos taken by Bill McWeeney

Bill

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Labels: 2008 Season, Bill, Calvineers, DIGITS, Right Whales, The Calvin Project

This summer The CALVIN* Project's Calvineers were invited to experience right whale research first hand at the New England Aquarium's Right Whale Research field station in Lubec, Maine. Two Calvineers, 7th grader Meredith Houghton and 8th grader Meredith Olivari, were able to take advantage of the unique invitation, spending two days and a night at the field station called "The Whale House." The following is an account of the first day of their experience working and living with the scientists.





They were in bed by 10:00 PM but set their alarm for 5:30 AM because they wanted to help the scientists load the Nereid in the morning for a survey effort.


* Students in Adams School's "The CALVIN Project" are called Calvineers. The Calvineers have been active in educating the public about the plight of the North Atlantic Right Whale for four years. Not only have they given many PowerPoint presentations in public, but they have also written letters to the president and legislators and the two Merediths spoke at Senator Olympia Snowe's Senate Subcommittee meeting last February. Preparing for presenting, letter writing and speaking took a lot of study and hard work over the years. In addition to the classroom studies, Calvineers have observed right whales in the Bay of Fundy and attended two North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium Meetings in New Bedford, MA. To date, fourteen students have taken part in The CALVIN Project.

1) The Cavineers hard at work in the Lab
3) The Meredith's recreate whale #2791 in chocolate

All photos taken by Bill McWeeney

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Labels: 2008 Season, Bill, Calvineers, DIGITS, The Calvin Project