Photo courtesy of Todd Milligan.
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Photo by Melissa Rocha

On today's AM trip we had tons of feeding! We saw several humpbacks whales doing a lot of feeding including kick feeding and best of all some open mouth feeding right next to the boat! We were really able to see the baleen plates hanging down and how LARGE they are. We had a mom and calf also out feeding. All total there was probably around 10-12 Humpbacks feeding all around us! We had Isthmus and her calf, Cajun and a few others that I am still looking at and hope to ID later. A special Thanks to the Up Close with Whales group from the Aquarium, and Educator Kara. Kara brought on a plankton tow net, that she was able to get some copepods in and be able to show all passengers how the food webs work and lead up to seeing the whales feed! One sad thing from today's trip though was that we observed several balloons in the water, one of which was right where the whale was feeding! Thankfully the whale missed the balloon, but is why you should not let balloons go after parties or celebrations, and to help play a part in protecting the ocean!
~ Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: cajun, copepods, education, Isthmus, plankton tow net, pollution