Great Photo



Photo credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission



This is a wonderful photograph taken by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission during one of their aerial surveys of the right whale calving area.  The right whale mother (with the white belly) is upside down with her calf on her belly.  We see this sometimes in the Bay of Fundy as well but the calves are much bigger by the summer. 

Unfortunately, the last memory of a right whale mother, also with a white belly, who died in the Bay of Fundy in 1992, Delilah, was of her upside down with her calf, Calvin (one of our adoptive whales), on her belly, wiggling back and forth, and surrounded by several males in a courtship group.

 

Calvin is Back

Two right whales involved in a "surface active group".  The
V-shaped blow is characteristic of right whales.

The New England Aquarium right whale research team found Calvin in the Bay of Fundy this week.  She had been seen last in March in Cape Cod Bay by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.  It was appropriate that she arrived in the Bay to coincide with a visit from the Calvineers, Grade 7 and 8 students from the Adams School in Castine, ME.  They focus on Calvin and her unique story:  Here is a quote from their website, http://thecalvinproject.weebly.com/ :

"Hello! Welcome to the first official website of the Calvineers! We're a small group of seventh and eighth graders who are dedicated to saving the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. This species of whale migrates every year, from Florida, where their calves are born, to the Bay of Fundy, in Canada. There are only around four-hundred of these whales left. Together, we believe that by educating the public, we can help save the Right Whales." 

It was a pleasure to take them out on the Whales-n-Sails Adventure whale watch vessel on September 21, 2011 to find right whales.  Despite the fog closing in and extending our trip, we were able to find some right whales and had a great time with them, but, alas, not Calvin.

Calvineers aboard the "Elsie Menota" after viewing right whales

Calvineers under "Delilah's"skeleton and life size model in
the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, NB. Delilah was
Calvin's mother and died in 1992 leaving Calvin to fend for herself
prematurely.

Calvin and her calf

We were fortunate to find Calvin and her new calf September 10th. At first Calvin was by herself, having been feeding and also rubbing in the mud some 180 m below and then she reunited with her calf who also had a bit of mud on its head.

Calvin's 2009 Calf, first sen December 30th off Wrightsville Beach, NC during an aerial survey looking for right whale mothers and their calves:

Calvin's scars from when she was entangled in fishing gear stand out. She has a long scrape on her right side that healed with a long white scar. She also has a scar across the front of her upper lip below her bonnet callosity and several white scars on her tail and tail stock. Many scars on right whales heal with white scar tissue rather than the normal dark skin colour. Calvin and her calf about to dive:

The scar above and the scar on Calvin's upper lip are from being entangled in fishing gear when she was nine:

Calvin's side profile and her distinctive callosities. She is moulting skin on her head which gives the patchy appearance. She also had mud on her head from the bottom.

There are various theories about the mud, humpbacks also come up with mud on them at times. It could be that they are feeding on krill very close to the bottom, sometimes within a metre, or that they are rubbing their heads because of the whale lice or may use mud as we do, for a facial or it may be for some other reason. The mud is very thick and sticky and can remain on the whale's head for several surfacings.

The sighting of Calvin was also fortuitous for the New England Aquarium research team who have been trying to obtain a small skin sample from the calf which will be analyzed genetically and may result in the father being identified and also the sex of this calf.

Calvin and her second baby are in the Bay of Fundy

Calvin was spotted in the Bay of Fundy by the New England Aquarium research team September 2 with her second calf. Calvin and a number of other right whales were well above the Grand Manan Basin where they are usually located each summer and closer to Point LePreau. A number of mothers and calves have been identified by the New England Aquarium and the number identified rose to 20 on September 2 for this season with hopefully a few more to come after a record breaking calving season for right whales with 39 calves born. Not all right whale mothers bring their babies to the Bay of Fundy, some prefer offshore waters.

The right whales may start moving back into the Grand Manan Basin because it appears that the copepod biomass (zooplankton that right whales prefer) are beginning to build after being largely absent in August. Plankton tows done by our researchers on Thursday showed a higher level of copepods than in previous tows this summer. This lack of zooplankton in the Grand Manan Basin is the most likely reason that the whales are elsewhere but still in the Bay of Fundy.

The amazing things that arrive in the mail

I am always amazed when I go to the mail and find a letter from a child who has decided that instead of presents they want to help endangered right whales. Such was the case today with a 6 year old and her friends from Ottawa opting to symbolically adopt Calvin and Hobbes in lieu of a birthday present. I am hopeful we have a great generation in the making.

This is on a day when another six year old is fighting for his or her life, an entangled right whale off the coast of Georgia named Bridle #3311. This whale was born in 2003 to the now 22 year old right whale #1711 and as of yet the sex is unknown. The sex of a right whale can be determined through observation or by analysis of a small skin biopsy.

A team of volunteers are trying to remove tightly wrapped rope from fishing gear that is through the mouth, around the rostrum (the area on top of the whale's head in front of the blowholes, actually part of the upper lip since the nostrils have moved to the top of the head) and cutting into the lower lip on the left side. The left flipper is probably also wrapped in rope. A satellite buoy was attached to the trailing rope allowing this whale to be tracked at night and during bad weather making finding the whale faster and easier.

These entanglements can be life threatening, particularly when tightly wrapped and cutting through the skin. This leaves the whale's skin open to infection, can impair the whale's ability to feed and can lead to death.

It is hopeful that the disentanglement team will be able to remove enough of the rope to help release the pressure and eventually get all the rope off the whale. Unfortunately, unlike several other whale species, right whales are not often cooperative in these disentanglement efforts.

Another great calving season

The right whale calving season started in December in the U.S. Southeast (primarily Florida and Georgia waters) and has been amazing with at least 22 calves born by the middle of January. Since 2001, the right whale population has been experiencing a baby boom with more than the average number of calves (~11) being born each year. The highest year was 2001 with at least 31 calves born, however, this is still below the biological potential for the population, i.e. there are still many females who are not having calves. It is quite possible this calving year might exceed the high in 2001. This is exacting what this population needs to recover to a more sustainable level. Right whales remain critically endangered with an estimated population of about 400.

Females typically space their calves by three years (unless their calf dies and then they may have a calf within two years), are on average ten when they have their first calf (youngest four, oldest twenty), and only have one calf at a time. Nursing a rapidly growing baby that weighs a ton at birth is very energy consuming, particularly when the females are fasting for the first few months. Female right whales need a resting year to regain weight before getting pregnant again.

Of our adoptable whales, so far:

• Baldy, #1240 was seen with her eighth calf (last calf in 2005)
• Calvin, #2223 was seen with her second calf (last calf in 2005)
• #1503, daughter of Baldy, was seen with her fourth calf (last calf in 2006)
• #2145, daughter of Grand Teton #1145 and Gemini #1150, was seen with her fourth calf (last calf in 2007 but calf died)
• Couplet, #2123, grand-daughter of Kleenex #1142, was seen with her fourth calf (last calf in 2006). Her mother is Drippy-nose AKA Sonnet #1123
• Shenandoah, #1266, mother of one of Baldy's grand-calves with son #2140, was seen with her seventh calf (last calf in 2004)

Another mother of note is Mavynne #1151. She was involved in the only known case of adoption in right whales in 1989 when she swapped her calf with the calf of Stumpy #1004. No one knows the circumstances, but presumably the two mothers gave birth close to each other and for whatever reasons, their calves ended up being exchanged. The association was discovered through genetic analysis of skin samples from the calves and comparison with their mothers. This is Mavynne's sixth calf. Unfortunately, Stumpy was struck and killed by a ship in 2004. She was missing the right fluke tip on her tail and hence her name.

The right whale catalogue is an invaluable source of information about individual right whales. It is maintained by the New England Aquarium's dedicated right whale team. http://rwcatalog.neaq.org/