First Calf of 2013 Calving Season

A recreational boater off Hilton Head, SC, reported the first right whale mother and calf for this calving season on November 27, 2012.  While most right whale females have their calves off the coast of Georgia and Florida, winter surveys extend up to North Carolina to cover the range of normal occurrence of right whale females and their calves.

Right whale male, Gemini, diving in the Bay of Fundy September 17, 2011

Of course, we are hopeful for more calves than in 2012 when only seven calves were born with one female loosing her calf, but we shall have to wait and see.  There were certainly more right whales in the Bay of Fundy in 2011 than in 2010, which may bode well.  A year of low food resources for a female would be reflected not the next calving season but the one following, for example 2010 lack of sightings of right whales in the Bay of Fundy and the 2012 low number of calves.  Females need to have a certain amount of blubber to ensure they can nurse their calf for a full year, without that blubber, they will not get pregnant.

In early December, a small group of right whales have been spotted off Jeffrey's Ledge in the Gulf of Maine and spurred a notice for large vessels in those waters to slow down to 10 knots.  This area in the Gulf of Maine is suspected to be a breeding area for right whales.  The calving area is not a breeding area for right whales, unlike humpback and grey whales.

Right whale surface active group in the Bay of Fundy August 24, 2011

Keeping our fingers crossed for more calves.  The season extends from December to March.

Another entangled calf

We had the Calvineers out today. We didn't find Calvin and her calf but hey were happy with the right whales we saw. The Calvineers are grade 7 and 8 students from the Adams School in Castine, ME. http://www.adamsschool.com/

Bill McWeeney, a teacher at the school, initiated the group to help his students understand about right whales, their lives and the issues they face daily in the ocean. The group is named after the right whale Calvin because of her amazing ability to survive despite being orphaned at eight months of age and being entangled at nine years of age. She carries the scars of that entanglement on her right side and tail but the knowledge imparted by her brief existence with her mother, Delilah, has allowed her to become a successful mother herself, following Delilah's fluke prints along the eastern seaboard.

We found a large group of right whales and a surface active group with the focus being Slash. Her calf was outside the group and I managed to get a photograph of the recent wounds from an entanglement. The New England Aquarium research team had seen these wounds and were interested in more photographs. I was pleased that we were able to locate the calf and I could get a few quick shots. This is the second calf that has been entangled this season. Baldy's calf also bears scars across the face and body when it became entangled but managed to break free. A mother has also been entangled, Mavynne, and successfully disentangled by staff of the Center for Coastal Studies. However, the fate of her calf is unknown.

This is a photograph of the right side of the leading edge of the tail of Slash's calf with the skin scraped off. There are also cuts across the tail stock. Calves often don't lift their tails very high so it was fortunate to see this much of the tail.

Entanglements are all too frequent in these whales and the ugly scars are a testament to their pain and suffering. Ship strikes are also a major issue and I was able to capture an image of Slash's partially amputated tail beside a normal, unscarred right whale tail. A boat propeller cut through Slash's tail leaving this massive scar on the underside of her tail and part of the fluke missing:

Where are the right whales?

It has been an unusual summer with few right whales in the deep waters of the Grand Manan Basin. Over the last few days, 40+ right whales have been found east of the southern Wolves, an island group that you pass on the ferry crossing, north of Grand Manan. The New England Aquarium research team has been surveying this area and also had another vessel out surveying an area to the southeast of Grand Manan where another group of right whales were found on Friday. Together with the whales we found on our whale watch, 80+ right whales are in the Bay.

The zooplankton tows done in an area where right whales normally occur have been coming up with very few copepods and hence the reason the right whales are not there. Off the Wolves, processed copepods, courtesy of herring, are floating at the surface in long windrows. Obviously the herring are also feeding on copepods in the same area as the right whales.

A few right whales have been found on Roseway Basin as well by another vessel with New England Aquarium researchers. They have been dodging hurricanes and tropical storms with the latest, Danny, working up the coast. Fortunately this second storm has never developed into a hurricane and will not be as damaging to the area. The first hurricane, Bill, moved mostly offshore, also reducing the storm damage but seas were high.

There is still a long way to go in documenting the right whale calves. We have seen very few calves, although did have a calf in the surface active group we were watching yesterday. It was difficult to tell who the mother was in the mass of pursuing males but hopefully I did catch her on camera.

It was great to see Gemini yesterday in a surface active group of about in a surface active group of 15-20 right whales.