Aerial Surveys begin in the Southeast U.S.

Aerial surveys began the beginning of December in the right whale calving area in the Southeast United States. There are a number of teams ranging from North Carolina to Florida that cover as much area as they can on every good weather day. Winter always brings its challenges, even in the relatively warm south. Our seas in the Bay of Fundy change from very calm to feather white - so much wind that the entire surface of the Bay is white from wind whipped waves.

No right whale calves have been spotted yet that I know of but you can keep up with the New England Aquariums aerial team on their blog (http://www.neaq.org/education_and_activities/blogs_webcams_videos_and_more/blogs/right_whale_aerial_survey/index.php). I will endeavour to post any sightings of our adoptive whales as I hear about them and update the family trees. Right whales have complicated family trees with many fathers for each female and her calves.

While another banner year would be fabulous (last year's 39 was a record breaker), it is impossible to know at this point how many calves will be born. We can just keep our fingers crossed that the number of calves will be above average and keep the population growing. The latest population figure for 2008 is 438, a spectacular growth but still incredibly fragile.

Pico returns

On January 5, 2009, a right whale was spotted off the island of Pico in the Azores. Well-known for the sperm whales that occur off the Azores, right whales are a rare sighting so when one was spotted it created a lot of excitement. Photographs of the head of the whale were matched by the New England Aquarium researchers to a female #3270 of unknown age, first added to the right whale catalogue in 2002. The bonnet callosity of this whale closely resembled the shape of Pico Island and as is the tradition with naming right whales, a group voted on a selection of names, agreeing on Pico. I was rather proud that I had suggested the name.

Pico had been seen in the Bay of Fundy by the New England Aquarium researchers in late Sept. 2008. All of her previous sightings had been from the Great South Channel, Georges Bank, Gulf of Maine, Roseway Basin and the Bay of Fundy so the Azores sighting was a complete surprise. You can look at pictures of Pico and also her sighting history on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog http://rwcatalog.neaq.org/Default.aspx. This website lists all the identified and catalogued right whales in the North Atlantic.

In the latest newsletter from the New England Aquarium, Pico has been spotted again, back in the Bay of Fundy. That is a straight line, round trip, cross-Atlantic swim of over 7000 kilometres in a year.

Interestingly, there have also been right whale sightings in recent years off the Canary Islands. No other information is available at this time about these sightings.

Right whales in November

Many years some right whales remain off Grand Manan and the Bay of Fundy well into November and sometimes into December. In late January of this year, three right whales were seen off Point LePreau, above Grand Manan. However, this year, only two right whales have been seen since October 20.

Where have they gone? Three juvenile whales were seen off North Carolina on November 8 but the largest numbers have been seen off Cashes Ledge, Jeffrey's Ledge and Jordan Basin in the lower Gulf of Maine. Most sightings of right whales in the winter in the Gulf of Maine, Cape Cod area are from aerial surveys, either through the National Marine Fisheries Service or the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, MA. Winter conditions in areas where right whales might be located are often severe and beyond workable conditions for small boats so aerial surveys are used and can cover a much wider area. Details of right whale sightings in the Gulf of Maine to Long Island, NY from the North East Right Whale Sighting Advisory System can be viewed at: http://rwhalesightings.nefsc.noaa.gov/

Another unique method of locating right whales is through listening posts or buoys located on or near the ocean floor. Checking the website as I write, two buoys have picked up right whale calls along the shipping lane for the port of Boston within the last 24 hours: http://www.listenforwhales.org/. If you would like to hear some right whale calls, click on the "Explore Whale Sounds" tab.

Winter aerial surveys of the calving areas from North Carolina to Florida will begin in a couple of weeks and will continue to March. Hopefully it will be another good year for right whale mothers and calves.

Right whales seen on aerial survey

I have been working with Fisheries and Oceans to look for right whales off Grand Manan. This is to alert lobster fishermen to their presence so they can take voluntary measures to avoid having the whales entangled in their lobster gear. Our first two flights yielded many humpback whales and finback whales but no right whales, however the November 7 flight resulted in two right whales spotted toward the end of our flight. We also had 23 humpback whales, 18 finback whales, 2 basking sharks and 1 unidentified whale (dove before we could get a good look at it).

Here is a view of the pilot and the fisheries officer in the plane, both watching for whales:

The two right whales were swimming southwest and may have been going out of the Bay. November 10 is the start of the lobster season around Grand Manan, Campobello Island, the Wolves and along the New Brunswick mainland. It is always an anxious time particularly when there are still large numbers of right whales in the Bay which potentially could get tangled in buoy lines or the lines that link lobster traps together in a trawl. During the summer and fall, the Bay is relatively free of fishing gear, unlike the coast of Maine, where lobster fishing is in full swing.

Here are two lobster boats loaded with traps ready to set on November 10:

We will continue the flights until possibly December, depending on what we find. The flights are also only flown is good weather which can be hard to find this time of year. Too many white caps can make it difficult to see the whales.

Here is a photo of two humpbacks taken during the November 5 flight. The orangish-brown streak is actually whale "poop". This humpback had been eating krill. Unlike in right whales, humpback poop is more liquid and disperses quickly, whereas right whale poop may float at the surface for quite some time and is often more solid. You can tell these are humpback whales because of the long white flippers, dorsal fin and balloon-shaped blow or spout.

There is hope

After viewing the gripping images of Chris Jordan, http://www.chrisjordan.com/, of albatross chicks dying on Midway Island because they parents feed them plastic caps, lighters, etc. mistaking them for fish or something edible, it is hard to feel positive about the future of the oceans. However, when I opened a letter today from a mother living in New Hampshire, I see a glimmer of hope.


A family visited Grand Manan this summer, had a wonderful time and plan to return again. Obviously their visit to Grand Manan had a lot of meaning because their daughter upon arriving home decided that she didn't need any birthday presents and wanted her friends to bring money instead so she could use it to help save right whales. Needless to say her mother was very proud of her daughter as am I as well.



How old is this child? Seven years old and this is not the first time someone this young has decided that gifts can be used to help others and don't have to be things that you may want but probably don't need. We had a six year old girl last year do the same thing - give up presents so she could help right whales. This is the best kind of "regifting" that I know of and after looking at images of masses of products that are discarded daily, perhaps donating to your favourite cause may be the better way for give some relief to the strain we are putting on the oceans and all that make it their home.

Right whales gone from the Bay of Fundy?

On October 28 we did an aerial survey of the Grand Manan Basin where right whales are typically found. I had been out on October 25 by boat covering a small portion of this area as well. On both days, no right whales were seen, even though 20-25 were present close to Grand Manan (approximately 8 to 10 nautical miles) on October 20. That is how quickly things can change. We did see four fin whales and three humpback whales from the plane and three fin whales and three humpbacks from the boat, the latter in a totally different area. One of the humpbacks seen from the air was breaching - the splash is even more impressive from the air, and another was tail lobbing but they were separated by a couple of miles. It is hard not to make the relationship that these whales were possibly communicating with each other by making loud noises.

We have had a lot of wind in the last few weeks which can disperse the zooplankton patches. Right whales have also been showing up in the middle to lower part of the Gulf of Maine so perhaps the whales have started to move to their winter haunts. Aerial surveys will continue for a few more weeks, always dependent on the weather. Strong winds create lots of white caps which makes it more difficult to see whale blows or spouts and also cause a bigger distraction since the search image for a whale from the air is fleeting with little time to make a judgement on whether it is a wave or a whale.

Last year there were right whale remaining into December and some were even seen the end of January but every year is different and the distribution of right whales this summer was definitely not the "norm" which probably reflected a more scattered distribution of zooplankton.

Right whales do sometimes return after leaving the Bay. Their meanderings seem to be part of their lives with sometimes no where in particular to go but a huge ocean to explore, stopping to feed where ever they find dense enough patches of zooplankton.

Silt and her calf

On September 19, I was thrilled to see Silt (#1812) and her calf but did not expect them to be practically on shore. I and several other people were at Swallowtail Light doing some work on the keepers buildings. We were almost finished when we heard a noise. Looking down, there was Silt and her calf almost touching the rocks. The shore drops off steeply there so they could get in very close. They rolled around, enjoying each other's company before moving offshore, travelling along the ferry route to the north. We had no idea where they had come from, seeming to appear out of the blue but no doubt had been travelling close along the shore.

Here is a picture of where the whales were first seen (X) and where they went:

I went and got a friend and her daughter who were visiting and we watched from another vantage the whales slowly swim along, holding our breathes to see where the whales would surface when the ferry passed nearby - fortunately not in the ferry's path.

I realize Silt isn't one of our adoptive whales but every right whale is special and this certainly warmed our hearts.