Profiles that highlight whale research, conservation, and education

Humpback whales that we first see as young of the year calves are a very important component of the data collected at the Whale Center of New England. When we meet a whale as a newborn, we know its exact age (to the year) and, since they stay with their mother for a year, to whom it is related to on its mother's side (males do not stay with a female after mating, se we do not know the father's identity). Beacon was born in 1998 and was first photographed by the Whale Center of New England on April 19, 1998, traveling along side her mother Echo. Like most calves, Beacon was probably 10-15 feet long and weighed close to 2,000 pounds at birth in February of that year. During the first few weeks of her life, she relied heavily on Echo to provide rich milk, allowing her to gain up to 100 pounds per day. This weight gain is important because the calves need to build a thick blubber layer for their migration north to the cold waters of the North Atlantic. Echo and Beacon were seen regularly throughout the summer on Stellwagen Bank, a productive feeding ground found off the coast of Massachusetts. Typically, humpback whales return to the area that their mothers brought them in their first year of life. Beacon has been sighted on Stellwagen Bank every year since she was born.

Echo's calf was given her name during the 1999 whale-naming workshop. She was named for a small white circle with radiating lines found on the left side of her fluke (tail) that reminded researchers of a beacon of light. Since the workshop, her tail has darkened and the mark is now barely visible. Beacon was also identifiable by the unique shape of her dorsal (back) fin. These two traits make it easy for scientists and whale watchers alike to identify her in the field.

Beacon was voted "calf of the year" in 1998 and "whale of the year" in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2004 by Whale Center staff. One of the reasons why she was so popular with our naturalists, as well as whale watch passengers, is because of her curious nature around boats. On countless occasions, Beacon swam right over to a nearby boat and rolled around, spyhopped (a behavior where she sticks her head up out of the water), blew bubbles, flipper slapped and even swam back and forth underneath the boat. There were even times when she would maintain this behavior for long periods of time, even an hour or more. This type of behavior may have been a way for Beacon to take a closer "look" at the boats in their environment. Sometimes the whales are so close that you can even see their eyes open above and below the water. On one memorable day, Beacon even passed under a whale watch boat, only to emerge on the other side with a stripe of boat bottom paint that had been on the vessel only minutes before.

It was during this type of curious behavior when the whales may even roll belly up, allowing us to determine Beacon's sex! Located on the underside of the tailstock, females have an enlarged bump of fibrous tissue called a "hemispherical lobe." This lobe is only present in females and it represents one of the few external differences between male and female humpbacks. Photographs of the hemispherical lobe on Beacon's tailstock verify that she was a female.

Females are larger than males when full grown, and give birth to their first calf as early as four years of age and as late as eleven. During the first few years that we saw Beacon, she seemed rather small for a female. In 2003 and 2004, however, Whale Center staff noticed an increase in her overall length as well as her width. It is important for females to have a large blubber (fat) layer in order to provide nutrients for themselves during the winter months (humpback whales generally travel to warm waters in the Caribbean during the winter, where they do not feed at all). The blubber is also an energy reserve used to produce milk for a newborn calf. It is possible that with the increase in her size, Beacon was preparing to give birth to her first calf in the next year or two. Because there is no noticeable difference between a pregnant or non-pregnant female, we would have to wait for another visit from Beacon to see if she was a mother.

When we observe humpbacks during their first year of life, we can also watch their feeding behaviors evolve. During her first year on Stellwagen, Beacon got her food by nursing from Echo. After a year, though, the two separate and are generally not seen together again throughout their lifetimes. It is during these first few years away from its mother that a humpback whale will learn how to feed. The baleen whales on Stellwagen Bank generally return each year around April to take advantage of a rich food source, mainly a small bony fish called a sand lance. Even in the absence of sand lance, young humpback whales will feed on krill (small shrimp-like organisms) and plankton that are available during the season. Beacon took advantage of the Stellwagen food source early on. She was seen for the first time without her mother on May 15, 1999. Since that time, we have watched Beacon "experiment" with different feeding techniques including filter feeding (taking large gulps of water below the surface and filtering the water through baleen plates), bubble feeding (releasing large bubbles to the surface to corral fish) and kick feeding (slamming her tail down on the surface to stun swimming prey).

Our last sightings of Beacon took place during the 2004 season throughout our study area, including Stellwagen Bank and the Great South Channel (southeast of Cape Cod). Beacon was photographed for the first time in 2004 in early May along with numerous other humpbacks on the southern portion of Stellwagen Bank. Beacon was recorded kick-feeding in the same group other adult humpbacks including her mother, Echo! During kick-feeding, Beacon would slam her tail down on the surface of the water just before her last dive. It is thought that this kick helps to stun schooling fish at the surface, allowing Beacon more time to resurface with a presumably larger amount of fish. Echo is also a whale that we have seen kick feeding, so it was quite a unique experience to watch both mother and daughter feed.

Beacon was then seen in July and August during research trips to the Great South Channel and returned to Stellwagen Bank for the later part of the season (September, October). Her last sighting in the waters off the coast of New England was on November 2, 2004. In true Beacon fashion, she spent most of the time flipper slapping. The whale traveling with her, Mudskipper (Buckshot's 1997 calf) appeared to want nothing to do with this exciting behavior.

Sadly, Beacon was found stranded on Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, MA on December 11, 2004. Although numerous scientists gathered in the area to perform a necropsy (whale autopsy), little was determined. The thick blubber layer, so important to the humpbacks during the long winter of fasting, turned into the hindering factor for the necropsy effort. The blubber insulated the body cavity so well, that many of the organs were highly decomposed, making tissue collection close to impossible. In addition, her stranding location and imminent weather made further examination impossible.

The inability to collect important information about the death of this special whale is a loss for humpback research. Not only is information collected on known-age whales important while they are alive, but also upon death. Because Beacon was deemed a healthy whale by all accounts during her last sighting in November, a detailed necropsy may have made the difference in finding out what caused this sudden loss. Fresh tissue samples could rule out biotoxin poisoning and a detailed examination of the skeleton would help determine if a potential ship strike occurred. It is feared that these along with other potential factors contributed to the loss of this individual. Understanding more about how and why large whales are injured or killed will help scientists and conservationist increase awareness and protection for the many endangered species that wash ashore each year.

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