Thursday, September 4, 2003
A very interesting several weeks of whale sightings! After nearly 6 weeks of a very stable group of whales feeding near southern Stellwagen Bank, we started to see signs that the prey base there was declining. The whales stopped surface feeding for several days, and we started to see fewer and fewer whales per day. Then, we started to sight some of the same animals further and further away from the area they had been feeding in. But we certainly did not expect to see a major movement of whales into our area from the Great South Channel!
On August 17, Whale Center scientific staff members Allison Glass and Cara Pekarcik found almost 100 humpback whales feeding in the Channel, and were able to identify many of these whales. They also saw the whales feeding on what appeared to be acres and acres of sand lance, a preferred prey. Yet only a week later, many of the same animals came charging into Stellwagen Bank! For a brief period, we had almost 50 humpbacks moving up and down the bank! In the past few days the whales have been fairly spread out, but it is clear that there are a lot here - we are seeing different animals almost every day.
Mothers sighted include Compass, Dash-Dot, Owl, Pylon, Salt, and Tornado; other whales seen include Apostrophe, Ash, Beacon, Bolide, Buzzard, Canopy, Cat Eyes, Conflux, Coral, Crystal, Echo, Epee, Eyebrow, Fern, Firefly, Fracture, Glo, Grackle, Infinity, Meerkat, Octave, Parens, Purity, Putter, Roswell, Snowplow, Soot, Sundog, Timberline, and Venom.
Thursday, August 21, 2003
Things have been reasonably stable whale-wise. It seems the same group of whales has been feeding on Stellwagen Bank; we have seen a few new juvenile animals come in, but otherwise we are seeing many of the same whales we have over the past two weeks. In the past few days, surface feeding has been less common. However, we have had numerous close approaches, and some surface activity such as breaching, lob-tailing, and flipper slapping.
Unfortunately, two humpback whales have been seen in the area that have been seen entangled and carrying gill net fishing gear. The Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown has done a great job trying to disentangle these animals; while they were successful in both cases in removing some of the gear, both animals swam away with some still on them. While one of the whales is a juvenile that has not yet been identified, the other is Trident, one of our adopt-a-whales. We hope she stays in the area so that remaining gear can be cut free.
Whales seen recently include: Salt and her calf, Barb, Beacon, Eyelash, Fracture, Grackle, Roswell, Sabre, Seal, Sirius, Soot, Timberline, and Voltage, among others.
Monday, August 11, 2003
Our humpback whaless continue to be located about as far from Gloucester as possible while still being within reach, but they are still here! For the most part a very consistent set of whales, although we have seen a few whales move in for a day, then leave again, while the core group remains resident. We have seen some amazing surface feeding - yesterday we had up to nine humpbacks feeding together in a single bubble net! Salt and her calf are the only mother-calf we have seen consistently, but we have seen Fan and her calf wander in and back out again.
Humpback whales seen include Barb, Beacon, Coral, Echo, Fracture, Grackle, Istar, Mauro, Ravine, Sabre, Sirius, Timberline, and Voltage.
Pilot whales are still present on both Stellwagen and Jeffreys Ledge, keeping our small cetacean sightings interesting.
Also of note is the continued investigation into the offshore deaths of several species of whales.
Tuesday, August 5, 2003
Most of our time has been spent with humpbacks on the southern edge of Stellwagen Bank, where a group of about 15 animals has been feeding for several weeks. We have seen some great surface feeding, and we have had several super breaching displays (especially from Beacon, the 1998 calf of Echo).
Minke whales are abundant there as well. Pilot whales were sighted nearby yesterday, and last week we also saw no less than three different right whale mother-calf pairs. These animals were dangerously close to the ship traffic lane from New York to Boston, and we do worry about the risk of collision to them.
Jeffreys Ledge has also had humpback and fin whales present, as well as sporadic sightings of white-sided dolphins. Humpbacks seen include: Mothers: Fringe, salt, Pepper, and Pylon; other whales include Barb, Beacon, Coral Echo, Fracture, Grackle, Ravine, Sabre, Satula, and Sirius.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Our whale watching season has certainly changed in the last couple of weeks! During the end of June some more humpback whaless moved in the area. Sightings became more recent on Stellwagen Bank. Most humpbacks were seen traveling. Some of the humpbacks that were identified were as follows: Echo, Palette, Isthmus, Scratch, Sundog, Moray, Division, Glo, Compass and calf, and Hercules and calf. Hercules was entangled during the middle of June, but she was flipper slapping and her calf was breaching, which is an indication that they are doing well!
On the 12th of July there was an aggregation of about 20-30 feeding humpbacks at the southeast edge of Stellwagen Bank! (A welcome sight by all!) Among these whales feeding were: Reaper and calf, Midnight and calf, Pylon and calf, Circuit, Sabre, Tiara, Beacon, Parens, Fracture, Venom, Molson, Abrasion, Tunguska, Coral, Exclaim, Dome, Teapot and Wyoming.
On July 14th, a whale by the name Ravine, spotted by a whale watch vessel, was entangled on the SouthEast edge of Stellwagen Bank. Reported to have a "lobster" type buoy trailing eight feet behind its flukes. No information on where or how the line was attached to the whale was available. The disentanglement team from The Center for Coastal Studies, (CCS), cut the line free from the whale on the same day! Ravine is a female that was first seen in this area in the year 2000. She was spotted by CCS in May of this year and was not entangled at that time.
Ravine is the fifth humpback whale off the coast of Massachusetts to be entangled this year. This has become a huge concern for the scientists at The Whale Center of New England! With our scientist out on the water every day, we continue to look for animals in distress, notify the proper authorities if necessary and "stand-by" an entangled whale until the disentanglement team can arrive. If an whale is entangled it is important to have sight on that animal at all times until the disentanglement team can arrive. Otherwise, if there is no sight of the animal chances of losing positioning on the animal are very great and the chances of disentangling it are reduced greatly. The Whale Center has become very active and willing to use our research vessel, Silver II, to stand-by an entangled whale, when necessary, until proper authorities arrive to continue with the disentanglement of the animal!
Thursday, June 26, 2003
The last week here at The Whale Center of New England has been a busy one! Jeffreys Ledge has still been very productive. Several Finback, Minke, and Humpback whales, as well as basking sharks, have been spotted on Jeffreys Ledge. A whale known as Reaper has a calf this year! Trident and Garland were seen deep feeding together. This means that the whales are feeding on the schooling fish below the surface or near the bottom of the ocean as opposed to the surface. Three more of our adopt-a-whales were seen: Tear, Colt and Regulus. Sickle, who was entangled last year, was seen with NO gear on her! We are definitely glad to see her back and doing well. Sickle was with four other whales: Badge, Mogul, Satula and an unknown whale. On June 25th Regulus and Cone were behaving very strange and coming right up to the whale watch boat! There was a small whale with them which looked as if it was a lost calf. We are not exactly sure who that small whale is, but we are going to keep our "eye" on it to make sure it is doing fine!
On a more serious note, a whale known as Hercules was found entangled up on Jeffreys. This is a very serious case because Hercules has a calf! Fortunately, the disentanglement team from Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown removed all the gear from Hercules on June 24th. She is very thin. We are hoping she will have enough strength and energy to regain her health and to nurse her calf at the same time!
Friday, June 13, 2003
The past week has been interesting on Jeffreys Ledge, but a slow one on Stellwagen Bank. Jeffreys has lots and lots of herring on it; for much of last weekend and early in the week, we were seeing surface schools of herring that stretched for miles. Fin whale lunge feeding has been seen on several days in these schools, and we have seen up to a dozen fin whales per day. Atlantic white-sided dolphins have also been seen almost daily for the past week; they seem to prefer the herring on Jeffreys to the sand lance prey on Stellwagen.
Humpbacks have been seen as well, as Apostrophe, Ase, possibly Garland, Trident, and several others have been seen lunge feeding. We are concerned that herring fisherman may soon remove these bait patches, but for now the local ecosystem is vibrant and healthy.
On Stellwagen Bank, meanwhile, things have been quieter. Fin whales and minkes have been seen daily, but humpback sightings have been relatively few. Of course, weather has not helped us; only in the past week have we even started to break the pattern of rain and wind we have seen most of the spring.
Wednesday, June 6, 2003
As we head into June, the whale sightings have been sporadic so far. We have seen several humpback whales (including Trident!) on Stellwagen Bank, Jeffreys Ledge, and the surrounding areas, but they have not stayed very long in one place. Sightings of fin and minke whales, as well as Atlantic white-sided dolphins have been consistent and numerous, though. We have even seen the fin whales and dolphins interacting and engaged in feeding activities.
On June 3rd, we saw hundreds and hundreds of Atlantic white-sided dolphins spread out over a mile or more near the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank! In that area, as well as further south on the Bank, we sighted many minke and two fin whales.
05/19: 2 Humpback whales, including Barb, and a fin whale mother/calf pair on Jeffreys Ledge
05/20: 1 Humpback whale
05/23: 2 Humpbacks, Molson and Bolide, and 3 fin whales on Stellwagen Bank
05/26: 4-5 Finback whales swimming with over 100 dolphins
05/28: 6-8 Finback, 6-8 minke, and 1 humpback whale (Trident!), as well as over 200 dolphins
05/31: 1 Humpback whale, Trident, and 50-75 Atlantic white-sided dolphins
06/02: 3 Finback whales and 30-40 dolphins
06/03: 2 Finback and 3-5 minke whales, as well as over 1000 dolphins!
06/04: 1 Finback whale and dolphins
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Whales have been somewhat 'unsettled' until the past several days. Fin whales and white-sided dolphins have been consistent on Stellwagen Bank, with a few juvenile humpbacks spread throughout the area, but never staying for very long. On Jeffreys Ledge, however, whales started to aggregate late last week to feed on krill - a relatively unusual prey source in our area. Too early to say whether the aggregation will stay, but Sunday brought us sightings of 7-9 humpbacks and almost a dozen fin whales.
Among the humpbacks were Pylon and a calf - the first calf we have ever seen Pylon with. She was first photographed in 1997, and we had not seen her in several years. Her calf was lunge feeding right alongside mom, clearly imitating what she was doing. Other whales we identified in the area included Trident, Barb, and possibly Spar.
Also, reports from the Center for Coastal Studies on Cape Cod indicate they have seen Tornado, one of our Adopt-a-Whales, with her fourth calf ever!
Monday, May 19, 2003
5/9: 1-2 finback whales
5/10: several finbacks and 1 humpback whale
5/11: 3 finbacks west of Stellwagen Bank
5/13: 2-4 finbacks, 1 minke whale, 200-300 Atlantic white-sided dolphins (all off Race Point, Cape Cod)
5/14: 40-50 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, 1 finback, 2 minkes, and 1 small humpback by Provincetown
5/15: 4-6 lunge feeding finbacks, 200-300 feeding Atlantic white-sided dolphinsnear Cape Cod
5/18: 8-10 finbacks, 7-8 humpbacks (feeding on krill) Trident was among the group!
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
5/2: two humpback whales, including Walrus
5/4: 1 right whale and 2 finbacks
5/5: 4 finbacks, 2-3 minkes and 30-35 Atlantic white-sided dolphins
5/6: 3 Finbacks, 30-40 Atlantic white-sided dolphins (only 9 miles out of Boston!)
5/7: 3 Finbacks, 15 Lags, 4-5 Minkes
5/9: two humpback whales; Beacon and Lightning
5/11: 5-6 Finbacks, 2 minkes, 30-40 dolphins (west of Stellwagen Bank)
Center for Coastal Studies spotted Tornado with a calf!
Friday, May 2, 2003
We have begun our field work for the year, and we have some intial sightings to report. On Monday, April 28 we saw two right whales, three humpback whales (including an unidentified mother and calf) two finback whales, three or four minke whales, and twenty five to thirty dolphins. On Thursday the first of May we saw one humpback whale.
|
Humpbacks Seen
Abrasion
Ampersand
Anchor
Apostrophe
Ase
Ash
Aswan
Badge
Barb
Barbell
Beacon
Binary
Blackhole and calf
Bolide
Buckshot and calf
Bungee
Buzzard
Cajun
Canopy
Cardhu
Cat Eyes
Cattail
Chairlift
Chimney and calf
Circuit
Colt
Columbia
Compass and calf
Cone
Conflux
Coral
Corinthian
Cosmos
Crystal
Dash-Dot and calf
Decimal
Division
Dome
Duo
Dusky
Dyad and calf
Echo
Exclaim
Eyebrow
Fern
Filament
Firefly
Filament
Flapjack
Fracture
Freckles
Fringe and calf
Fulcrum
Garland
Geometry
Gibraltar
Giraffe
Glo
Gondolier
Grackle
Gunslinger
Habanero
Hercules and calf
Inchworm
Infinity
Istar
Isthmus
Jigger
Jumanji
Kappa
Lace
Lariat
Leukos and calf
Lightning
Magi
Mauro
Meerkat
Miaja
Midnight and calf
Midnight's 2000 calf
Mirror
Mogul
Molson
Moray
Navajo
Nile
Nimbus
Ninja
Nudibranch
Obtuse
Octave
Owl
Palette
Parens
Pele
Peninsula
Pepper and calf
Perseid
Photon
Pinch
Plateau
Plateau's 2002 calf
Pogo
Pox
Pregunta and calf
Pumba
Pumpkin Seed
Purity
Putter
Pylon and calf
Quote
Rapier
Rattan
Ravine
Reaper and calf
Reflection
Regulus
Right Bar
Root
Roswell
Sabre
Saloon
Salt and calf
Satula
Scratch
Scylla
Seal
Shards
Sickle
Sirius
Skateboard
Snowplow
Sod and calf
Soot
Spar
Stonehenge and calf
Stub
Sundog
Sushi
Sword
Tau and calf
Teapot
Tear
Techtonic
Thalassa and calf
Thread
Tiara
Timberline
Titan
Tornado and calf
Touche
Triad and calf
Trident
Trigger
Trunnel
Tunguska
Venom
Verga
Vibe 2002 Calf
Volley
Voltage
Vulture and calf
Walrus
Web
Wyoming
Zeppelin
Zipper and calf
Zodiac
|
