New England Aquarium Surveys Bay

The new England Aquarium right whale research team were able to survey the Grand Manan Basin on Thursday, August 4.  With two boats they were able to cover a good portion of the Basin and surrounding waters and found seven right whales including two mothers with their calves.

Sperm whale tail

Humpback whale tail (Sunburst)

Right whale tails.  (White marked tail is the injured tail of Slash)

They also had a hydrophone in the water at one point and heard sperm whales, although the whales were not seen.  This would be the second year in a row that sperm whales are in the Bay of Fundy.  We are not sure what this means but last year when the sperm whales were present from late July to the middle of October, few right whales were seen.  Continued surveys will reveal what this summer will bring us.

Strangely Located Callosities

Right whale #3760 with back and side callosities

in addition to the callosities on the head

Right whales are known for their callosities on their face where facial hair is often found, eyebrows, mustache and chin whiskers and these are used to identify individuals. However, a right whale calf was born in 2007 with additional callosities on its back and right side, #3760, the calf of Derecha, #2360. First seen on June 2, 2007 as a tiny calf in the Great South Channel off Cape Cod, this calf hadn't been seen in the calving area off Florida and Georgia in the winter and is thought to have been a late birth.

Derecha is an unusual mother and seems to want to head south when she has a calf. In 2004 after being seen off Florida she was spotted off Texas in the Gulf of Mexico! She eventually turned around and was spotted in the Bay of Fundy in September. In 2007 after being spotted off Cape Cod with her tiny calf, the next sighting was in Florida on July 17! She turned up in the Bay of Fundy, again in September with her unusual calf. #3760 spent time in the Bay of Fundy last September (2009) when the photographs above were taken.

House begins to fill up

For the last month, the research station has been relatively quiet with the museum and gift shop open. This week we have had five people arrive and begin work on various projects. On July 15 zooplankton samples were collected from the Grand Manan Basin with bongo nets, a pair of nets towed from our research vessel, Phocoena, attached side-by-side resembling bongo drums. Three right whales were seen on this trip but were not relocated later in the day.

Much of the work this week is sorting and organizing equipment. Tonight (July 18) two people will be going to Kent Island and the Bowdoin Scientific Station, to see if a project analyzing food brought back to chicks by Leach's storm petrels is viable. Leach's storm petrels are small seabirds that nest in burrows and feed on zooplankton and marine oils on the ocean surface. The goal of the project is to analyze what the petrels are eating and assess any toxins present in the food.