Hi all. It is August 1st, the time of year when right whale researchers at the New England Aquarium and other organizations gather in Lubec, Maine for an annual field season. It's our 29th year in a row! We are about to head out to the Bay of Fundy on our research vessel Nereid in hopes of finding right whales. Earlier this week, there were reports of as many as 20 right whales in the Bay of Fundy already, including several mother calf pairs that have migrated over 1,500 miles to get here from the calving grounds off Florida! Record numbers of right whales were reported on the calving grounds in the Southeastern United States this past winter and on the feeding grounds in Cape Cod Bay this spring. We are hoping for record numbers of whales into the summer months in the Bay of Fundy.The weather today is not conducive for surveying. We woke up at 5 a.m. to check the weather conditions and saw there was rain and fog in our survey area. We looked at the weather radar and it appeared that the rain was moving to the northeast of us. We were optimistically hoping that the rain would pass allowing the sun to shine through the clouds and burn away the fog making it a beautiful day for surveying. We checked the weather again at 6:15 a.m., but no such luck. It was still raining. We are all keeping our fingers crossed for tomorrow!
We will be here until October so stay tuned for photos of who was sighted and stories from other right whale researchers about their days spent in the Bay of Fundy.
From the field,
Jonathan