As most every year, February was a busy month flying aerial surveys in the southeast US. Most of the moms have had their calves and typically males begin to show up in the region. In addition, we tend to see more social active groups (follow link to see footage from the Bay of Fundy) in February. With so many whales in the area, we were fortunate to have so many good weather days. Often we have to cancel or shorten a flight due to bad weather. However, we flew 20 of 28 days in February, of which 45 percent of the flights covered 100% of our survey area. Only 5 percent of the flights covered less than 50 percent of the survey area. We had a total of 216 sightings including 455 whales (most whales are re-sightings from previous days), with a season record of 49 whales in one day. We documented 5 new calves, and 1 entangled whale. We logged the longest flight days of the season with two 8.0 hr days. As much as I love sighting whales, I will be happy to see them start their migration north.


Photo Caption:
1) Photo of Eg#3101 with her calf during Feb. Taken by Jonathan
2) Photo of a SAG during Feb. Taken by Zach.

Zach

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