I have thought often about what it might be like to be a right whale, but of course I only have my human senses to compare it to. From my perspective, I think about what it might be to spend life mostly in the dark (at night or at depth), having to find enough of the rice-sized copepod plankton to feed a hungry belly, finding a mate that can't be seen, and keeping a one ton newborn calf well-fed and safe.



Clearly right whales are well-adapted to manage all of the above, but what concerns me most are the things they are not adapted to: the chronic noise pollution from the extensive vessel traffic that transits day and night throughout their range which masks their vocalizations and limits their ability to find each other; the fear that must be palpable when one of those vessels gets louder and louder as it unknowingly steams towards them but can't be seen—which way to turn to escape the deadly hull and propeller?; and the panic that must set in when, while searching for food at depth with a mouth wide open, an unseen rope attaching a buoy at the surface to fishing gear at depth becomes caught in the long baleen plates hanging from the roof of the mouth, causing a frantic struggle to get to the surface to breath and to hopefully escape from the heavy gear and constricting ropes.


This latter scenario of entanglement is the focus of a recently published paper by myself and colleagues here at the New England Aquarium. In this paper we reviewed up to 30 years (1980-2009) of photographs for each individual right whale, looked for evidence of entanglement related scarring on all different areas of the body, and noted which animals were witnessed carrying rope likely to be from fishing gear. We determined that 83% of this small population has evidence of at least one entanglement interaction, with some animals experiencing as many as seven entanglement events.

Due to dedicated survey efforts, many whales are sighted and well-photographed from one year to the next, making it possible to notice when new scars appear in a relatively small time frame. Using this well-documented part of the population, we determined that annually, on average, 26% of these animals had obtained new entanglement scars or were carrying gear.

A total of 1,032 unique interactions were documented, resulting in minor to moderate scarring for many right whales, but serious and often fatal entanglements for 86 individuals. And the rate of serious entanglements has increased over the 30 year period.

The entanglement issue remains the most serious conservation concern facing this small population. Expanded fishing effort along the eastern seaboard over the past several decades and the use of stronger ropes and heavier gear is just one more insult we have imposed in the oceanic realm, where it can be all too easy to ignore the impacts. Right whales are in a very real sense a "canary in the coal mine" for understanding what is happening offshore. And we will continue our efforts to work with government and industry to try to find solutions to this complex issue.

If you are interested in reading the recently published paper for more details, it is available for free at the Marine Ecology Progress Series journal.

– Amy Knowlton

2 months
18 team members
1 house
3 survey boats
20 survey days
8 of those survey days aborted or cut short due to wind or fog
0 right whale poop samples
7 known North Atlantic right whale calves born in 2012
1 unique 2012 right whale calf sighted
3 days of mom/calf pair recordings by acoustic team
299 whale calls recorded by acoustic team
20+ dozen eggs eaten by crew
1 bowhead whale
1 orca
2 sperm whales
1 right whale trapped and freed from herring weir
45 unique individual right whales sighted
80 sightings added to the catalog




Compare to BOF 2011 By The Numbers!

-Marianna

We took advantage of fair weather on September 28 to relocate our research vessel to its winter home at James Rich Boatyard in West Tremont, Maine. The good folks there have been taking care of the R/V Nereid since the mid 1990s.  During the off-season, the Nereid will get her usual painting and buffing and as well as a new depth sounder.

The last weekend in Lubec was spent packing up all the research equipment and data. The team headed back to their offices at the Aquarium in Boston on October 1, eager to finish up the season's photo analysis to determine how many individual right whales were accounted for in Fundy. Two of us stayed on for an extra week, hopeful for one more clear day to sneak back out into the Bay to see if there were any lingering right whales. Wednesday, October 3, dawned clear and bright, although with a little more wind than forecast. Amy and Moe borrowed the FRC (Fast Rescue Craft) from the Campobello Whale Rescue Team for one last survey.


Amy (left) and Moe on the 24 foot long FRC Hurricane used by the Campobello Whale Rescue Team to respond to entangled whales in the Bay of Fundy. The sailboat to the left is the Jolly Breeze, a whale watch boat from St. Andrews, NB. Photo: Chris Slay.

Our efforts were rewarded with the sighting of two right whales! The two whales were travelling together, and Amy collected photos before they disappeared from sight.


Near the end of the day, we joined up with the S/V Jolly Breeze and friend Chris Slay on the R/V Jupiter to enjoy some time with a rare species in the Bay of Fundy, an orca!

On September 24th, two eager crews headed into the Bay of Fundy on the R/V Nereid and R/V Callisto. The last survey we attempted was September 21, but we didn't make it very far before turning back due to strong winds and rough seas. As the Nereid motored along our tracklines, we saw many fin whales (our grand total for the day was 12!) and sighted our first right whale, Catalog #2201, just before 11 AM.



An hour and a half later, we came across our second right whale for the day. From a distance, we noticed the color orange on the whale... seeing any color other than black for body, white for cyamids, or brown for mud on a right whale always makes your heart beat a bit faster with concern. As we got closer, our worry was justified- this whale had lots of raw scars on its peduncle and flukes that were covered with orange cyamids. Orange cyamids appear on healthy newborn calves, but if they are copious on an adult, it's likely because the individual is in poor health or is carrying open flesh wounds. The wounds on this whale were consistent with those caused by an entanglement in fishing gear with linear wrapping cuts caused by rope. Presenting a dip in the back right behind the blowholes, it was also visibly thinner than a normal, healthy looking animal.



With choppy seas, it was difficult to get a good look at who this whale could be. Adding to the challenge of matching this whale, this individual had a new scar and heavy cyamid coverage on its head, making the callosity look a little different than normal. This year, our team has been experimenting with a brand new tool: the E-Catalog. The E-Catalog is an exported version of our photo-id database, downloaded as a (very large) file onto a laptop computer that researchers can take with them into the field to help them match individuals in real time. The E-Catalog was programmed by Parallax Consulting, LLC, with funds from NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and leverages the programming architecture of DIGITS- our matching and data processing software. This is slightly different than the paper Catalog that we normally take with us on the boat, which allows researchers to look up head codes and see composite drawings of individuals. Now with the E-Catalog, we can still search for individuals by using head codes, but we can also input any other features that can help narrow down the search, such as the size of the lip callosities or any identifying scars on the head, body or flukes. In addition to showing the composite drawing, the database also shows select photographs of the whale (called "primary" images, they are the best representative images available, chosen by our team). The E-Catalog is intended to help speed up the process of matching whales in the field, which is especially important if a whale is entangled, injured or sick. Quick matching is also handy for when we need to know if a biopsy sample needs to be collected from a whale before it swims out of sight!




After trying a few different combinations of head codes with the E-Catalog and comparing the photographs we just took with the primary images, we discovered who this whale was: Catalog #3610. This whale was first observed in January 2006 and is of unknown age. Unfortunately, this is not the first time #3610 has been entangled. First seen carrying gear in September 2006 in the Bay of Fundy, this whale traveled all the way down to the Southeast U.S. where it was seen in January 2007. Much effort was made by several teams to follow the whale, and a disentanglement team made of several members of the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network worked to make some cuts in the gear and remove as much of it as possible. In April 2007, #3610 was seen again and confirmed to be free of all gear.



The last time #3610 was seen by any observer (that we know of so far) was March 28, 2012 in Massachusetts Bay by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. At that time, the whale did not have any new peduncle scars and was not carrying any fishing gear on its body, so we have some time-frame of when this entanglement occurred.






Due to the match, we were able to tell that this whale needed to be biopsy darted. #3610 was difficult to follow because it didn't stay at the surface long and would sometimes travel east, and sometimes north. Deciding that we didn't want to stress the whale any more than needed, we stuck with it for one last surfacing. Even though we had estimated where it would come up fairly well, we were still too distant to collect a sample, and we allowed the whale to continue on its journey into the Bay.


The good news is that this whale did not appear to be carrying any gear, and now that it is free from whatever was entangling it, it can start to recover. Hopefully, it will be photographed by other research teams over the next several months, which will allow us to study and track the healing process. If we see this individual in the Bay of Fundy next summer, we hope to find it looking fat and with well-healed scars.
We finished out our day with one more right whale sighting around 5 PM- Catalog #3192. The Callisto had a successful day for the season, photographing five individuals. Between the two vessels, we had one duplicate whale, which brought our total to seven unique whales for the day- not a bad tally for our last day on the water of this interesting field season!

-Marianna

Have you ever stood on a shoreline, seen a large ship and wondered where they are departing from and where they are headed?  The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automatic tracking system used by certain classes of ships for identifying and determining the location of vessels electronically. Data is exchanged with nearby ships and AIS base stations. AIS information supplements the mariners radar, which continues to be the primary method of collision avoidance for mariners. The carriage requirements for vessels is set by the International Maritime Organization, and they require AIS to be fitted aboard international voyaging ships of 300 gross tonage or more and all passenger ships regardless of size.

AIS has proven to be very useful in marine mammal studies. In the right whale world, AIS tracks were used to see how ships were moving around the Roseway Basin Area to be Avoided, an area off Nova Scotia where right whales tend to aggregate. AIS data is also used along the eastern seaboard of the U.S., where seasonal speed restrictions are in place  to help reduce the risk of ship strike to the whales in the right whale calving ground in the southeast U.S., along their migratory corridor in the mid Atlantic, and in feeding areas around Cape Cod . The data allows researchers and the federal government to see which vessels are going "over the speed-limit" and the ships can be fined based on this evidence. In January 2012, NOAA penalized three vessels who violated this law.





Follow this link to find your location and see what ships are travelling by you! Click on vessel details to learn more about the ship, wind speed, wind direction and air temperature. On our small research vessel Nereid, we have an AIS receiver integrated with our GPS navigation unit and marine radio. When we steer out across the Grand Manan Channel, we can look at the radio screen and determine if there are any large ships operating in our area.  The information provided includes distance to the transmitting vessel, the vessel's heading and speed, and the distance and time to the closest point of approach. This really enhances our safety especially when navigating the Bay of Fundy in fog!

-Moe