Spring in New England means right whales feast upon large blooms of zooplankton in Cape Cod Bay (CCB) and the nearby Great South Channel, which allows data hungry research teams to get a lot of work done! The Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) runs dedicated aerial surveys to cover CCB from December to May, and collects water samples to monitor habitat conditions. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) surveyed the Great South Channel and surrounding waters by vessel and plane; they are still at it, actually, and still finding whales! Additionally, teams from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), New England Aquarium and NEFSC conducted research from vessels in the Bay.

The crew from Center for Coastal Studies on R/V Shearwater doing habitat monitoring work on April 25, as a whale feeds at the surface. Photo: Marianna Hagbloom

Unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, are a form of technology that researchers are currently experimenting with as a new collection method, and two research vessels were successfully able to launch drones around right whales this Spring. Members from our team were lucky enough to join a few trips with the WHOI and NOAA crew as they used a hexicopter drone to collect images for photogrammetry, which will help with the health analysis of individual right whales.

Reaching up to catch the returning drone after the mission in Cape Cod Bay. Photo by Veronique LaCapra. Copyright: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The team also used the drone to collect blow samples for genetic and microbiome analysis, similar to a study WHOI did last year with humpback whales! We already know the photos taken with the drone are absolutely stunning and will be incredibly useful to the Catalog, but we're looking forward to learning about their findings from using this new tool.

Overhead aerial view of a right whale at the surface, taken with the hexicopter. Photo by John W. Durban. Research approach of whales using the hexicopter was authorized by NMFS permit #17355 and flights were authorized under an MOU between NOAA and the FAA (Class G MOU #2016-ESA-3-NOAA).  Copyright: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

For the remainder of the season, we joined up with members of a NEFSC team with a special goal in mind: to collect biopsy samples from right whales. An arrow with a specialized tip which collects a small plug of blubber and skin is shot at the whale's body using a crossbow. Even though it sounds rough, the vast majority of whales display little or no reaction to this, and the spot heals over quickly. The scientific gains from this endeavor, however, are HUGE. From one sample, we are able to confirm who the mother is (rarely, a calf will become adopted by a different mother), discover who the father is, and determine the sex. The newly darted individual gets added to this database, which will help determine any offspring he/she has in the future, as well help match it to a dead animal through a skin or bone sample collected from a carcass. Genetics has also helped scientists estimate the original size of the population before commercial hunting (it's not as high as previously believed!), and even tell us how few calving females there were at the population's lowest point. All of this information is available to us through the hard work of the amazing geneticists associated with Saint Mary's University and Trent University.

The biopsy arrow hits the whale and immediately bounces off the body with a sample. The collection tip of the arrow is very small in relation to the size of the whale. Photo: Marianna Hagbloom, NEFSC/NEAq under NOAA Research Permit #17355-1.

Since the late 80's, over 503 individual right whales (71% including non-catalogued individuals) have been genetically sampled, which is insanely impressive for any wild population. The majority of calves are sampled when they are with their mothers in the Southeast, and non-sampled calves and adults would be darted during the summer in the Bay of Fundy. However, plenty of individuals remain on our "wanted" list, and since Cape Cod Bay (CCB) has been utilized by so many whales recently, we decided to head there to see if we could be successful in finding the whales we needed. Thankfully we were, and obtained two very exciting samples! One of these came from the single calf that hadn't been biopsied in the Southeast this winter (shoutout to the teams who sampled all the other calves!), as well as a non-catalogued whale currently known by the code BK01GSC14. This whale has only been photographed eight times since 2010, and only in CCB and the Great South Channel.

We'll finally get to unlock the mystery that is BK01GSC14, thanks to genetics! Photo: Marilyn Marx, NEFSC/NEAq under NOAA research permit #17355-1.

Who will be revealed as the parents of this whale? It will take time to get the results from the lab, so until then we remain curious and look forward to crossing more individuals off our "wanted" list as we encounter loads of right whales this summer (*fingers crossed*).

-Marianna

As I type, we are settling in to our field station in Lubec, Maine. Seasonal staff and interns are arriving, we are setting up our equipment and readying our boats. The weather looks bad for a few days, but we are hoping for our first day at sea after that. We are all excited and curious to see what is out in the Bay of Fundy.

Setting up our field station can take a few days!

But I am writing now to share some happy news! Back in January of 2013, the right whale community was stunned when a well known right whale, Wart (Catalog #1140), gave birth in or near Cape Cod Bay. Wart had the right time of year, but a very different location for most calving females who calve off Florida and Georgia. We were all concerned that the cold northern waters would be too much for the newborn. We knew the calf survived for at least several months as we reported on the Aquarium blog. But how would this little one do once separated from its mom?



Well, recently we discovered that Wart's 7th calf is doing just fine! It was seen on January 5, 2014 in Cape Cod Bay, and then several times on April 25th, 2014 still in Cape Cod Bay. It was feeding and looks very healthy.

Bowheads are typically found only in the Arctic, and they are the bigger, beefier cousins of right whales. They can reach 60 ft in length, their blubber is nearly 2 ft thick (to protect them from the icy waters of the Arctic), and they use their massive heads (a third of their body length)  to break through the ice. Their baleen is similar to that of right whales except twice as long, reaching up to 14ft!!  But one of the most amazing things about bowheads is that there is evidence that they live to be well over 100 years old!

Bowheads (left) and right whales (right) are closely related and have similar features, such as rotund bodies, strongly arched jaws, paddle-shaped flippers and smooth, broad flukes. Illustration: Rox Corbett  (Used with permission)

As unusual as this recent sighting is, it's actually not the first time this particular bowhead whale has visited Cape Cod Bay. Based on some unique scarring, CCS has confirmed that this is the same individual photographed by their aerial survey team back in March 2012. Later that year, the Aquarium's Right Whale Team sighted the same bowhead up in the Bay of Fundy! No one reported seeing it in 2013, so where it went in the interim is anyone's guess.

Bowhead whales (top) are larger, Arctic relatives of right whales (bottom).  Their heads are more strongly arched and they lack the distinctive callosities of right whales. Bowhead photo:Meagan Moeyaert/NEAQ; Right whale photo: NEAQ

There has been much speculation as to whether this lonely, wandering bowhead  is from the Eastern Arctic population, or whether it could have traversed the Northwest Passage and be from the Western Arctic. At this point we don’t know anything about its origin except that it’s a long way from home.

Marilyn

Learn more! Here are some noteworthy sightings by the research team that weren't right whales:

• Here's the post about the bowhead whale sighting
• A handy post about the differences between bowhead and right whales
• Researchers have spotted sperm whales in the Bay of Fundy before
• See video of a sperm whale in the Bay of Fundy
• The prize for most unusual sighting goes for an alligator at sea 

Our colleagues at the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) in Provincetown, MA, have been very busy in the last few weeks as their annual spring right whale surveys continue in and around Cape Cod Bay. In recent days CCS has reported seeing as many as 100 right whales in the Bay! Most of the whales are feeding at or just below the surface on the high concentrations of zooplankton. If you live in the area you might want to get out to one of the Cape or south shore beaches with a pair of binoculars and start looking--you might be lucky enough to see one of the rarest whales in the world!

Two right whales skim feed near Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown. Photo: Marilyn Marx/NEAq

In among those many whales CCS confirmed the first northern sighting of a 2014 mother/calf pair: Couplet (Catalog #2123) and calf!! They successfully made the long and perilous journey up the busy east coast from the calving ground off Florida and Georgia. Couplet was born in 1991 to Sonnet (Catalog #1123) and has had four previous calves. We hope the pair are soon joined in Cape Cod Bay by the rest of this year's mothers and calves--we always breathe a little easier when they've all returned to the feeding grounds!

Couplet  in the waters off Florida in 2003 with her second calf.   Photo: Monica Zani/NEAq

Learn more about right whales!

• Get an update on the babies born this year
• See how the whales are feeding in Cape Cod Bay
• Learn about threats facing right whales in the wild
• Check out this video of disentanglement efforts

Want to help this critically endangered species? Sponsor a right whale today! Your support goes directly to the Aquarium's research and conservation efforts.

-Marilyn