For more than 20 years, over 2,300 people have supported our research by participating in the Right Whale Sponsorship Program. As sponsors, they have learned about the plight of this endangered species and our 35 years of research to protect them. The Right Whale Sponsorship Program provides vital support for our work and we are so grateful to all who have taken part in the Program over the years. We have some EXCITING Sponsorship news to share and we hope that in this upcoming holiday season you will consider sponsoring a right whale and/or purchasing one of our great right whale-themed gifts!


UPDATED SPONSORSHIP MATERIALS! All of our sponsorship packages have been updated with a fresh new look and materials! Full color informational booklets, the hardcover book “Disappearing Giants”, a one-year subscription to our biannual newsletter, Right Whale Research News, stickers, and a coupon to the New England Aquarium Gift shop are included in all sponsorships. And don’t forget: Each sponsorship is tax deductible and directly supports our Right Whale Research Program!



NEW WHALES!  There are three new whales available to sponsor: Aphrodite, Manta and Gemini! Each whale has a fascinating history and we are eager to share their stories with you! Meet all the Sponsorship whales here.

New Sponsorship Whale, Gemini, one of the oldest whales in the population! Photo: Yan Guilbault/NEAq

Sponsoring a right whale through the New England Aquarium supports the critical research we're doing to protect this endangered species. This holiday season, give a sponsorship! It's a gift that gives back to our blue planet. Today's post introduces one of the whales available for sponsorship: Calvin.


When asked to talk about the challenges that North Atlantic right whales face, our team often brings up Catalog #2223, named Calvin, because her story encapsulates elements of threat and resilience that right whales experience. Sadly, it was when her mother's life ended that Calvin's story really began.


Calvin was born in 1992 to Delilah, a female first seen in 1981. During their first summer together in the Bay of Fundy, Delilah was struck by a large ship. Her death was not immediate, but the blunt force caused her to hemorrhage. A boater on the water that day photographed Delilah violently thrashing before she finally stopped breathing and became still. Delilah had died from ship strike with Calvin by her side. With no mother to guide her through the ocean and no milk to help her grow, researchers didn't think Calvin would survive—but amazingly she did.



Calvin showed resourcefulness and a surprisingly independent nature, and so she was named after the character in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Curating the Right Whale Catalog has allowed us to watch her become an adult and follow her exploits in various habitats. In 2000, she became entangled in fishing gear, but luckily was disentangled by the Center for Coastal Studies in 2001. She still bears the scars on her head, body and peduncle from that experience. Mind-bogglingly, based on our team's scar coding analysis, we know that wasn't Calvin's first entanglement—that occurred even before she arrived in the Bay of Fundy as an 8-month-old! We know that she's been through at least four other entanglement events as well. Unfortunately Calvin's multiple entanglements don't make her an anomaly, as 59% of the population have also been entangled more than once.


Happier news arrived in December 2004 when Calvin became a mother for the first time (of course her calf was named Hobbes!) and she brought her calf to the Bay of Fundy, just as her mother had done 13 years earlier. She birthed her second calf in 2009, and perhaps she will give birth to her third calf this winter! Despite the sad circumstances in her life, she offers hope for the future of this species.


How has our research benefited from studying Calvin, and how has Calvin benefited from our research? Our scientists were part of the team that necropsied Delilah to discover how she died, which later helped illustrate the troubling issue of ship strikes and influenced efforts to move the shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy. Philip, Marilyn and Scott published a paper on right whale weaning age (which included Calvin's case), and expanded what the scientific community knew about the age a calf could successfully wean. Scarring analysis work teaches us that Calvin has been entangled six times, which opens our eyes to this growing problem, and our Catalog work reveals that she is due to have another calf, which gives us something to look forward to.

Please consider sponsoring Calvin! Your sponsorship donation directly funds our program and helps us advance our research so we can aid conservation efforts. Thank you!
- Marianna and Marilyn

While some of the team is offshore, a few of us have stayed in Lubec to continue surveying the Bay of Fundy.  We had two good days out on Wednesday and Thursday but the number of whales had dropped significantly since last week’s surveys. Even with thorough coverage (by 3 research vessels: Nereid, Callisto and Selkie) in calm seas only seven whales were photo’d in the two days.  That's quite a change from the 26 individuals seen on August 12.

Catalog #4091 (four-year-old, sex unknown) in the Bay of Fundy August 21. Photo: Amy Knowlton

Besides the right whales we had some great views of a few other species, including the oddest looking fish on the planet, the Mola mola (also known as ocean sunfish)...

Photo: Elizabeth Burgess

...and a very beautiful avian visitor--curious tern!

Photo: Marilyn Marx

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

Another highlight was the first sighting of Derecha, #2360, and her calf. This mother had gained some fame back in March when the aerial survey team from Univ. of North Carolina-Wilmington and Duke University photographed Derecha giving birth! (For more information and photos of the event, click here.)

As our season is winding down, we've been thinking about some of the unusual sightings we've had over the past couple months. We've mentioned some of them in earlier blog entries, like the unprecedented number of right whales off The Wolves (the island chain many miles north of the usual habitat) and the crazy cloud we saw in early September. But there have been other things that have caught our attention and made us wonder: What's going on this year?

To see more photos of unusual species we saw this season click here.



2) A fulmar checks us out as it flies by the boat

3) A parasitic jaeger looking for trouble

4) T he back half of a leaping tuna

Recently the Right Whale Research Team photographed a very unusual cloud during one of the surveys in the Bay of Fundy. Here's a photo:



We sent the photo to an expert and here's what we found out about our amazing sighting.

Great news! Calvin, #2223, one of the most famous right whales in the population, has returned to the Bay of Fundy. We sighted her on Sept 2 with her calf of the year by her side. This was her first sighting in northern waters since giving birth on the southeast U.S. calving ground early this year.

For those of you who don't know her story, Calvin was born in 1992 and it was during her first summer in the Bay of Fundy that her mother, Delilah, was killed by a shipstrike, leaving Calvin an orphan. We didn't think Calvin would survive without her mother, but amazingly she did. She was named (before her sex was known) after the character in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.

Like that little boy, Calvin the right whale showed resourcefulness and a surprisingly independent nature. Since then we've watched her grow up and have followed her exploits in the various habitats in which she's been sighted. In 2000, she became entangled in fishing gear but luckily was disentangled by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in 2001. She still bears the scars on her head, body and peduncle from that experience. And in 2005 Calvin became a mother for the first time and brought her calf to the Bay of Fundy, just as her mother had done 13 years earlier.

Over the years Calvin's story has been used to illustrate the troubling issue of ship strikes--they are the leading cause of right whale mortality--and to help move the shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy so they no longer cut through the main concentration of whales.

You can read more about Calvin and her namesake student scientists, The Calvineers, in the 2008 blog. Calvin is also one of our sponsorship whales, so if you'd like to follow her in the future you can sponsor her or visit the Catalog website.
Marilyn

During a recent trip out to sea, one of the whales we sighted for the first time this season was #3530, a whale we named "Ruffian" back in February of 2008. This sighting was a very exciting one for us because Ruffian had been horribly wounded by an entanglement in some kind of fishing gear prior to January 2008, and though he was no longer entangled, we did not expect him to survive due to the extensive injuries he had sustained. (See all of Ruffian's sightings by searching for #3530 on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog.)










He was sighted a few times after that, but the last shipboard photos were taken in April 2008 by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS), and at that time he still looked terrible. But last Friday we got our first really good look at him in more than a year and we were thrilled with what we saw: his many wounds had healed, leaving only a few white scars on his back, head and tail. Although we don't know his age, Ruffian (named for his "roughed-up" appearance) is a young whale and that was probably the leading reason for his remarkable recovery. Young mammals in general have an enhanced ability to heal compared to older animals.

On September 25th, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. hosted a gala for the opening of their new permanent exhibit, the Sant Ocean Hall. Suspended from the ceiling above the center of the Hall is the focal point of the exhibit--a full size model of a North Atlantic right whale. It's an actual replica of a cataloged individual, a female named Phoenix. You can see photos and a history of Phoenix on the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog, search for catalog #1705.

Since 2004 Amy Knowlton and I have been working with the Smithsonian to make sure the model, and every other detail of information about right whales, is as accurate and up-to-date as possible. Because of that long relationship helping to develop that aspect of the exhibit Amy and I were invited to the black tie event, along with New England Aquarium Vice President of Research (and our fearless leader) Scott Kraus.

It was a great evening to see Phoenix and read all the information about right whales that we had spent years reviewing, and also to be the first (along with 1500 other guests) to see the exhibit. The Sant Ocean Hall is 23,000 square feet of fun facts and education about the world's most precious resource: the oceans that cover 71 percent of the earth's surface. The exhibit includes more than 650 marine specimens ranging from microscopic plankton to giant squid (and Phoenix, of course!) There are state of the art inter-active exhibits, video displays, and so much more than we could possibly see in the three hours we were there. We whale researchers, typically most comfortable in jeans, had to dress up and rub elbows with the elite of Washington. For some reason, we weren't featured in the New York social diary (scroll past first article) but as you can see we managed to look presentable!


Caption to group photo: The right whale group at the Smithsonian Ocean Hall opening. From right to left: Amy Knowlton, Bill McWeeny, Roz Rolland, Scott Kraus, Marilyn Marx and Jon Alberts (Marilyn's husband) photographer: Karen Steuer

Coming in our fall sponsorship newsletter we'll have an article about the creation of the model and our involvement in the project, as well as more about the opening itself. If you want to read more about it, here's the link to our sponsorship program.

For further information about the exhibit including images of Phoenix, check out the Smithsonian's Sant Ocean Hall page and read event reviews from the New York Times and the Washington Post.

-Marilyn

Since the weather is keeping us on land, we thought we could take this opportunity to tell you a bit about the area we call home for 2 months a year.



Lubec, Maine, is the easternmost town in the United States and literally a stone's throw from Canada (Campobello Island, New Brunswick). It sits atop a hill overlooking Passamaquoddy Bay, and has stunning views in every direction. The natural beauty of the area--rocky coastlines, misty islands, and rolling hills covered with blueberries--never fail to wow first-time visitors. The woodlands are lush and mysterious, thick with moss and lichens. Bald eagles frequently soar overhead and seals frolic in the Lubec Narrows (the channel between Campobello Island and Lubec that turns into a rushing river of salt water at the peak of the incoming or outgoing tide).



Named for a town in Germany, Lubec, Maine, is sleepy now (Pop: 1200), but it was once a bustling city --the sardine capitol of the world. Not only were there 48 sardine canning factories, but the town boasted herring smokehouses, movie theaters, hotels, four post offices, steamship service from Boston and a ferry to Eastport, Maine. The peak of Lubec's economic prosperity came during WWII when demand for herring and sardines was high and foreign imports were few. But in the years following the war, foreign competition increased, American tastes began to change (when was the last time you had smoked herring?), and fish stocks became depleted. With those three factors came a long economic decline.



One by one the various factories went out of business. The McGurdy Fish Company was the last operating commercial smokehouse in the U.S. when it finally closed its doors in 1992 (it is now a historical interpretive site open to the public). All the sardine canneries have shut down, with one exception--Peacock's-- but instead of sardine canning, they now raise urchins and sea cucumbers for foreign markets, and extract salt for "Quoddy Mist" sea salt. The steamship and ferry service stopped decades ago. The closest big city (and big airport) is Bangor, a two hour drive inland, and the nearest movie theaters are in Calais (pronounced Cal'is) or Milbridge, both an hour away.

But Lubec still has a lot to offer. There are restaurants and coffee shops, a good library, a few B&B's ... and two chocolate shops! There's also a popular music school called SummerKeys that brings musicians to the town and offers wonderful concerts during July and August.

To see more photos of the town, take a look at the 'Lubec' album in our online photo gallery of images from the season. And for more information about Lubec and the surrounding area check out: http://www.visitlubecmaine.com/

Marilyn

Photos:

One of the terms we frequently use when describing right whale behavior is surface active group (SAG). A SAG has a fairly broad definition--two or more whales within a body length interacting at the surface--but typically, the SAG is comprised of one female and a number of males competing with each other in order to mate with her. Some SAGs are extremely active, with a lot of rolling and white water, whereas others are more sedate. The number of animals in a SAG can range from two or three to more than 40!

For years researchers presumed that the primary reason for a SAG was mating. However, conception is thought to take place in the winter (since gestation is about 12 months and right whales usually give birth between December and February), yet SAGs occur year round. Recent analyses of the composition and seasonality of these SAGs indicate that actually only about half of them include females able to reproduce. Thus, SAGs are not just for mating purposes.

Some have been documented to be all male, or all female, or all youngsters. Our colleague, Dr. Susan Parks from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, wrote a paper about SAG behavior in collaboration with Aquarium researchers (see below). She hypothesizes that, in addition to conception, SAGs may serve a variety of different roles including practice, play and social bonding.

Studying the behavior of marine mammals such as right whales is much more difficult than that of terrestrial species, because we get just a glimpse of these animals when they're at the water's surface. But the long-term photo-identification aspect of the Aquarium's program has enabled researchers to answer some very basic and important questions. The researchers found themselves in the right place at the right time and recorded fantastic videos of SAGs here and here.

Top photo: Taken by Monica Zani in the Southeast U.S.
Bottom photo: A typically boisterous SAG in the Bay of Fundy. Photo taken by Moira Brown

Parks, S. E. et al. 2007. Occurrence, Composition, And Potential Functions Of North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) Surface Active Groups. Marine Mammal Science 23(4): 868-887.

- Marilyn

Yesterday was our first day on the water, and it was great! Because it takes us about 2 hours to get from Lubec to our survey area in the Bay of Fundy, we left the dock aboard our research vessel Nereid at 6:15 a.m. The crew consisted of Amy, Philip, Marilyn, Cyndi, Yan, Jonathan and two guests: Bill and Claudia. The weather was fine--winds were light and sky partly cloudy. By 9:15 we had found our first whales and the hours flew by as we worked one after another. By "worked" I mean we gathered all the information possible for each whale--the time of its sighting and its location (latitude and longitude), photographs of the head (for the callosity pattern) and the body and flukes (for any scars or marks), behaviors, and associations (whether it was alone or with other whales).



It was good to be back on the water, and we all fell into the various jobs without too much trouble. We took turns photographing, driving and recording the data. One person is the designated "whalewatcher" and that person has to let the rest of us know which whale we're photographing, whether it's a new whale for the day or not, and what information we need from it. It's actually just about the toughest job on the boat--a lot of pressure and no breaks! Yesterday, Philip was whalewatcher, and, as always, he knew many of the whales on sight.

In the eight hours we were on the Bay, we photographed 36 individuals, including four mothers with calves! We also saw three calves without their mothers, but that's not unusual for this time of year in the Bay of Fundy. Calves are getting older and a bit more independent, so although they're still nursing, they may go off exploring on their own for hours at a time while mom is feeding. They reunite when one calls for the other.


The highlights of the day were the curious approaches from three different calves. Just like other baby mammals, right whale calves are curious about their surroundings, and it's not unusual to see a calf lifting seaweed onto its head or playing with a log. Sometimes it's the boat that interests calves and they have been known to spend many minutes swimming underneath and all around our boat, looking at it (and us?) from all angles.

After many hours on the water we finally began heading in at 5:00 returning to the dock at 7p.m., nearly 13 hours after we left! But our day wasn't finished yet. After a quick dinner (thanks, Monica!), we still had to process the data (all the information we entered into the computer for each sighting), upload images from the digital cameras (more than 700!), wipe down the equipment (salt air is tough on electronics), and prepare for the next trip out. Exhausted, none of us had any trouble getting to sleep.

Marilyn

First image caption: Hard at work: Marilyn recording data, Jon checking his photos, Philip ready for the next whale. Photo taken by Claudia

Second image caption: One of the curious calves.