On Wednesday, a live stranded right whale was discovered on the shoals off Cape Lookout in North Carolina. The whale was identified by the New England Aquarium as the 2007 calf of Eg#2460, a two year old male.







On Thursday, a team of scientist arrived to the scene to assess the health of the whale. It was determined the 2 year old male was in poor condition and suffering. The atmospheric pressure and heating sun beating on the whale's 30 ft massive body made it exigent that team acted quickly to humanely euthanize the whale. A necropsy was performed to determine the cause of this sad and unusual travesty. Several samples were obtained and are currently being analysed.

To see photos of the stranded whale and watch a news video from WNC local news click here.

Photo Caption:
2007 calf of 2460 in the Bay of Fundy in 2007.

-Jonathan

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A typical survey for our team (pink section of map) is to start at 30 50.0N (southeast Georgia) and fly east from the shoreline to 080 47.0W, then fly 3 nautical miles (nm) south and turn west back to the shore. We fly this transect pattern (red horizontal lines on map) until we reach 030 17.0N (Jacksonville, FL). Each time we fly this survey pattern, we fly a distance of 406 nm and cover over 1000 sq.nm. However, when Wildlife Trust-Georgia (WT/GA) and/or Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (Florida FWC) aerial teams cannot fly their survey areas, for mechanical reasons, then the survey effort is modified to either a two-plane or a one-plane contingency plan to ensure that as much of the critical habitat area is surveyed as possible.


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Tuesday, January 19, we woke up and the forecast was different than predicted the night before. The forecast had changed to 10-15 kts all day and there was a bit of unexpected fog that rolled in. So we waited about an hour for the fog to clear and took off at 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m.

As we started our survey the sea was a bit rougher than we thought it would be with the forecasted winds. We started south and as we continued surveying towards the north. The seas calmed down quite a bit.

By the time we were on our last survey line, around 4:00-ish, the seas had laid down so much that there were no whitecaps at all. Take a look at this picture (above left) of Eg#2660- Gannet (named for the scar on her head that looks like a diving gannet)- that we sighted at 4:30 p.m. Notice the calm water around her. About 6 minutes later Jess sighted a whale to the north of our transect line, Eg#1012- Pediddle (photo below). Pediddle was named for the white scar on her head that reminded researchers of a car with only one headlight.

Pediddle was breaching and tail slapping so we could find her much easier! Peddidle is one of our now 23 mothers down here. We did not see her calf with her; however, the behavior that she was exhibiting is something we have seen before with mothers whose calves wonder off a bit. The mother will breach or tail slap and then all of sudden the calf will come out of nowhere and the mother will stop this behavior. It's as if she is calling the calf back to her.

After we finished photographing Pediddle, we continued on our track line; then I saw a whale that was tail slapping about 2 miles to our south. When we broke from our track line to find the whale I lost the spot where I saw it; I wonder if this was Pediddle's calf (hmmm?!?)

Yesterday, we were grounded due to high winds. This morning the winds are pretty high, but scheduled to drop, so we are standing by waiting for the wind. Luckily the rest of the week looks great for flying and finding whales!


Photo caption:
1) Photo of Gannet (Eg#2660) in calm Beaufort sea state.
2) Photo of Peddidle (Eg#1012) in rough Beaufort sea state just a few miles east of Gannet.

~ Kara

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Update on the previously mentioned entanglement case.

The telemetry buoy attachment was a success and the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS) was able to monitor the entangled whale (2003 calf of 1711) as it swam from Brunswick, Georgia to Jacksonville, Florida Wednesday night. The PCCS sent the latest know position for the whale, which was in our survey area. We launched into action, flying south to the whale's last known position at latitude 30 18N and longitude 81 00W. The winds were blowing between 10-20 knots, which made sighting conditions difficult.


The entangled whale's last known position
We were getting frustrated that we couldn't find the whale despite the fact that the affixed telemetry buoy was telling us its exact position. Our frustration was relieved when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission aerial survey team called us on the radio to tell us they had a visual on the whale 3 nautical miles south in their survey area.

The weather was not suitable to launch a full disentanglement effort, but both research vessels, Hurricane, Orion, were launched to survey. The r/v Orion went to the 2003 Calf of Eg#1711 to get better photographs of the entanglement and assess the whale's behavior. The r/v Hurricane stayed in our survey area to test their equipment for the acoustic and tagging research later this season. The new photographs taken by r/v Orion will help experts formulate the best plan of action for disentangling the whale. Now all we need is a weather window.

-Jonathan

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