2006 Right Whale Field Notes

                    -April

April 15.   Race Point was again the destination of the focal follow team this morning. The right whales have been consistently found in this area, close to shore over the past few days. Today a filmmaker from Cornell was also on board the R/V Shackleton, hoping to get underwater footage with his pole camera as well as above water footage of the whales. Early morning was spent waiting for the fog to clear but by late morning it had lifted sufficiently for the team to work with the large number of whales here. Once again the whales did not disappoint and were very active, with large SAGs (surface active groups), constantly breaking off into sub-SAGs and then re-grouping over a number of hours. Whales were seen with their tailstock and flukes right out of the water, spyhopping (heads poking out), rolling over and touching one another and waving pectoral fins. Many vocalizations were heard in association with these behaviors and were recorded, including moaning and gunshots (short bursts of intense sound). Later in the afternoon skim feeding was observed including a mom skim feeding with her calf in tow. A focal follow of the mom and calf pair was conducted and the mom was later recognized as Piper. Just a few years ago Piper had been badly entangled in fishing gear, which had been wrapped throughout her baleen. No fishing line has been seen on Piper since last spring and her ability to support a calf indicates that she is in good health.

April 14.   R/V Shackleton headed out to the north east side of Cape Cod Bay where whales had been sighted the previous day from the airplane.  This part of the Bay was teaming with life – countless harbor porpoise, fin, minke, right and humpback whales. The team quickly found a pair of right whales to work with and managed to conduct a focal follow for a couple of hours. This pair of whales proved fairly difficult to follow, constantly changing direction and spending large amounts of time under the surface. Nevertheless, identifying photographs were taken and dive/surface budget was recorded (the amount of time the whale spends at the surface and under the surface). The team also listened to sounds on the hydrophone and made continuous acoustic recordings to try and work out how often vocalizations were made and what behavior they were associated with. The team then moved to Race Point where the R/V Shearwater was with another group of right whales. The whales in this group were very active and were almost continuously fluke and flipper waving, poking their heads above the surface and rolling over. More behavior observations, photo IDs and vocalizations were recorded and this group were found to be consistently making sounds.

April 14.  This bright and sunny morning the plane climbed higher than to our usual survey altitude of 750 feet as we were crossing the Bay towards Beverly to pick up Erin Burke from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to act as our second observer for the day. Once Erin was in the plane we returned to the Bay to start our usual track lines and it didn’t take long until we came upon our first right whale sighting for the day. A mother and calf pair swam side by side just below the mirror-like surface of the water. While the mother was feeding subsurface the calf was staying close to her, taking a couple of breaths until disappearing below for a longer period, apparently nursing. This was a nice, calm start to what would soon become an incredibly hectic and eventful day. After another lone right whale was photographed we approached Race Point on the northern tip of Cape Cod and even though still a distance away, we could already see a couple of blows very close to the beach. When we got closer we realized that we were looking at three right whales socializing. The water was so shallow here that we could even see the shadows of the whales outlined on the sandy bottom of the sea. While we were busy photographing these three whales one of our pilots glanced out his window and couldn’t believe what he saw. “I can see whales everywhere to the west of us!” he exclaimed excitedly. And true enough, when we looked over we could see a long line-up of whales, some with their heads high out of the water, apparently skim feeding. This behavior is very typical for feeding right whales. With their mouths wide open, the whales slowly swim along the surface of the water continuously straining their small plankton food from the water. At this time we could see at least twenty right whales feeding in this manner along a half-mile strip of water – a marvelous sight! After our initial excitement had passed we started to fly big circles along the line of feeding whales trying to photograph as many individual whales as we could, so that at the end of the day our pictures would give us a better estimate of how many whales were in this area. Over the next couple of hours we took a large amount of pictures while all of the whales were constantly feeding within the same stretch of water, occasionally breaking up into smaller socially active surface groups consisting of only three to four whales. In addition to all the right whale sightings, we observed at least a dozen fin whales, humpback whales and several groups of dolphins and porpoises in this area, along with diving gannets. Further south in the Bay we encountered three more right whales, one of them being an old acquaintance: “Calvin”, whom we haven’t seen since the very beginning of the season (see February 16). Eventually the light got lower and even though we had not finished our survey yet, we decided to head home. Exhausted but filled with the beautiful sightings of the day we arrived back in Chatham.

April 11.  After a week and a half of waiting for the weather and seas to calm, the habitat studies team was finally granted a workable day to survey for right whales aboard the R/V Shearwater and conduct zooplankton sampling in Cape Cod Bay.  To date in 2006 the zooplankton resource in Cape Cod Bay has been almost invariably insufficient to attract right whales.  Only on two occasions this year have right whales been observed feeding in the Bay, and in both cases the resource was ephemeral (rapidly dispersed by physical processes or grazed down by whales) and of limited spatial extent.  During today’s cruise, surface and water column zooplankton samples revealed a resource that remains impoverished, lacking both the quantity and quality of zooplankton necessary to support right whale feeding.  Meanwhile, reports today from the aerial survey team told of aggregations of right whales several miles to the northeast of Race Point, Provincetown, with occasional observations of feeding, indicating that the zooplankton resource in that area is very different from that in the Bay.  It is likely that physical features (e.g., thermal discontinuities, tidal fronts, zones of upwelling) in this area are concentrating the zooplankton, providing rich patches of food for right whales.  For now, habitat researchers will dutifully continue to tow nets and monitor the resource in the Bay, but the absence of vessel-based right whale sightings has made for a restless crew; if the weather cooperates, a directed cruise will be mounted to investigate the zooplankton resource in the offshore areas where right whales have been observed. 

April 5.  With rain and snow in the forecast, the aerial survey team headed out early this morning. Due to the time constraint, the team decided to begin their survey with the trackline that runs up the eastern shore of Cape Cod.  This decision proved beneficial as right whales were found quickly to the northeast of Highland Light.  The plane circled as the team worked to photograph two right whales that rolled and chased each other at the surface.  Although several other right whales were photographed in the vicinity of this pair, they never joined the small SAG (surface active group).  After spending an hour in this area, the survey team continued their survey.  Ten fin whales were sighted and documented as the plane flew past Race Point, the northern tip of Provincetown.  Within minutes of passing Race Point, the team noticed that the predicted rain was already making its way across the Bay.  Abandoning the survey, the plane headed south to the Chatham airport. 

April 3.   The aerial survey team lifted off from Chatham airport this morning to begin their survey in the southern part of Cape Cod Bay.  Survey conditions were perfect and sightings of seals, harbor porpoise and minke whales kept the observers alert.  The observers were already excited that the Bay was more active when they came upon the first concentration of fin whales this season.  Off the mouth of the Pamet River a multitude of fin whales surfaced and dove as they fed close to the water’s surface.  The observers took a few minutes to count the fin whales and watch in awe as the whales opened their enormous jaws, expanding the ventral pleats that line their throat.  With mouths gaping and pleats expanded, the whales twisted through the water and at last broke the surface as they fed.  A fin whale’s diet is known to consist of a large variety of small fish, including sand lance and herring, as well as krill.  Unfortunately, from an aerial perspective it is almost impossible to know what these fin whales were feasting on.  After three hours of surveying the aerial team still had not found a single right whale in Cape Cod Bay.  More fin whales were sighted off of Race Point.  While circling over these fin whales in order to count them, one of the observers pointed out a pair of whales closer to the shoreline.  The plane headed to the pair and discovered that they were right whales.  Then, as the second whale of the pair surfaced for a breath, the observer excitedly announced that it was a right whale calf!  This is the first sighting of a right whale calf near Cape Cod Bay this year.  Right whale calves are born in the warm waters off of Georgia and Florida during the winter months.  In the early spring, mom and calf pairs begin to make the journey north.  An active feeding ground in the spring, Cape Cod Bay serves as a good resting area before these pairs continue north to the Bay of Fundy and Roseway Basin (off of northern Maine and Nova Scotia - see habitat map).  The aerial team will have to wait until their next survey to see if this mom and calf pair move into the Bay.  As the survey plane made its way down the eastern shore of the Cape several other right whales were sighted and photographed. After a long day, the team headed back to Chatham to announce the arrival of the right whale calf.