On Saturday, April 18, an article was published in the Telegraph-Journal. The article discusses the 11 year, $400,000 collaboration between the New England Aquarium right whale team and Irving oil Corporation. Our very own Dr. Moira Brown is quoted several times throughout the article. "Back when I presented this issue to Irving and their colleagues in the Maritimes, some of the questions centred around if we move the shipping lanes, would the population recover," Irving Oil's contribution will help fund our 30th consecutive season in the Bay of Fundy this summer! To view the article click here.

The North Atlantic right whale calving ground off the coast of Georgia and northeast Florida was known to fisherman long before researchers discovered it. Historic whaling records show numerous mother and calf pairs hunted in the now critical habitat. In January 1935, local fisherman off the coast of St. Augustine, FL spotted and hunted a mother and calf. After a six-hour stand off, the calf's injuries proved too much and it succumbed to the trauma. The mother managed to elude the whalers, but suffered multiple gunshot wounds (read more about this story here). Following this event, a moratorium was put on hunting right whales in U.S. waters.

Today, NBC Nightly News ran a story on the North Atlantic right whale. The NBC team came to our field station to interview our team on February 13. They videotaped everything, from Jess answering a call on the survey plane relaying sighting information for right whales to Monica discussing the importance of the EWS aerial surveys. The NBC team also accompanied a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) disentanglement effort. They did a great job showing how so many forces need to come together for effort to be completed safely and successfully. Below are the two videos, TV and Extended, respectively.

Yestarday, we flew our survey area despite the projected forcast of 20-25knt winds. It thunderstormed throughout the night and into the early morning. When we woke, the weather had subsided and the winds dropped down to 12knts. Thinking that the weather would pick up, we waited for the next few weather buoy updates. None of them showed the predicted winds. At 10am we decided to go for it.

You can find out more about the research station from this previous post. Here's a slideshow of some additional house shots:

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 and stayed on sight for 30 min searching for the whale. The seas were rough with winds blowing between 10-20 knots, which made sighting conditions difficult.

The Wildlife Trust/Georgia aerial survey team found an entangled whale today off the Georgia coast. The team was able to stay with the whale until the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) research vessel Hurricane arrived on scene. The Georgia DNR vessel was able to attach a telemetry buoy and remove some of the fishing line trailing back from the whale.

After affixing the telemetry buoy to the remaining fishing line attached to Eg #1701's 2007 calf the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission research vessel Orion called it a day. On Sunday, the information received from the telemetry buoy lead researchers to believe that the buoy had become adrift of the whale. The last updated position of the buoy was in our survey area.

Piper, an adult female, was sighted on December 15th off the coast of Florida. Piper was first seen in 1993 by the NEAq aerial survey team off the coast of Florida. She was named Piper after a scar on her flank that resembles the airplane Piper Cub. (You can find out more about her by visiting the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog and searching for Catalog #2320.)

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of an exciting and valuable collaboration between right whale researchers at the New England Aquarium and geneticists at Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario).