The
Volunteer Sighting Network made two valuable contributions to right whale
conservation and stewardship in the last several days. On Tuesday afternoon, 18
December, a boater, Tom Dillon, sighted a floating carcass about 3 miles east
of the Palm Coast
area of Flagler County. He reported the sighting and
location, and sent photos to his fiancee, Jennifer Kureen, of Melbourne Beach.
Jennifer had recently been to a class on right whales and the sighting network
given by Julie Albert, Marine Resources Council (MRC). Jennifer called the
right whale sighting hotline maintained by the MRC and forwarded the photos,
confirming it was a dead right whale with fishing gear wrapped around its tail.
It was too late in the day to start an aerial search for the carcass, but
overnight, onshore winds deposited it about a mile south of Varn Park in
Flagler County where it was discovered Wednesday
morning. A necropsy was conducted beginning yesterday
afternoon and went into the evening. It will likely take a few weeks to process
the samples and to know what might have been the cause of the whale’s demise.
But
wait! The news is not all bad. Ron Ginn, a resident of A Street in Crescent Beach,
sighted whales close to shore just north of the SR206 Bridge at noon yesterday. He
too phoned the MRC hotline. The information in turn was relayed to the AirCam
that was northbound on its aerial survey and coincidentally was just
approaching Crescent
Beach. The AirCam crew
spotted the whales where Ron had reported and confirmed a mother and calf pair,
plus a large group of dolphins swimming around them. The
mother has been tentatively identified as Whale #3540, named Blackheart. (All
known right whales are given a four-digit number when they are entered into the
Catalog curated by the New England Aquarium. Over time, many of them have been
given names.) Two other new mother/calf pairs were sighted by aerial survey
teams to the north, bringing the season total to 9 calves so far. Given the low
number of calves born last year, to have this many this early in the season is
very encouraging.Birth and death…the cycle of life continues. Many thanks to all of you who are keeping watch to provide this invaluable data.
