Last
Tuesday, the 13th, proved to be a lucky day. The call to the Marine
Resources Council’s Hotline alerting us to right whales in Ormond Beach came
from Carlos Diaz. Although Team 5 and Becki arrived in good time, the fog
rolled in too quickly to obtain many photos, leaving the mother’s identity and
the documentation of the calf as inconclusive. Luckily, Carlos photographed the
pair and his images both confirmed the presence of a calf and helped in making
the identification.
Our colleagues at FWCC have provisionally identified the mother as Catalog #1604 with her 5th calf. Further, this was the first report of the season for this mother and her calf, bringing the total to three mother/calf pairs. We know Catalog #1604 from sighting her with previous calves in 2005 and 2011. To learn more about this mother, follow this link, http://rwcatalog.neaq.org/, click “Agree,” then “Search for Individual Whales,” then the dropdown box for Catalog No., and scroll down until you reach 1604.
Starting
tomorrow and continuing into next week, the weather and sighting conditions are
forecast to improve. With the Air Cam flying and lots of team and collaborator
eyeballs on the water, the luck may continue!
