As We Near the End of Our Season...

 Mark your calendars

Saturday, 9 March, will be the final survey day for this MRWP season.

Our season wrap-up meeting will be on Saturday, 16 March, from 12:30 to 2:30 PM in the auditorium at the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory in Marineland. Please bring modest portions of finger food and dessert items. We will provide utensils, cups, plates, napkins, and ice; along with, coffee and cold beverages. There will be gear sales, a raffle, and presentations. Come and share stories, photos, good friends, and good food.

Whales over the Horizon

Consistent with our most recent E-News (16 February), the ocean waters in the Marineland Section have been whale-less. This includes some glorious days with flat seas and light winds, and no whales. There is some good news: 19 calves have been born to date, which is the highest number in recent years.

The whales that are still being reported are to the north of us, off Amelia, Cumberland, and St. Simons islands. As of the 27th, Female #1612, Juno, with her 8th calf; and #2791, Fenway, with her 4th calf, were 8 miles off, just east of Brunswick, Georgia. These females are successfully adding to the population. As to the injured calf of Juno, the Georgia Division of Natural Resources Team deployed a boat and conducted an evaluation on the 27th. We await their report.

If you are curious about where right whales are being sighted along the East Coast, have a look at WhaleMap.org. The basic map shows sightings during the past two weeks; the Interactive Map allows you to explore other days or time periods.

Blank Spaces on the Chart

Due to the paucity of sightings this year in our survey area, particularly south of St. Augustine, a chart of sightings for the 2024 season will have many blank spaces. When there are zero sightings, what does that mean ? There are two kinds of zero: sampling zeros, and data zeros. A sampling zero says that there were no whales because no one was looking. A data zero says that people were looking but there were no whales. Yes, many of our days contained data zeros. This is O.K. as it directly contributes to the long-term data set. We will address this point at our meeting on the 16th.

O.K. one more week to go! Will there be one or more sighting surprises in March? Yahoo!

Trish Baker serves up slices of a pecan ring as sustenance to hard-working members of Team 5-S on 24 February 2024. Lillian Crowningshield checks that slices are uniform. (The finger in the frame is Jim’s.)

MID-SEASON SUMMARY

This installment of the Marineland Right Whale Program’s E-News contains good and bad; happy and sad.  Please read on.

Meeting Success

On Saturday, 10 February, 124 of us gathered in the auditorium at the University of Florida’s Whitney Lab in Marineland. We started with long tables of an excellent pot luck finger-food and desserts array in the atrium. Lots of chit-chat and meeting volunteers from other teams.  Whale gear (caps, T-shirts, hoodies, and jewelry) was available for our volunteers.

Photos from our mid-season event on 10 February. 

(Photos: B. Gough)

We next migrated into the auditorium for door prizes and an excellent talk by Sara about right whale sightings and the associated analyses. Next, we showed a recent version of “Last of the Right Whales.” (There were a few tears.) This was followed by a video vignette describing the music score underlying the main documentary. Finally, Sara led us in singing the project’s new theme song, “Take Me Out To The Survey.”

A good day, good people, good energy.

Whales

Whales, or, absence of whales. Well then, this (so far) has not been one of our big seasons. The handful of whales has been elusive, providing fleeting glimpses before disappearing. The elusivity, combined with poor weather, has kept the drone grounded. On 16 January, Surf Club reported a mother-calf, on 24 January we had a sighting of a yearling (a calf in 2023), and on 4 February, there was a mother-calf off the St. Augustine pier. On 10 February, Catalog #1620, Juno, and her injured calf appeared north of Ponce Inlet.

The injured calf of #1612, Juno, from 3 January 2024, Edisto, SC. 
(Photo: Forever Hooked Charters.)

For the entire southeastern U.S., 17 mother-calf pairs have been reported, along with about 43 individuals in other categories. Most sightings have been to the north of us. As Frank Schafer Jr. wrote, “Where they are, I am not.” As of 15 February, several mother-calf pairs were still off Amelia and Cumberland islands. Might any of these come our way?

Next, some sad news. On Saturday, 3 February, a female dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima) came ashore at Butler Beach. It was taken to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s laboratory in Jacksonville for a necropsy.

Further, during the 2023 season, female #4340, Pilgrim, and her first calf were frequently sighted by our colleagues (Blue World Research Institute) to the south. A year passed. On 3 February 2024, the calf, now a yearling, was photographed off Melbourne from a drone by Joel Cohen of the BWRI. Ten days later, its carcass was reported 20 miles off Tybee Island, GA. It was towed in, and a necropsy performed on the 15th.

Additionally, in New England, the carcass of a 3-year-old, female right whale washed ashore on Martha’s Vineyard, MA, on 28 January. The cause of death is still pending an examination, but the whale has rope deeply embedded in the tissue around the base of its fluke which is an indication of chronic entanglement. 

Our Task

When the weather is good, the survey planes are flying, and the full complement of volunteers is on duty, there are many days with a whale-less ocean. Not to be dismayed, distressed, depressed, or disappointed. Our job is to cover our section. And, there is always the chance for a sighting surprise (it has happened before). We will continue strong through Saturday, 9 March, our last survey day for this season. Informal lookouts can continue through the end of the month.

WHALES !

The early part of our 2024 right whale season was characterized by frequent poor weather.  The sightings by the Florida and Georgia state aerial survey teams suggested that the whales were generally to the north of us.  The aerial surveys have reported a total of 13 mothers with calves.  But not for us.  There have only been a few public sightings of lone juveniles off Flagler Beach and south of Cape Canaveral. 

Today, Tuesday, at noon, the phone rang.  Paula Smith at Surf Club #2, reported a sighting, perhaps a mother-calf pair.  Sara, Jim, and Lorraine soon spotted the whales from Linda Weigman’s condo in Surf Club 3.  Mikhail Korhchemkin took photos from his upper balcony in Surf Club 1.

We were joined by Tom Green and Laura-Renée Allen as we shifted to the beach walkway in hopes of launching the drone.  It was not to be.  The rain increased.  We retreated.

Since it appeared the whales were heading south, we next moved to Bay Drive Park.  The rain had stopped.  The conditions were workable.  But, the whales did not appear.  Then the rain returned.  On this day, we were unable to launch the drone, and the whales went unidentified.  As we called it a day, a magnificent rainbow appeared.

We are encouraged with the knowledge that, yes, there is a mother-calf pair in our area.  In the coming days, please keep a sharp lookout.  We would sure like a second chance at knowing who they are.