Saving Seafood

Another right whale found dead

August 18, 2017 — There doesn’t seem to be an end to the bad news on right whales this summer. With a dozen found dead this year, most of them in a flurry of deaths since June, the Coast Guard reported right whale death number 13 Monday, 145 miles east of Cape Cod.

On Thursday, the whale was identified by matching the pattern of hardened patches of gray skin with photos found in a database at the New England Aquarium. The right whale Couplet was a frequent visitor to the Cape, arriving here first as a yearling in 1992, and seen in Cape Cod Bay mostly in April to feed on abundant plankton blooms for 15 of the 26 years of her life. The last time she was sighted here was in 2015, and she brought her last of her five calves to Cape Cod in 2014.

“We study this unique animal and it is hard not to get attached to it,” said Amy James, aerial survey coordinator for the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. “You get used to seeing the same ones come back year after year.”

The loss of females is especially tragic, James said.

The Northwest Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whale populations on earth with around 500 individuals and less than 100 breeding females.

“All of her future calves, the ones she could have gone on to create, that opportunity has been lost,” James said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Marine group disentangles humpback whale off Cape Cod

July 22, 2017 — A marine conservation group says it has disentangled a young humpback whale off Cape Cod.

The Center for Coastal Studies says a charter vessel discovered the whale just outside Nauset Inlet on Friday afternoon. It had a bridle of heavy line looped though its mouth and twisted across its back. Two orange buoys trailed behind it.

The center’s Marine Animal Entanglement Response team cut away the gear and the twisted line, leaving the whale with just a short length of line in its mouth. As the whale moved away the remaining rope was pulled from its mouth and it sped off.

The Center for Coastal Studies urges boaters to report any entanglement sightings of whales, sea turtles or other marine animals.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

Researchers study whales and the food they eat

April 24, 2017 — North Atlantic right whales need a lot of food each day — the caloric equivalent of 3,000 Big Macs — and right now there’s plenty of it in Cape Cod Bay, in the form of a tiny crustacean.

“The food resource is the thickest we have seen in 32 years,” Charles “Stormy” Mayo, head of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies, said of the zooplankton that whales consume.

In years past, the center’s water sampling in the bay has shown total zooplankton densities usually less than 5,000 organisms per cubic meter. While the individual zooplankton are measured in millimeters, the whales that eat them are among the largest animals on earth, reaching lengths of more than 50 feet and weighing up to 79 tons.

But on April 14, for example, the densities reached well over 40,000 organisms per cubic meter across most of the bay, according to Christy Hudak, the center’s associate scientist. Some areas west of Great Island in Wellfleet reached 72,000 organisms per cubic meter.

On that same day, more than 40 percent of the total population of right whales left in the world, 217 out of 524, were spotted in the bay.

“It might be that the food resource is particularly strong this year, and if it continues that will bode well for right whales,” biologist Mark Baumgartner of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said. “Alternatively, food in other habitats at other times of the year may be poor, leading to right whales concentrating in fewer places and fewer times, such as Cape Cod Bay in early spring.”

Scientists are looking at possible connections between the high concentration of right whales in the early spring in Cape Cod Bay and low calving rates.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Fishing for Derelict Gear in Cape Cod Bay

April 11, 2017 — The Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) has begun its “Fishing for Derelict Gear in Cape Cod Bay,”  a project funded by the NOAA Marine Debris Program to identity, remove, document, and properly dispose of lost, abandoned or derelict fishing gear.

Side-scan sonar surveys have been conducted off of Provincetown, Truro, Sesuit and Sandwich, with additional surveys planned for the Chatham area. The surveys identify areas where lost gear exists and assists with documentation and recovery.

Commercial fishing vessels from each area will be enlisted to deliver divers to certain locations so they can document the lost gear as it rests on the ocean floor, and to recover the gear by towing a small grappling hook in targeted locations.  Once returned to shore, the derelict gear will be sorted for recycling, disposal, or return to rightful owners. The first recovery work will take place in Provincetown on April 8th at MacMillan Pier.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Today

It’s a Boy! Right whale calves spotted in Cape Cod Bay

April 5, 2017 — On Monday, April 3, the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) right whale aerial survey team spotted a right whale mother and calf pair in the north end of Cape Cod Bay between Race Point and Marshfield. This sighting came just hours after researchers from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center identified a different mother / calf pair observed in the Cape Cod Canal.  These are the first sightings of the new calves of the year in Gulf of Maine waters.

The male calf spotted by the CCS team is the offspring of a whale named Pediddle, a whale at least 39 years old that was first identified in 1978 and first seen in Cape Cod Bay in 1979. The new calf is Pediddle’s eighth documented by scientists; her last calf was born in 2009.

“During the sighting the mom was subsurface feeding while the calf was rolling and tail slapping,” said Alison Ogilvie, an aerial observer for the Center’s Right Whale Ecology Program. “Mom and calf looked very healthy considering they’ve just completed a more than 800 mile migration from the calving grounds off Georgia and Florida.”

The aerial survey team also observed and photographed 71 other individual right whales in Cape Cod Bay on Monday, the most seen so far this season.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Today

MASSACHUSETTS: Right whales return to Cape Cod Bay

January 24, 2017 — Two rare and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales were spotted in Cape Cod Bay, the first of the year seen in the area, according to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

The center’s research vessel Shearwater spotted the two whales in the bay five miles south of Provincetown Harbor on Jan. 17. On Thursday, center officials say they saw five right whales in the same area.

There are only an estimated 524 right whales in the world, according to the center. They come to the bay every winter due to the high concentrations of microscopic zooplankton there, which is a food source for the whales.

The whales’ presence in the bay warrants caution, according to the center.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Tropical Fish in Cape Cod Waters: “The More You Look, the More You See.”

October 24th, 2016 — Gulf Stream Orphans are appearing in our region. That’s not the name of a rock band, and they’re not unaccompanied children. Gulf Stream Orphans is the research term for Caribbean fish that show up in our Cape Cod waters, and scientists are looking to see if their numbers are increasing.

Owen Nichols, Director of Marine Fisheries Research at the Center for Coastal Studies, joins us to talk about these fish, what types they represent, and new efforts to understand whether they’re appearing more often, or simply being noticed more now that researchers are looking for them.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at Cape and Islands 

Endangered Right Whale Season Winds Down in Cape Cod Bay

May 10, 2016 — PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — The 2016 North Atlantic right whale season is winding down and researchers from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown are reporting a large turnout in the area.

The center conducts multiple aerial surveys each week from December through May to provide data to local, state and federal managers of the critically endangered species which population is estimated to be around 500.

More than 25 percent of the species estimate population visited Cape Cod Bay this season, including six mothers and their newborn calves.

“It’s once again an indication that Cape Cod Bay is central to the future of the species,” said Charles “Stormy” Mayo with the Center for Coastal Studies.

The whales come to the bay during this time as there is an abundance of food.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Boat operators warned to steer clear of whales

April 25, 2016 — State environmental officials this week issued a “high risk” warning to boat operators asking them to stay alert after five North Atlantic right whale mother and calf pairs were spotted foraging on plankton in Cape Cod Bay.

According to the advisory from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, the highly endangered whales were seen feeding Thursday in the western part of the bay during an aerial survey conducted by researchers from the Center for Coastal Studies.

“Given their behavior and the proximity to vessel traffic, the situation presents a high risk of vessel collision to a sensitive and important segment of the right whale population,” according to a statement.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Right Whale, Wrong Place

April 20, 2016 — Whale watchers spent the day yesterday in Nahant looking for Mr. Right.

A wayward North Atlantic right whale made a splash just off the shore for most of the afternoon.

The endangered species is known to hang out near Cape Cod Bay this time of year, according to Charles “Stormy” Mayo, senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Cape Cod and director of the right whale ecology program.

“Anytime a few whales go up the shore it’s really a special thing and a rare occasion,” he said. 
“Every time, in the case of the right whales, their travel depends on the concentration of food; they’re grazers.”

Mayo added he thinks the whale frolicking off Nahant is likely to return to the Cape, where there is the highest concentration of North Atlantic right whales. Fewer than 500 are thought to exist.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald