Blue Ocean Society's Whale Sightings

Greetings! Thanks for visiting our blog. Our staff and interns will be posting their experiences here working on whale watch boats in NH and MA.

Monday, November 2, 2009

The best season yet!

After ending our whale watching trips a few weeks back, I have been hard at work analyzing data and ID'ing whale photos from the three boats that collect data for us.

Although the fin whale ID process is still underway, the humpback whales are nearly finished. As to date, we have seen 75 individual adult humpbacks, and 3 calves! As a comparison, last year we saw 72 adults and 6 calves, but humbacks were "only" seen on half of the 2008 whale watch trips. This year, we found humpbacks on about 73% of the trips! This just shows that the whales we did see spent more time on Jeffreys Ledge than they have in the past. The humpback who is winning the sighting record race is Tigris- a male humpback who was seen consistantly from July 4 through Sept 13!

For the finback whales, we have currently identified 23 individuals who were seen in previous seasons. Our buddy, Fjord, was the most sighted fin whale so far. He was consistantly seen from our first trip on May 17 through late-August!

The data process will continue through the winter so stay tuned for more updates!

Thanks to all the whale watch companies, crews, interns and volunteers for making the 2009 season one to remember! See you next spring!



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