"Fjord" the Fin Whale and Lots of Minkes

We had a beautiful day on the water aboard the Atlantic Queen yesterday. We had several minkes near Old Scantum, a ledge about 15 miles off shore, and then came upon one of our favorite fin whales, "Fjord," who is also one of our adopt-a-whales! I laughed when I saw this whale, because that morning, I had seen our research coordinator Dianna at our monthly beach cleanup, and she jokingly said, "go see Fjord today," and that's exactly what happened!


Fjord is one of our most consistently sighted fin whales. We've seen him (I believe it's a "he," since it's never been seen with a calf) in 12 of the last 13 seasons, so his sighting history with us dates all the way back to 1996. He's consistently sighted early in the season. If you ask researchers at Allied Whale, the curators of the North Atlantic Finback Catalog, they'll tell you he was seen as early as 1981. This makes this whale a minimum of about 34 years old, and he may be much older than that, as fin whales are thought to live at least 80 years.