September 24th on the Granite State

Well it is officially Fall even though over the past few days the temperature has made it felt much more like summer. While the weather tends to be a bit more unpredictable at this time of the year, the whales are still searching for food out on Jeffreys Ledge, and today was no exception.

We ended up spending our time with 3 Humpback whales today. All three whales were adults and all three of them were females! We saw Trident, Spoon and Fan.

Trident

Spoon

Fan

These particular whales have been seen many times over the years on Jeffreys Ledge but today was the first time we aboard the Granite State got a chance to see these animals this season. Both Trident and Fan were seen during the 2009 season on Jeffreys Ledge but it has been 2 years since we've been lucky enough to see Spoon in our area! What a pleasant surprise especially knowing it has been almost a week since our last whale watching adventure due to recent wind conditions over the past few days.

Another interesting fact is that all three whales are reproductive females, meaning they have given birth to calves in the past! While Fan and Trident haven't given birth to a calf in a couple of years, Spoon became a mom to another calf this past winter. She was one of the first Humpback whales to be seen with her calf for the 2010 season which was exciting hear the news. However, today we saw no calf. No calf on the outskirts of the area. No calf intermingled within this trio of whales circling the area. As quickly as we were excited to see it was Spoon today, we were equally as quickly concerned. What happened to Spoon's calf?

Unfortunately I do not know the last time this pair was seen together this season and we can only hope that perhaps the calf has already been weened. Typically a calf will stay with its mother for 6-10 months before it goes off on its own to live its own solitary life. We all hope this is the case as the other potential option is not so uplifting. It is possible the calf may not have survived. There are many reasons for a calf to not make it through its first year: genetic disorders, a mother's neglect, ship strikes, entanglements in fishing gear... The list goes on and on. Just as children are born with disorders or diseases, whales can have similar fates except in their case there is no medical treatment, no doctors, no machines to help cure them. While we may never know what happened to Spoon's 2010 calf we can hope one day we will see this whale back on the feeding grounds of the Gulf of Maine taking advantage of all the productivity associated with this body of water.



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