July 7 Prince of Whales

What a crazy day. We started our day with Crazy Situation #1- seeing 4 huge fin whales only 6 miles offshore! Typically we have to travel at least 10 miles before seeing any sort of large whale but now and then, when the bait moves in, so do the whales! We got some amazing looks at the second largest animal on Earth!

Fin whales surfacing and feeding, only 6 miles off the Merrimack River!

We continued along in search of more whales a bit further out. After a lot of searching, we finally saw a spout. This whale was elusive at first and I didn't even know what kind of whale we were looking at! Then the distinctive white flippers appeared next to the boat- even 10 feet under water, I could tell this was a humpback whale. Humpback whales got their scientific name, Megaptera novaeangliea, from their huge flippers. The name means "big winged New Englander" as their flippers appear to be wings and they were first documented in New England waters.

Humpback whale with huge white "wings"

Unfortunately, I knew this particular whale right away. It was the same whale we saw entangled in orange rope last month. The good part is that it is still alive. The bad part is that it is still entangled. We had excellent lighting and sea surface conditions today to better document the whale and the rope. And the disentanglement team from Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies was already on the water (60 miles away) and could respond to the dire situation.

Although the orange line wasn't completely obvious, this whale was in a lot of distress and has a very severe wound around the base of its tail. Last we heard, the disentanglement team found the whale but we haven't heard any more updates. I will be sure to post any updates here as soon as they come in.

Although I am happy we could do our part to help this whale, I am still discouraged that whales continue to become entangled in rope/fishing gear, and are still being hit by boats (see July 5th's post) in spite of all of our best efforts to protect these huge endangered animals. Be assured we are doing all we can to learn more about these animals to determine the best methods for protection and we are hoping to get future funding to remove derelict (ghost) fishing gear from the water to reduce the chance that an animal gets tangled up in the non-working lines and nets.

Thanks to all of our caring passengers especially for your patience as we tried to get photos of the whale and make calls to those who need to know and could help.

**This just in- the disentanglement team just texted saying the attempt to free the whale went well. Details will be posted tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone involved!!**

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