More information is coming in on the entangled Right Whale.
Click here for previous story.
Using my photos for identification, the Center for Coastal Studies determined that the Right Whale observed yesterday is in The North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog as #3405, a calfing female and her name is Fuse.
She was born in 2004 off the Georgia Coast, her mother is #1705 and was last seen is 2013.
As a reminder, this is one of the rarest whales on Earth, with a total population of around 500.
Here are some photos of Fuse from the CSC tracking page:
According to sighting data maintained by CCS, Fuse has been making round trips back and forth from Florida to the Bay of Fundy with stops in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts Bay, and the Great South Channel.
Fuse was last seen in the Bay of Fundy on August 15th, 2016.
She was not entangled at that time.
We need to be clear, The Atlantic Large Whale disentanglement teams are amazing at what they do.
Their response time is very fast and when called they do not wait!
The Right Whale appears to be swimming and breathing well, we do not know if the netting is restricting the whale from feeding.
The American Princess was marking large amounts of Menhaden (Bunker) at the time of the sighting so the whale could have been feeding.
We got in touch with Colleen Coogan from NOAA Fisheries who tells us:
“A disentanglement team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies has been alerted and is on standby if the whale is sighted again.
As you can imagine, disentangling large whales is difficult, and very risky to both people and whales.
A handful of people nationally have been trained to remove gear from whales when conditions allow a response.
Center for Coastal Studies was really where the effort started back in the late 80s, and their responders are among the best.”
Colleen sent us this video that shows some the challenges:
Here is another video showing how dangerous this work can be:
