Just What does the boat do in the off Season?

Mega Nova on "dumping day"

That's a question that we get throughout the summer. The Mega Nova was built in 2002 with a dual purpose in mind. As we all know, it carries passengers in the summer season but from the end of November to May 31, it participates in the District 34 Lobster Fishery. The company's owner, Harold Graham is Captain, with a crew compliment of 2. At the beginning of the season when the catch is most plentiful, he has extra men onboard to help with the various tasks, such as banding the lobsters.

Landing traps. Taking lobsters out and rebaiting.

Kirk Peters banding the catch

Holiday Gift Ideas

Are you wondering what to give that special someone for a gift. Why not consider adopting a humpback whale? The recipient will receive a framable certificate, a biography, sighting history of "their" whale as well as fact sheets and our annual newsletter for 5 years. The cost is $25 and is directly applied to our research efforts. More information on our program can be found at
http://www.brierislandwhalewatch.com/adoption.htm

One of our adoptables, Foggy.

Another gift idea is a gift certifcate for whale watching.

For any information on these ideas please call 1-800-656-3660. (Toll free USA and Canada)

End of Season Summary

The 2007 whale watching season came to an official close for us on a very windy October 16. Even though the weather was not the best, sightings were good despite the choppy water. During the last few cruises, we watched the humpbacks as they fed at the surface on krill, a small shrimp-like crustacean. The water appeared red with the abundance of the substance much to the satisfaction of the whales!

Humpback whale feeding on krill

We do know that another whale watching company that runs a zodiac out of Tiverton was still doing cruises up until this past weekend and was reporting successful cruises. These whales have been known to stick around in the Bay of Fundy even up until December and Lobster fishermen have sighted them in January! Usually these whales migrate to much warmer waters, like the humpback whose winter breeding grounds are found in the Caribbean.

The season was the best we have ever had in 24 years of research. We have identified 169 individual humpback whales which includes 19 calves and 18 new individuals sighted by us in the Bay of Fundy. Right now, we are working on the photographs and data that were collected and organizing those to be sent to Provencetwon Center for Coastal Studies, Allied Whale, New England Aquarium and Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

We are thankful to Jooke Robbins of PCCS who helped to identify the new whales for us including a mother that we sighted in June. Jooke just identified her as Stalagmite, a whale that hasn't been seen anywhere since 1992!

Stalagmite

Other whales identified during the last part of the season were Bat, Jurassic, Alpha, Grommet, Perimeter, Frost, Tab and 0985. (unnamed)

Be sure to check with our blog every week as we hope to post new information about the whales and any announcements throughout the winter months.

An Overdue Update!

A humpback whale named "Pierce".

Hello everyone! Again I apologize for the lapse in the updates! It's not that we're not seeing whales, we are and plenty of them! In the last week we have added soem new individuals to our list, there are whales that we have not seen in the Bay of Fundy. The whales identified were: Dome, Pierce (Previously sighted this year by Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies), and Trickle. We also documented some familier whales that have just been sighted for the first time this year and they were: PD, Spoon, and Frost. These humpback whales bring our sightings to a total of 166 individual humpback whales! A record year for Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises!

Students of Westport Village School

On October 5, we had the pleasure of hosting a number of students and parents from our local school on their annual whale watch. Every fall I (Shelley) go into the classroom and give a power point presentation to the students of Westport Village School. A few days following the presentation, after a few cancellations because of weather, they were able to go out on a beautiful calm day. The first whale that was sighted was Rooftop (One of our adopt a whales) who as a reaction to dolphins that were nearby, breached much to our delight! After Rooftop approached us, we watched two more humpback whales that were identified as Trickle and Spar.

Our last cruise will be on October 16 at 130pm. We are sorry to see the season come to an end as we know that there are still whales out there to be see. However, we will be conducting some reseach cruises and I will keep you posted as to what was seen.

Great Day in the Fog!

Calf breaching next to our boat, the Cetacean Search

Fog certainly does not stop us from having great cruises and September 22nd proved just that. Our boat, the Cetacean Search was just heading out when we received a call that our other boat, the Mega Nova was with two humpback whales. On foggy days, the whale watching boats work

together to make it easier for others to locate the whales. Usually we rely on our ears to find them in the fog and this process can take us a bit of time. The first two whales we watched were Shark and her calf which were travelling. We watched them for a bit then decided to go and find something else. We then found Flash and her calf and an adult male named Cloud, who is the oldest whale of known age. He was born in 1977. Shortly after we started watching them, the calf started to breach......and breach......and breach for two hours straight. At one point, the calf breached so close that it it got some of our passengers wet. Our crowd went wild, and we even had our very own cheerleading section! It is indeed the whales and the people that make for a great cruise and in the 18 years that I have been whale watching, I have to say that this was the best day that I have ever experienced!

Another new species for 2007!

The high dorsal fin of a Sei whale!

Hi Everyone! Whale watching continues to be at its finest on the Bay of Fundy. We are still seeing a fair number of humpback whales in the area as well as some visitors to the Bay of Fundy. On September 18, our research boat, the Cetacean Search, went out on a short research cruise to locate other humpback whales that may be just outside our usual viewing area. We covered quite an area and when approaching one of the usual spots, we sighted several spouts in the distance. We were very excited thinking that we had found more humpbacks and that possibly we would be documenting some new ones. As we got closer, we noted the dorsal fins to be quite high and immediately identified them as Sei whales! This species is normally found further offshore and are not indigenous to the Bay of Fundy. They are though, a baleen whale and feed on the same food, copepods, as right whales. We were not surprised to see a right whale nearby. After recording the 16 Sei whales in the area, we continued up the Bay only to find a large pod, well, 50 or so, Pilot Whales. You may recall in an earlier post that we had sighted this species previously in the season.

North Atlantic Right Whale

We added a few new individuals since the last post as well. New to the Bay of Fundy are Owl, Kalimba and Raindrop's 2005 calf.

Humpback whale named Owl.

September is so far, so good!

Mocha's 2007 calf coming in for a close look!

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since my last post. I'm so terribly sorry for keeping everyone waiting! The month thus far has been full of activity and more humpback whales being added to our sightings list. 2007 has proven to be a record year for sightings of individuals and of calves. The highlight was Mocha's calf who was very curious of the boat. This always makes for a special occasion as whale watchers become awed at just how intelligent these animals really are. The calf circled the boat and spy hopped several times so that everyone could see her. Calves are born in the Caribbean during the winter, making them about 9 months of age at this time of year.

Our count is now at 156 individual humpback whales. The whales that we have identified within the last two weeks have been: Tab, Blanco, Cone, Pyramid, Decimal, Chromosome and Quote. We also sighted Mr. Burns close by, who is one of our favourites! Mr Burns received his name from us because his doral fin resembles the nose of a character on a popular cartoon series. We have since found out that his "real" name is Ibex and he was born in 1988 to Petrel. He will always be Mr. Burns to us.

The highlight of the weeek was our short cruise to the Grand Manan Basin to take one of our volunteers to see the right whales, which she has never seen before. There were still a few in the area including one mother and calf pair.

We are looking forward to the upcoming weeks, as we never know what it may bring. We are hoping to conduct several more dedicated research cruises and try to find some of the individuals that have yet to be found.