Yesterday, June 7th, we certainly enjoyed our day out on the ocean! On today's trip we were happy to have students from Warsaw Middle School, of Pittsfield, Maine, aboard the Friendship V. Though we had a foggy start at Petit Manan Island, we still were able to see the puffins.
As we headed offshore, we were delighted to see the fog disappear! It was sunny, clear, and calm. This was such a relief, as searching for whales in the fog can be challenging. After a bit of searching our patience paid off, as we started spotted a couple of blows in the distance.
We ended up getting good looks at two different finback whales. They we cruising along, taking several breaths at the surface before going down for deep dives. We could keep track of which whales we were watching by looking at their dorsal fins, which are distinctive to each individual.
After taking a closer look at the photos, we noticed that one individual looked very familiar. This whale had a few nicks on the dorsal and a noticeable scar on the tail stock or caudal peduncle. When looking a photos from previous seasons, we were able to identify this whale as Bolshoi, a individual that was first photographed back in the 1980's when the North Atlantic Finback Catalog research started at Allied Whale.
"Bolshoi"Identifying finback whales is exciting because they allow us to get a better understanding of long term changes occurring on their feeding grounds and in their migratory patterns. This helps to continue conservation and policy efforts that protect this species and their environment. So this was a fun discovery!
Maybe we'll see Bolshoi again on our next trip!
