Researchers seeking help in tracking whales off Cape (Massachusetts, USA)

January 25, 2013 (Mary Ann Bragg). Biologists and researchers are asking for the public’s help in keeping track of a North Atlantic right whale mother and her newborn calf, first sighted off Plymouth Jan. 12.

The pair was seen by researchers off Plymouth Harbor Monday afternoon (Jan. 21), prior to a winter storm, but they were not sighted in surveys by land Thursday or Friday, Regina Asmutis-Silvia of Whale and Dolphin Conservation said Friday afternoon.

The mother, known as “Wart,” and the three-week-old calf have drawn great interest from North Atlantic right whale specialists because calves are typically born in warmer waters off Georgia and Florida in the winter, and they typically don’t appear in Cape Cod Bay until the spring. The pair has been seen within a mile of the shore, from the Cape Cod Canal to north of Plymouth Harbor, Asmutis-Silvia said.

Right whales remain low in the water and blow out a V-shaped mist. The adult whales have white patches, called callosities, on their head. The youngest calves don’t have the white patches and tend to have concave blow holes, Melissa Patrician, a biological oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said Thursday.

Researchers have observed the pair traveling very close together.

Anyone sighting what they believe to be the mother and her calf are asked to call the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Right Whale Sighting Hotline at 866-755-6622. Reports to the hotline should include the caller’s name and contact information, date and time of the sighting, whether sighted by land or vessel, location, number of whales sighted, any observed behavior and a description of what you saw in detail. Observers are asked not to approach the whales.

There are fewer than 500 North Atlantic right whales in the world, and the birth of calves is closely watched and celebrated by specialists in the field. Sixteen have been known to be born in this current birthing season, including the one with Wart.

Researchers are planning to take a skin sample from the calf in the next few weeks, once it reaches one month in age, to determine its sex and possibly its father.

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