April 27, 2013 — Two North Atlantic right whales skimming for zooplankton Saturday afternoon in waters off the coast of Bourne nearly had a head-on collision, but the two managed to change courses at the last minute and avoid hitting each other.
"I've never seen them put on the brakes," Charles "Stormy" Mayo, director of right whale studies at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said half-joking from the top deck of the research vessel Shearwater. "That's really cool."
It was crowded, very crowded, on the water: First a handful of adult right whales were in the distance as the Shearwater left Provincetown, then four whales appeared, then another 14 and then right whales were everywhere, mostly skimming by the boat with mouths open, their baleen showing like human gums.
It was a very unusual afternoon, given the volume of whales in that location. Typically right whales congregate off Wood End and Race Point lights and Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown. The new location is worrisome because of the shipping lane from the eastern end of the Cape Cod Canal to Boston. The area is also outside the boundaries in Cape Cod Bay that are defined as right whale critical habitat under federal guidelines.
"It's a little unsettling," and unsafe, Mayo said.
This spring, the center's right whale team has been conducting aerial surveys across the bay and the Atlantic coastline, as it has done since 1998. On Friday, the aerial team saw 113 right whales, the most in one day since 2011. The center also conducts boat-based environmental studies on the entire bay and areas where right whales feed, a program that has been in place since 1984.
Right whales are rare and endangered, with a slowly growing population of about 500 in the world. Federal laws protect the whales, and the center's studies are funded as part of that effort. The goal of the studies is to get a better understanding of right whale habitat, as a way to improve conservation efforts. Federal funding cuts, though, are making it harder and harder, Mayo said.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times