Press Release: Research highlights whale movement
BAR HARBOR — A major study of humpback whale movement patterns across the North Atlantic basin is illuminating the behavior of at least one endangered species of whale.
“Ocean-basin-wide movement patterns of North Atlantic humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae,” published by the International Whaling Commission’s Journal of Conservation Research and Management in February, provides an important basin-scale update to our understanding of whale movement patterns across the North Atlantic for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Lindsey Jones, a 2018 graduate of College of the Atlantic’s masters program, and a number of other researchers with College of the Atlantic Allied Whale and around the world analyzed nearly 10,000 individual whales using photo-identification (photo-ID) records collected from 1980 to 2015 in the North American Humpback Whale Catalog, which is curated by Allied Whale. They tracked how whales moved between five feeding areas and three breeding areas.
Jones and her co-authors found that whales from the Greater Antilles (like the Dominican Republic) mainly travel to western North Atlantic feeding areas (such as the Gulf of Maine and Canada), while those from the Lesser Antilles (like Guadeloupe) head to eastern feeding areas (such as Iceland and Norway). The endangered Cape Verde whales also migrate to eastern North Atlantic feeding grounds. The research suggests that the whales in the Greater and Lesser Antilles have different migration behaviors and may need to be treated as separate populations for conservation purposes.
Among the coauthors are current and former Allied Whale research associates Judy Allen, Thomas Fernald ’91, Rosemary Seton, Peter Stevick ’81, Frederick Wenzel, and Allied Whale director Sean Todd. In total, 35 researchers from both sides of the Atlantic contributed to the work.
“The only way we could look at this large of a data set was with that many people involved. That collaborative aspect was very important to this work, and to all of Allied Whale’s work,” Jones says. “The important data that the analysis is based on come from people collecting photos and sightings of humpback whales, from Norway to the Cape Verde Islands and Canada; thousands of whale-watching participants and researchers throughout the ocean.”
The study, which began as Jones’ graduate thesis at COA, is important because it helps scientists better understand how humpback whale populations are structured and where they migrate. By identifying distinct migration patterns, researchers can improve conservation efforts, ensuring that different whale populations get the specific protections they need. Since the Cape Verde population is endangered, knowing where these whales travel can help target conservation efforts more effectively, such as protecting key feeding and breeding areas from threats like shipping, fishing, and climate change.
“We, the people, back in 1972 said, ‘We believe marine mammals to have value and worth to the point that we're going to protect them.’ Thus was born the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the next year the Endangered Species Act, and since then, US agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and global groups, such as the International Whaling Commission, have been charged with the sustainable management of these species. This paper is a very important contribution to that management,” says Todd, who, along with directing Allied Whale, is the COA Steven K. Katona Chair in Marine Sciences.
Jones worked as a graduate research assistant with COA Allied Whale and subsequently served as the group’s director of photo-ID research for more than five years. She now manages the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, working to research and conserve the critically endangered species.
Allied Whale formed during COA’s infancy in 1972 as a four-week class, Humans and the Great Whales. Biology professor Steven Katona, one of COA’s founding faculty members and a future president of the college, knew about as much about whales as the students – which is to say not very much – but joined them in the task of learning what they could, with a focus on saving these great creatures that were endangered due to human activities.
In the mid 1970s, Scott Kraus '77 started the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog as his senior project. His photo-ID technique, which captured photos of the unique patterns seen on the flukes of whales, inspired and enabled whale research around the world. That former senior project is currently one of the largest international catalogs of photo-identified humpback and finback whales.
The current iteration of Allied Whale encompasses the stranding program, maritime research, immersive field studies at the Edward McC. Blair Marine Research Station on Mount Desert Rock, skeletal articulations, necropsies, and the photo-ID catalogs. COA students are involved in all parts of Allied Whale, through independent research, coursework, work-study, internships, and more.
While the study captures decades of data assembled by Allied Whale and their international collaborators, it also highlights the collaborative, investigative mission on which the group was founded, Todd says.
“This is a really important paper that executes on Steve Katona's vision that basin-scale knowledge of systems requires multiple institutions collaborating together—this is the ‘Allied’ of Allied Whale,” he says.