"Tracks is the whale on the left," she yelled. As the boat veered to portside, she brought the crossbow to her eye and took aim, pointing it right at Tracks.The whale was due to be biopsied.Read More: We Watched Gigantic Blue Whale Bones Get 'Degreased'
Field biologist Kate Gavrilchuck uses a crossbow to obtain a biopsy sample from a female humpback known to scientists as Tracks. Image: Justin Taus
Field biologist Kate Gavrilchuck manipulates a humpback whale's skin and blubber sample. Image: Justin Taus
These scientists haven't observed one single fin whale calf in the estuary this year either, although approximately 30 mature females have been sighted, he added. Tracks is one of the many female humpbacks to have been observed without a calf this year, and the team hopes to find out why.Robert Michaud, president and director at the non-profit Groupe de recherche et d'éducation sur le mammifères marins, a marine mammal research group that also operates in the Saint Lawrence, says that he suspects his organization is witnessing the same trend in other parts of the estuary. Causes of a seemingly low reproduction rate will be hard to confirm, he added. And they might also be different for both species.That same day, out on the Saint Lawrence and far off on the pale-blue horizon, the MICS team spotted the V-shaped spout that is characteristic of the rare North Atlantic right whale. They raced against the swells to reach it, preparing their cameras as the boat rushed over the waves.The team's most utilized research method is photo identification. The station, which is the official curator of the North Atlantic blue whale catalogues, is home to thousands of whale pictures, some of them in black-and-white. Researchers sort through newly captured photographs to make matches with older ones by comparing the whale's' skin pigmentation patterns, scars, and other unique characteristics, like fluke and fin shapes. A match can reveal important details about migration and lifespan—like when a specific blue whale was photographed near Pico Island in the Portuguese Azores in 2014, and matched with a photograph snapped across the Atlantic near the Mingan Archipelago, on the east coast of Canada, some 30 years earlier."Because whales are long-lived animals, long-term studies like ours are necessary"
Team member Viri Jimenez looks through old photographs of blue whales at the MICS research station in Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, Quebec. Image: Justin Taus
A MICS zodiac searches the waters for signs of whales near Anticosti Island, Quebec. Image: Justin Taus