Take a nearby cruise for a whale of a time

Green scene

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Somehow I always associate whale-watching with vacationing far from New York. Since I get seasick on ferries, there is little incentive to checking out anything remotely involving heaving water. But in a fit of whimsy I bought two tickets to an American Princess Whale Watching Cruise out of Riis Landing in Breezy Point, Queens, for a four-hour whale-watching cruise. 

The chosen day was one of the most gorgeous summer days imaginable. The air was spectacularly clear, the water was a shade of blue that you would like to wear draped around your shoulders and, just with me in mind, wonderfully calm. 

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was more than an opportunity to view whales. With two naturalists aboard, it was also educational and fun. It turns out that American Princess Tours is the commercial arm of a scientific endeavor called Gotham Whale, founded in 2006 by Paul Sieswerda. 

It is intended to track and identify whales, seals and dolphins living and migrating in New York Bay and the Western New York Bight – an area between Long Island and the coast of New Jersey. A bight is a bend in a coastline or river and is distinguished from a bay by being shallower.

Humpback whales were common in pre-colonial times but vanished from these waters long ago. There are several reasons generally cited for the presence now. 

The first factor is the improvement of water quality. The second could well be the result of humpback’s luck to have been one of the first species listed in the Endangered Species Conservation Act. And lastly, it was the availability of food, since they eat about 3,000 pounds of food daily. One particular fish species that entices whales is menhaden, a very oily fish, used heavily for the production of fish oil capsules for the supplement shelf. 

To help ensure successful sightings, small scout ships ranged ahead of us seeking either the whales or schools of menhaden. These fish masses could be spotted – once we knew what we were looking at – by water turbulence at the surface shaped roughly like a 20-foot-long oval, with the water sparkling just so off the tiny fins flicking above the surface. 

The scout ships radioed back likely locations, and the tour boat moved along to those spots to check things out. In the end, we saw whales four different times. 

The important question for the naturalists was: “Is this the same whale or some number from one to four different whales?” This is where the citizen scientist aspect of Gotham Whale kicks in. 

The simplest way to describe this movement is: “There is a big world out there, and relatively few scientists interested in any given project.” With the vast numbers of interested citizens available who are already making observations, scientists can collect data more quickly. 

Tour participants are invited, and expected, to share their photographs with Gotham Whale, and these photos can be used to make individual identifications. 

As fingerprints are unique among humans, zebra stripes are unique, and the same is apparently true of fluke pigmentation and scarring. Comparisons of photos allow scientists to say with greater certainty how many humpbacks have actually moved north for the summer. 

From an initial number of five sightings in 2011 – that even could have been the same individual – the number has swelled to 100 in 2014. Indeed, there is one whale they call “Rockaway Jerry” who is readily recognized by the naturalists and is regularly seen. 

He received this name because he was first seen on the birthday of Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. The humpbacks migrate to New York in the summers to fatten up on the rich food resources here and return to the West Indies in the winter for breeding and calving. 

The times “they are a’changin” on the West Coast as well. Gray whales live there, traditionally calving near Baja in the summer and migrating to the rich feeding grounds in the Arctic during the winter. 

Although there is evidence that gray whales once lived in the Atlantic, they vanished from there long ago. 

Now, however, the Pacific population can migrate to areas where they have long been absent because the ice is melting in Arctic waterways allowing them passage. Recently, there was a sighting of a single gray whale along the coast of Israel, the coast of Spain and the coast of Namibia. 

Since this cruise went so well, I may venture out soon to see the seals as well!

 

green scene, Sura Jeselsohn

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