A North Atlantic right whale labeled #2150 died earlier this fall by an apparent ship strike near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, a preliminary investigation has found. On October 2, the dead 45-ton female whale was spotted by a Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) vessel about six kilometers [four miles] off Delaps Cove, Nova Scotia in the Bay of Fundy. From there, DFO contacted researchers Amy Knowlton of the New England Aquarium and Michael Moore of the Woods

Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, who arrived by ferry two days later. By then the whale had drifted 35 miles up the bay. A fishing vessel contracted by DFO battled heavy winds and rain for 14 hours to pull the carcass to an abandoned wharf near Digby. There a necropsy detected severe fractures in the lower jaw bones and skull. The wounds were consistent with a ship strike, Moore said.

Researchers in Culloden, NS performing a necropsy on a female Northern right whale. Photo: Andi Rierden

Samples were taken to Massachusetts for analysis. The whale was identified by the callosity pattern on her head, which is similar to a fingerprint, Knowlton said. Researchers believe the whale had died up to two weeks before she was spotted. They also have some idea where the animal was struck. “We’ve done a very preliminary drift analysis, which put her somewhere at the southern part of the Bay of Fundy, the very mouth of it,” Knowlton said. “Based on the winds and drifts that occurred prior to that she could have been struck on the western Scotian Shelf.”
Knowlton added that the initial analysis appears plausible because she spent the entire summer surveying right whales in the Bay of Fundy and never spotted #2150.

The whale was first spotted by researchers in 1991 and was in her late teens when she died. In 2001, she had her first calf, Knowlton said. The death of #2150 was the only documented fatality of a right whale this year.

In July, shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy were changed to protect the whales and decrease the chances that they might collide with a ship. From surveys done this summer, Knowlton said, the lane changes are making a difference. “This year we never had a close encounter with ships approaching right whales, and the right whales were actually farther east this year then they had been in other years. Even so, it was still enough of a buffer with the revised shipping lanes.”

The dead right whale was one of about 80 breeding females left in the North Atlantic. The species is on the international endangered species list.

—Andi Rierden

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