Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Media Release 3.2

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tanya Gabettie: 508.237.1920

Communications Coordinator

Vessel Severely Wounds Critically-Endangered Right Whale

PCCS Aerial Survey Team Documents Deep Propeller Wound off Cape Cod

PCCS image taken under NMFS right whale permit number 633-1763, under the authority of the U.S. Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection Acts.

(Provincetown, Cape Cod, MA) – A critically-endangered North Atlantic right whale with deep propeller wounds on its right flank, clear evidence of vessel interaction, was spotted by an aerial survey team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS) on Monday off the Wood End Lighthouse. 

The wound appears to be about 10-12 feet long and 2-3 feet wide, but it is unknown if it cut through the whale’s protective blubber layer.  

“The whale was swimming slowly just below the surface of the water,” reports Cynthia Browning, PCCS aerial survey coordinator.   “After several minutes, it fluked and dove, which is normal behavior for a right whale,” she adds.

The New England Aquarium (NEAq), which maintains the right whale catalog, has matched this individual to the 2005 calf of #1703 and does not have its own number yet.

Browning, and Will Rayment, a member of the survey team, documented the wound while aboard the Cessna Skymaster plane used in the PCCS work that the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries funds.  Pilots were Philip Kibler and John Williams. 

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has ruled that effective July 1, 2007, shipping lanes will change in an effort to prevent, or at least reduce, ship strikes.  Stellwagen Bank is an ecologically-diverse 842-square-mile National Marine Sanctuary between Cape Ann, Boston and Cape Cod, in which large whales feed and congregate at various times of the year.

The new rule in Massachusetts Bay will mandate that a vessel steer a wider turn around the tip of Cape Cod once the lane is altered approximately 10 nautical miles (nm) to the north. Vessels approaching Boston will have a narrower lane – from five to four nautical miles – and from two to 1.5 miles – leaving Boston.  The new rule will lengthen the current traffic lanes into Boston by ~ 4 nautical miles and narrow them from 5 nm to 4 nm in width.

Since 1998, PCCS has also conducted systematic aerial surveys to monitor right whales as part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ’ Right Whale Conservation Plan.  These data provide valuable information on the distribution, abundance and population characteristics of right whales in the Bay.   PCCS provides data to state and federal agencies managing human activities, such as vessel traffic and fishing, which occur in right whale habitat areas.  The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries prohibits gillnet fishing in all of the Cape Cod Bay Critical Habitat from January 1 thru May 15.  

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The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies was founded in 1976 and is dedicated to researching and protecting marine mammals and marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine through research, conservation and public education programs. 

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PCCS Contact

Tanya Gabettie

Communications Coordinator

Office: 508-487-3622 ext 103  

tgabettie@coastalstudies.org

Charles Mayo

Director, Right Whale Habitat