Right Whales feeding in Cape Cod Bay

[mekcotuit]

Right whales feeding in Cape Cod Bay
By Doug Fraser
April 16, 2008 12:54 PM
CAPE COD BAY - A flight over Cape Cod Bay this morning found groups of right whales feeding and lounging near the surface from Barnstable's Sandy Neck, across the bay to off Race Point in Provincetown.

The northern right whale is the world’s most endangered great whale with an estimate 350 individuals remaining.

State and federal officials are saying an “unprecedented” number of right whales are feeding in the bay, with between 50 and 100 estimated to be in Cape Cod Bay. Typically, 30 to 50 are seen in the spring when right whales return from breeding grounds off Georgia and Florida and further south.

They feed on zooplankton, tiny animals whose populations explode in the late winter and early spring. The whales test the water as they swim, opening their mouths, looking for dense clouds of these copepods.

When they find a particularly rich area, they slow down, open wide and skim the water, forcing it up against the baleen plates that filter the animals from the water.

Their gigantic tongue then scrapes the copepods from the baleen.
Pilot Roger Putnam said this was the largest number of whales he’d ever seen in the bay. Dozens of distinctive “V” shaped sprays of water exhaled from right whale blowholes were visible below.

Groups of whales, either feeding, or temporarily sated, lolled about on the surface in tight groupings that some believe is extended foreplay or other social interaction.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries has imposed restrictions across the bay on vessels that are intended to protect the right whales.

Vessels are required to remain 500 yards from whales and fishermen cannot set or haul gear within 500 yards.