Three Whales Spotted Along South Shore

Researcher Andrew Stevenson said three whales were spotted along South Shore today [Jan 22] moving slowly from Horseshoe Bay to the Reefs where one whale put on a display, tail lobbing, breaching and pectoral fin slapping for about an hour. Mr Stevenson said they were about 3/4 of a mile offshore, and it seemed to be a calf doing most of the activity.

The photo shown below is the same one as above, after it has been edited with Adobe Photoshop computer software. Mr. Stevenson and other researchers use the photos to identify individual whales, and determine how many different whales are in Bermuda waters, how many return here each spring, and what other areas they visit.

Spectators came out to the South Shore this morning, with cars lining up on the South Shore as people watched the whales activity.

With Bermuda lying halfway between the humpback whales’ feeding grounds in the western North Atlantic and the wintering and breeding grounds in the Caribbean, the island serves as an ideal observation platform to study the annual northward migration of these animals during the spring months of March and April.

“The key to our studies of humpbacks is individual photo-identification,” said Andrew Stevenson, who founded the Humpback Whale Research Project while he was making his acclaimed documentary film “Where the Whales Sing.”

If you spot whales or have any photos that you can send to assist in the research, please contact Mr Stevenson at 777-7688 [77-SPOUT] or email spout “at” logic.bm.

[Photos courtesy of WhalesBermuda.com]

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Category: All, Environment, News