Doctoral candidate in Acoustics at the Pennsylvania State University and Associate Scientist with the Mingan Island Cetacean Study. For the past four years I have been recording blue whale vocalizations in four regions of the St. Lawrence where blue whales are typically found: Gaspe, Sept-Iles, Mingan/Anticosti, and the estuary region from Escoumins to Forestville. This work has two main objectives:...
R. Sears (1), C. Ramp (1), and J. Calambokidis (2) (1) Mingan Island Cetacean Study Inc. 285 Green St, St. Lambert, PQ, J4P 1T3 Canada (2) Cascadia Research, 218 1/2 W Fourth Ave, Olympia, WA 98501 Abstract A photo-identification catalogue of 268 individual blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) was compiled from 1984 to 2001 in the Sea of Cortez, of which...
It is late May and the Mingan field station comes to life after a long winter enveloped even partially embedded by snow. The windows are open to the still crisp air and life returns after the building’s hibernation. The office comes to life with the first team members and interns, the garage door opens and one by one the boats...
Field team: RS, Christian Ramp, Oscar Guzon, and Christian Faesi. Each year as the plane approaches Loreto, anticipation builds and I look down on the Sea of Cortez hoping to catch the glimpse of a blue whale's back or spout as we speed over the water on our final approach. It is as though spotting a blue from the plane...
We know the sex of 53 out of the 264 blue whales identified for the Sea Of Cortez. There are 49 females and 4 males. Because we have not taken biopsies skin samples as we do in the St Lawrence and have only had a few sloughed skin samples analyzed to this point, the above ratio can't be used for...
Sightings of Blue whale (B. musculus ) calves and calving intervals for known females in the Sea of Cortez from 1984-2001 and subsequent observations off California. R. Sears (1), C. Ramp (1), and J. Calambokidis (2) (1)Mingan Island Cetacean Study Inc. 285 Green St, St. Lambert, Qc. J4P 1T3 (2)Cascadia Research, 218 1/2 W Fourth Ave, Olympia, WA 98501 A...
On July 18, 2001 local scallop fishermen, aboard the "Grand Makashti" working along the north coast of Anticosti Island, called the research station in mid afternoon. They reported having approached a humpback whale that was entangled in fishing gear. The humpback whale was bridled through the mouth by one line, had two large buoys - typically used as floats by...
