Whale Migration at the Jersey Shore

Humpback whales feeding.       http://www.flickr.com/photos/mistermoss/ / CC BY 2.0

Whales do pass New Jersey on their migrations and during fall beach walkers and boaters get some great views.

Recent reports include a humpback just a few hundred feet from the Bay Head shoreline and off Chadwick beach. Humpbacks are adding bulk for winter which they spend in Silver Bank Sanctuary, a shallow water area off the coast of the Dominican Republic.

Southern waters are where they mate, birth and nurse their calves.

We will see them again when they follow the food north in April.

Pods of the baitfish, menhaden, and striped bass and bluefish often coincide with the fall migration of marine mammals, so whales and bottlenose dolphins and seals are more common at the shore.

Bob Schoelkopf, founder and director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine said the humpback whales are the primary whale species that have been spotted by numerous boaters because they come closest to the shore, using it to pin the bait up so they can eat it.

Boaters are always warned to stay clear of whales and dolphins. At 80,000 pounds, a humpback can do real damage to boats. They can eat upwards to 3,000 pounds a fish per day.

The warning is also a legal one because humpbacks are an endangered species that are safeguarded by the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammals Protection Act while they pass through our waters. Boats must stay at least 200 feet from them.

You won't see them near shore, but boaters may spot right whales and minke whales further out and they move south to waters off Georgia and Florida. Right whales are the most endangered whale species in the world.

Do any whales remain of the NJ coast through winter? Yes, the mackerel-loving and endangered fin whales. Next to blue whales, they are the second-largest whales growing up to 80 feet.

The only visitors to Jersey that will see on shore are the one fur-bearing species that comes south to visit for the holidays. That is the harbor seal. They are spotted onshore sunning, maybe on a dredge pipe on the Manasquan River or resting on the beach at Seaside Heights.

More at app.com/story/sports/outdoors/fishing/hook-line-and-sinker/2015/11/11/humpback-whales-jersey-shore/

Whales Off the NJ Coast This Month May Be Threatened By Research

RIGHT WHALE Eubalaena glacialis with calf. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Recent whale sightings off Deal and Lavalette are a reminder that whales are in the middle of their annual migration north past our beaches. Seeing a humpback breaching the surface and landing with thunderous splashes is still rare enough to be news, but the whales are out there.

In what may seem surprising, some environmental groups have opposed a recent "climate change" study by Rutgers University because of whales and other marine mammals.

Environmentalists have joined Governor Chris Christie in opposing research funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and conducted by Rutgers University and the University of Texas. They planned to to send ear-shattering sound blasts to the ocean floor off the New Jersey shore to create three-dimensional images of sediment lying thousands of feet beneath the seabed. This will supposedly help determine how the coastline has advanced and retreated during times of historic climate change.

But many environmental groups and some commercial and recreational fishing interests argue that the study would harm dolphins, whales, and other marine life by subjecting them to sounds blasts of 250 decibels or more every five seconds for 34 days.

Cassandra Ornell, a staff scientist for Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of more than 125 groups, conceded that opposing a federally funded climate change study “is kind of unusual for us.”

Whales are more plentiful off the Jersey coast now because of the annual spring migration from their southern winter grounds to their northern summer grounds.

Sightings have been of the dramatic humpback whale. They are feeding on small schooling fishes, such as menhaden (aka bunker). We also have right whales, minke whales and fin whales passing by our coast, though those species tend to stay further offshore.

The research is also of concern because humpbacks are traveling with calves.

 Size compared to an average human - via Wikimedia Commons.

Fishermen can encounter whales while fishing on top of schools of bunker for striped bass. This occurred this summer off Asbury Park when fisherman met up with a fin whale.

The right whale, in particular, is considered highly endangered and boaters are supposed to keep a distance of 100+ feet from all whales and 500 yards from right whales.

The seriously endangered right whale (whose name came from whalers who said it was the "right" whale to hunt) are estimated at only 300 living mainly off the eastern coast of the United States and Canada. The right whale was friendly, slow swimming, floated when killed, and yielded lots of oil and baleen and whalers killed thousands of them. The population in the North Atlantic is the most endangered in the world.

Federally Endangered Whales That Migrate Past NJ
Whale, North Atlantic right**	Eubalaena glacialis**
Whale, blue**	Balaenoptera musculus**
Whale, fin**	Balaenoptera physalus**
Whale, humpback**	Megaptera novaeangliae**
Whale, sei**	Balaenoptera borealis**

Endangered Whales Off The NJ Coast

There are nine mammals protected as endangered in NJ, and six of those are whales.

All six are also Federally Endangered, and so they are protected by Federal laws while off the coast of New Jersey.

Those 6 whale species are:

1. North Atlantic northern right whale (or Black right whale), balaena glacialis
2. Blue Whale, balaenoptera musculus
3. Fin Whale, balaenoptera physalus
4. Humpback Whale, megaptera novaeangliae
5. Sei Whale, balaenoptera borealis
6. Sperm whale, physeter macrocephalus

Cetaceans is the order that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. It is then divided into two suborders: Odontoceti and Mysticeti.

Odonoceti have teeth and a single blowhole (nostril) at the top of the head. The sperm whale is well known, if only from pictures and movies, for being one that regularly produces a visible spout or blow.

(Photo of right whale skim feeding via The Whale Center of New England)

The Mysticetes are the baleen whales. The other 5 listed here are baleen whales. That means they have no teeth and filter their food through their baleen. They also have two blowholes.

Baleen is made of the same material as our fingernails and hair, and has been described to the touch as similar to thick plastic hair. The baleen plates overlap each other and hang from the upper jaw of the whale. (They are sometimes compared to vertical blinds.) Each plate is frayed on the bottom and edges so that they mat together and help trap food. Right whales have the longest baleen.

My childhood fascination with whales has never faded, so I will write more about each species here in the months to come. I also admit to listing Melville's Moby Dick in my five books list despite its portrayal of whale hunting.