No doubt: a gray whale
Image: New England Aquarium
After hundreds of years, a gray whale appears in an unusual place. So unusual that the discoverer initially fears that she will be considered crazy. Apparently climate change cleared the way for the animal.
EFor only the fifth time, scientists have discovered a gray whale outside the Pacific. The aerial sighting took place on March 1st in the Atlantic Ocean by a team from the New England Aquarium off the coast of New England, about 50 kilometers south of the island of Nantucket, which belongs to the American state of Massachusetts.
“I didn't even dare say out loud what it was because the others would have thought I was crazy,” says researcher Orla O'Brien, who has been studying life in the Atlantic from the air for the Anderson Cabot Center since 2011 for Ocean Life of the New England Aquarium. Only after their colleague Kate Laemmle confirmed the astonishing find did the researchers go public with their photo.
Gray whales are not only easy to recognize by their gray and white skin. Unlike other whales, they do not have a dorsal fin, but have eight to nine small, flat “humps” on the back third of their back. The animals grow up to 15 meters long and weigh 40 tons.
The marine mammals disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th century and are only found in the North Pacific. Climate change is likely to be to blame for the unusual sighting. The Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean in Canada, has been ice-free more often in the summer in recent years, opening the way for the whales.
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