The humpback whale is regularly found in the New York Bight but its
abundance fluctuates widely. In some years they are very numerous with
aggregations of up to 20 individuals. In other years only a few individuals
are present. Humpbacks are one of the baleen whales regularly found in
shallow water and have been observed for extended periods of time within
Long Island Sound, Block Island Sound, and Gardiner's Bay. In some instances
humpbacks have also been observed moving in and out of some inlets along the
south shore of Long Island (Shinnecock, Fire Island, and New York Harbor).
Humpbacks are found in the greatest numbers around Long Island between the
months of June through September. Usually they feed on shoals of small
schooling fish such as sand eels or herring, they will also feed on small
shrimp like crustaceans called krill or euphausiids.
As you can see from the photograph above, the flippers of a
humpback are quite long (about 1/3 of the body length),
hence the genus Megaptera
which translates from Latin as "large winged." In
part, due to the large flippers, humpbacks are relatively
slow swimmers but are also quite maneuverable.
In order to dive deeply on a terminal or sounding dive,
humpbacks usually kick their flukes out, this enables us to
see and photograph the underside of the fluke. The
markings and patterns of pigmentation on the underside of
the fluke are unique for each humpback and can be used for
identification purposes.
We have encountered over 400 humpbacks (nearly 50% of the
Gulf of Maine stock) in our 7 trips to the Great South Channel. With
the assistance of the Whale Center of New England, we have photo-identified
148 different whales during these trips.
The latest estimate of population size of the Gulf of Maine stock is 902
individuals. The latest estimate of the population size of humpback
whales in the Western North Atlantic is 11,570, increasing at a rate of 6.5%
per year.
Humpback whales are listed in the IUCN (International Union for the
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources)
Red List and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC)
as, "vulnerable." A species or population is listed as vulnerable when it is
not "critically endangered or endangered but is facing a high risk of
extinction in the wild in the medium-term future." For further information
on the IUCN Red List categories, please
click here.
Humpback whales have been protected world wide from legal whaling since 1964
and are listed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as "endangered" and have
been so listed since June 1970.
