Endangered Whales and Environmental Changes

With the depleting quality of environment and pollution increasing day by day, the whale presence has also undergone drastic changes at the Massachusstts Bay. Numerous studies have documented dramatic changes in habitat use by whales in various parts of Gulf of Maine. The Gulf of Maine is included in the Massachussets bay and Cape of Cod Bay. Massachusetts Bay is the gateway to Cape Cod Bay which is one of the most important feeding areas for North Atlantic right whales. These whales congregate over there in extremely huge numbers during late winters to the time of early spring. There are approximately nineteen marine autonomous recording units (MARUs) that have been deployed by CCB in Massachusetts Bay from a period starting from July 2007 and ending on April 2013. The recording occurs round-the-clock so as to find out about the characteristic "up-call" of the North Atlantic right whale. An analysis was done of about 47,000 hours of recordings by computer detection systems. The human analysts have found that in all but one of the study year’s detection of right whale calls have increased drastically. During six years of the study, the detection rate almost doubled.  The rate of detection for right whales drastically increased six-fold by the end of the study period, rising from about 2% to 13% of recorded hours." The scientists have discovered that the right whales were present to varying degrees all-round the year in Massachusetts Bay along with implications for conservation efforts. The study data and conditions may have changed a lot.

By: Anuja Arora