Local scientists name 18 whales to aid research in 2020

Alex Darus Provincetown Banner 

Published Dec 16, 2020 

PROVINCETOWN — Researchers with the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium have selected new names for 18 whales in an effort to better study the endangered species. 

While naming North Atlantic right whales has been a common practice by researchers for several years, the concept of formally naming whales got its start in Provincetown. 

In the 1970s, Charles “Stormy” Mayo, director of the right whale ecology program at the Center for Coastal Studies, was a young researcher who would lead whale watches as a naturalist to make money in his spare time. He was one of the founders of the Center For Coastal Studies, which was in its infancy. 

“We were just a rag-tag group; we've now become much more,” Mayo said. 

On those whale watches, which were some of the first on the East Coast, passengers saw humpback whales regularly. At the time, a fellow scientist and friend of Mayo, Steve Katona, was taking photos of humpback whales and categorizing them using numbers. 

It's human nature

Mayo began to think of famous primate researchers such as Jane Goodall, who named chimpanzees that she studied, and realized the same could be done for humpback whales. 

The whales are named — and identified — based on distinctive white patches on their skin. The white patches on right whales, called callosities, are formed by colonies of lice on their skin. Humpback patches are due to barnacles.

“I actually assembled a group of my team in my living room at the time and we sat around looking at pictures and naming humpbacks,” Mayo said. “Along the East Coast of the U.S., that was the first naming that went on.”

In the ‘80s, Mayo began studying North Atlantic right whales and started one of the longest continuous studies of the species to date.

He thinks naming animals in research is something that comes naturally to humans. 

“I have no doubt that by now someone else would’ve started naming humpbacks and right whales because it’s just logical to do it,” Mayo said. 

An interest in whales is in Mayo’s blood, as the Provincetown native says his ancestors hunted right whales on the Outer Cape generations ago. He likens the catalog number and name of a whale to a person’s Social Security number and name. 

“It isn’t something invented for whales, it’s an old technique,” Mayo said. 

The formal process of the right whale research community voting on names began over a decade ago, according to Philip Hamilton, a research scientist who manages the North Atlantic right whale photo-identification catalog at New England Aquarium. But researchers at the aquarium had been casually giving the whales names for much longer. 

Voting falls to the researchers who are part of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, a data-sharing research group. Members of the consortium all contribute to the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog. 

“It makes a lot more sense for all the people that are doing the fieldwork voting on these names, not just those of us who manage the catalog,” Hamilton said. 

What goes into a name

Humpbacks are easier to name than right whales because they have a black and white pattern under their tail which tends to resemble a wide variety of shapes, like a Rorschach test, Hamilton said. However, for right whales, researchers must take information from different parts of the whale’s body to come up with a name. 

“It’s not like a single image really captures what we use to know that that whale is that whale,” Hamilton said. 

The process of naming starts with researchers looking at whales that are currently identified only by their catalog number, with a bias toward reproductive females.  Markings on the whale, which include scars or other “natural tags,” tend to lead to the names the whales are given, Mayo said. 

Brigid McKenna, an aerial observer and data/photo manager for the right whale ecology program at the Center For Coastal Studies, is particularly fond of Frida, a female right whale who spends a lot of time in Cape Cod Bay and was given her name this year. Frida, or #3317, is named after Frida Kahlo because it has a marking that resembles the artist’s famous unibrow. 

Aside from distinguishing features, some of the names come from significant events in the whale’s life. For example, #4340 is named “Pilgrim,” as the calf was born in Plymouth Harbor, therefore it was named after the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Typically, right whale calves are born off the coasts of Florida and Georgia. When researchers first observed the calf, however, they determined it was no more than a week old and had to have been born off New England. 

While anyone can submit a name, the researchers are the only people who vote on the final candidates because they use them as a tool. If there is no consensus on the top name, a whale will continue to be referred to by its number, particularly in instances where the digits are easy to remember, McKenna said. That happened once with #3333, she added. 

“Because the number is just so easy to remember, it was better to have him keep the number rather than trying to remember the name,” McKenna said. 

The value of names

The act of naming the whales “significantly” helps researchers like McKenna, she said, because it’s much easier to remember names than numbers, particularly because the process of numbering the whales leads for some to be close in order. The first two digits of the four-digit catalog number represent the year the whale was born, or seen if their birth isn’t known, and the latter two are tied back to the mother of the whale. 

“It’s very easy to mix them up,” McKenna said. 

While 18 whales in total were selected this year, usually only 10 or so are named each year because that makes it easier for researchers to memorize them all, McKenna said. 

The names not only help researchers identify individual whales, but it also helps them go through a mental checklist while in the field. For instance, if an individual is on the list of whales involved in an entanglement, or if they are a mother, that’s important to note. 

READ MORE:Conservation groups ask for emergency closures to protect right whales

From there, researchers can determine whether the team needs to photograph the individual or collect better documentation for the catalog. 

An example of the benefits to naming occurred when a whale named Iceland who hadn’t been seen in 13 years was spotted by researchers in 2017 , Hamilton said. The whale is known for hanging out off the coast of Iceland. 

“Knowing that (in) real time allowed (researchers) to put the extra effort into getting a genetic sample,” Hamilton said. 

Why do right whales come here?

The presence of the whales has grown in Cape Cod Bay. About two years ago, it was estimated that more than 60% of the entire species’ population came to Cape Cod Bay, Mayo said. 

It’s estimated that just about 350 North Atlantic right whales exist, and there has been a steady decline in the population over the past decade. 

Right whales are frequent visitors to the bay in the late winter and early spring, and the center has studied the animals for decades. 

“We have really an extraordinary number of right whales for such a rare animal,” Mayo said. 

Of the 18 whales named this year, nine of them are typically found in Cape Cod Bay. 

There is no solid explanation for that phenomenon, but Mayo said it's likely the area has continued to be an extremely good feeding spot for whales, and some of their previous feeding locations may be declining in quality. 

The right whales eat very fine plankton, which form in a huge concentration on the surface of the bay. 

Outside of assisting researchers, McKenna says naming the whales helps people relate to them when reading news stories, particularly about entanglements, births or deaths. 

“Considering the status of the species, it’s really important to get people interested,” McKenna said.