Humpback Whales Frequent Visitors Along Coast This Summer

A lot of whales and other marine mammals have been seen off the Maine coast this summer, some even as far up the Penobscot Bay as Searsport. While right whale sightings have been rare this year, humpback whale sightings have been a delight for those who have the good fortune to see them, whether from the shore or on the water.

Why are they here?

A visiting humpback draws onlookers at Bayside in Northport. Midcoast Villager photo.

Humpbacks got their Latin name for their long pectoral fins and abundance in New England waters. Humpbacks are frequently sighted offshore throughout the Gulf of Maine.

Juvenile humpbacks, however, like to go exploring, generally in search of food.

“Young whales sometimes spend time in unexpected near-shore areas They are usually there to take advantage of a limited, local food resource. In this case it seems to be pogies,” said Jooke Rollins, humpback program director at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

“It tends to just be one individual or a couple of individuals repeatedly resighted because these habitats don’t actually support large numbers of whales. Young healthy whales are likely also learning better ways to find food in the process,” she said.

Humpbacks are baleen whales who filter-feed on small crustaceans and fish. They use techniques, such as making a circular net of bubbles underwater, to concentrate prey before surging upward to engulf them. They must pack on the pounds during the summer before migrating to the Caribbean to mate and give birth during the winter months.

Colder water in place

“This is the time of year when they search for food,” said Nick Record, senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay. Record said that the cold, fresh water that first began showing up in the deep waters of the Gulf of Maine in 2023 continues to be present, creating good conditions for the prey whales depend on.

“I don’t know if they are repeating a past pattern [coming close to shore] from long ago. It’s hard to say for sure. There is a lot that has changed in coastal Maine,” he said.

Sarah Leiter, acting director of the Division of Marine Mammal Research at the Department of Marine Resources, oversees a complex array of whale surveys conducted in the Gulf of Maine. Over the summer months, aerial and at-sea surveys have recorded high numbers of whales along the coast.

“We recorded 57 humpbacks from our boats and planes in July. The average distance from shore was less than 8 nautical miles. More often when we see whales they are quite a bit further from shore, upwards of 15 nautical miles,” she said. “Fishermen are familiar with seeing a single humpback this time of year. Seeing this many is extraordinary.”

Dangers to the whales

Coming close to shore in search of food places the humpbacks in areas full of humans, from lobster and menhaden vessels to curious recreational boaters eager to get closer to the large mammals.

“It places them in jeopardy because they are overlapping with human activities in places where they aren’t expected to be and behaving in ways that are hard to predict. The best thing that folks can do is to keep a good distance,” Robbins said.

NOAA’s Large Whale Take Reduction Team, a coalition of scientists, environmental representatives, fishermen and government officials working to reduce harm to large whales, of which Nick Record is a member, is discussing timely ways to address the presence of the whales in the future in order to protect them from entanglement or other injuries.

“There’s a lot of discussion about how to respond to what’s happening this year with dynamic management,” he said. “The data that DMR is building [through the Marine Mammal Research Division] is critical to answering those questions.”