Our team of Marine Mammal Surveyors and guests on board Saga’s Spirit of Discovery have had an incredible few weeks of cetacean sightings as they sail from Iceland to Greenland.
Last week the team submitted some images of this humpback whale's tail fluke, for us to send to our friends at Happy Whale for identification. The whale in question was not already in Happy Whale’s database and has therefore been confirmed as new to science!
Humpback whales have unique markings on their flukes, with each individual being different - like our fingerprint! Any images like these ones that we take while surveying can be sent to Happy Whale, a charity that uses a computer programme to match the images to their extensive catalogue of humpback whales. This can then be used to track their migration patterns and inform conservation efforts.
The photos submitted can be from anywhere in the world and at any time, as long as you know where and when the photo was taken – some of the whales in Happy Whale’s catalogue have been tracked for over 40 years. When a new whale to science is identified, there is the opportunity to name the whale. In order to do this a donation to your chosen marine conservation charity (ORCA of course!) is required (minimum $500 as set by Happy Whale). This can be a great fundraising activity for Saga teams when on board, but should always be coordinated through ORCA HQ.
Karen, the guest who took the photos used for this whale’s submission, has been lucky enough to name the whale ‘Karlina’ and will be updated by Happy Whale each time the whale is sighted in the future.
When images of humpback flukes taken during ORCA surveys are submitted to Happy Whale using our ORCA account, it helps ORCA to achieve our long-term goal of complimenting Happy Whale’s data set with our own. With that in mind, if you have any photos of humpback flukes taken during ORCA surveys which haven’t already been submitted to Happy Whale, please send them to us at [email protected] along with the location of the photo and the date it was taken.
Main image credit: Karen Lucas