Ocean Ecosystem Series | Episode 10: Blue Whale

Hi everybody, this is Amanda from The Whale Mobile, and this week we're going to be talking about the blue whale, which is the largest animal on the planet and actually the biggest animal ever known to have existed. Blue whales can grow to over 100 feet long and can weigh upwards of 330,000 pounds. Their heart alone weighs over 400 pounds, which is pretty mind-blowing. So blue whales are actually quite a rare sight here in the Gulf of Maine, and that's because the population of blue whales in general in the Northwest Atlantic is only around 250 to upwards of maybe 400 individuals. Now before the days of whaling, there were estimated to be around 300,000 blue whales found around the world, and present day there is estimated to be around 20,000. Although that's a lot less than there used to be, the good news is their population is increasing. So blue whales are truly this stunning bluish gray color, and then they have these lighter mottled spots that make each whale's pattern unique, like a fingerprint. By photographing these patterns along their body, also photographing their dorsal fins, is the way that we can identify blue whales as individuals in the field. If you've been following along with our recent videos, you'll know that we had tons and tons of krill in the Gulf of Maine this past season. Now blue whales feed almost exclusively on krill, and so as you can imagine, we had a sighting or sightings of blue whales in the Gulf of Maine this past season. The first sighting of a blue whale this season in the Gulf of Maine was actually by Briar Island Whale and Seabird Cruises, and it was on June 26th. Little did we know, just about a week later, we would have our own blue whale sighting just north of Gloucester. Our first sighting of this individual was on July 4th. We then saw this individual on both trips on July 8th, and then one last time on July 19th. We took lots and lots of photos of this individual blue whale, and these photos were eventually submitted to Dr. Richard Sears of Mingen Island Cetacean Study, and he's been doing research on these blue whales and cataloging them in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for decades, and he was able to inform us that this was a female blue whale identified as B408. She was first seen in 2006 and was last seen before our sighting in 2020. She spends most of her time up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in a couple of key locations, which makes our sighting of her in the Gulf of Maine incredibly unique. Our last sighting of a blue whale was in 2011, which made 2020 for just an extra special season. So thank you all so much for joining us for this video about blue whales, and we'll see you next week!