Scientists at Boston’s New England Aquarium (NEA) spotted a gray whale, a leviathan that has been extinct for more than 200 years, on Friday while flying off the coast of Nantucket Island.
A team of scientists was flying about 30 miles south of Nantucket Island when they spotted the unusual whale.
The aerial survey plane continued to circle the area for 45 minutes as the whale continued to dive and surface, as if to feed, giving the scientists time to take photos and understand what they were observing.
The team reviewed the images together and confirmed that what they saw was a gray whale.
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Scientists at the New England Aquarium in Boston discovered a gray whale off the coast of Nantucket Island on Friday. (New England Aquarium)
“I didn’t want to say out loud what it was because it seemed crazy,” said Orla O’Brien, an associate research scientist at the NEA.
O’Brien works at the Anderson Cabot Marine Life Center and has been conducting aerial surveys for 13 years.
Research engineer Kat Laemmle was on the plane with O’Brien when he showed her a photo of the whale while it was underwater.
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Scientists at the New England Aquarium in Boston discovered a gray whale off the coast of Nantucket Island on Friday. (New England Aquarium)
“My brain was trying to process what I was seeing, because this animal wasn’t supposed to be in these waters,” Lemle said. “We laughed because it was so wild and exciting to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean hundreds of years ago.”
NEA officials say gray whales are not typically seen in the Atlantic Ocean, but they are regularly seen in the North Pacific Ocean.
The whale is described as having mottled gray and white skin and a dorsal hump, but no dorsal fin. As the hump descends toward the tail, a series of prominent ridges become visible.
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Scientists at the New England Aquarium in Boston discovered a gray whale off the coast of Nantucket Island on Friday. (New England Aquarium)
Although it disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean by the 18th century, the species is returning to the area. In fact, there have been five sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic and Mediterranean over the past 15 years, including off the coast of Florida in December 2023.
The whale spotted off Nantucket Island on Friday is believed to be the same gray whale seen off the coast of Florida in December.
Scientists say the strange sightings could be due to climate change, with the Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Canada’s Arctic Ocean, suffering from rising temperatures during recent summers. He explains that the ice is running out. In the world.
The aquarium says sea ice typically limits where gray whales can travel because they can’t break through the thick winter ice that blocks their passage.
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But as shipping lanes become less iced over the summer, gray whales may be able to move into areas not visited by the species for centuries.
“We’re hoping to see humpback, right and fin whales, but the ocean is a dynamic ecosystem and we never know what we’ll find,” O’Brien said. “Sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic Ocean are a reminder of how quickly marine life responds to climate change when given the opportunity.”
