Get the Sussex Dolphin Project a dedicated research vessel! (they have to rent them or borrow them off friendly captains like Kurt Lander at the moment). And if you live in the UK - go to the sea and be part of the story - witness, learn, explore and protect.
It is a messy, scary, encouraging, huge story, reflecting the ocean as a whole and the UK sits at a marine crossroads to understand it.
subtropical and artic species converging to feed in our seas and be killed by supertrawlers, from polluted orcas and breaching humpbacks.
I’ve been interviewing scientists , fishers and first responders about what they think is going on - from walrus pleasuring themselves beneath Jamie’s Italian in Scarborough, to mass strandings of pilot whales,
In the last year I've seen tuna bait balls turn the surface white and rock our boat on a calm day, been surrounded underwater by a hundred common dolphins, surfed with a minke whale and watched puffins zoom underwater
This sighting is part of a much bigger story of the UK seas and the changing animal lives we are witnessing there
- is such a resurgence what we are seeing in the UK, young whales coming to return to where their ancestors were slaughtered a whale generation ago?
30 years ago humpbacks were rare off both US coasts, now watching whales of all kinds is pretty much guaranteed if you set off from Monterey Bay and humpbacks breach in front of the Statue of Liberty
*We know more about some of the whales and dolphins in Antartica than those off Sussex.*
some species are declining and others like humpbacks seem to be rebounding (but also vulnerable to marine heatwaves).
Normally when lone cetaceans turn up in unusual places, like busy sea lanes, it is bad news for them, but in general humpbacks have been resurgent globally. Because of scientists, whale-watchers and citizen scientists we can ID them which tells us who they are & helps us to know how many there are
After two hours we finally got a good sight and recording of its tail - I sent it to Ted at Happywhale as we drove home and he confirmed it was a new whale - one not ID’d before.
with light brown streaky patches of sediment -was it feeding underwater stirring up the bottom (70-90ft depth)? It was manoevring so tightly I sometimes wondered if I was seeing two whales, surfacing as it was pointing in different directions.
Atlantic humpbacks tend to have light undersides to their tail flukes and dorsal fins, and it showed us as it breached and pec slapped spectacularly. But largely it seemed intent on staying in a small patch of sea, turning back on itself and surfacing regularly between short dives,
It seemed in good nick, with nothing entangled and decent body condition and healthy exuberant behaviour and breathing, distinctive white notch ahead of its dorsal fin (old entanglement scar?).
Nothing but grey for three hours, hallucinating blows and whaley shapes, then I saw a dark shape dead ahead! For the next two hours we (carefully at a distance) observed a beautiful lone humpback.
It was a misty freezing morning but Capt. Kurt was cheerful as we set out of Brighton Marina and showed us waters full of thick schools of baitfish on his sonar. We stationed ourselves around the vessel staring out, bundled up with cold noses and fingertips.
Here’s a little video I made of something I never expected to witness in the channel! 🐋 Last week I got a last minute message from Lloyd at Sussex Dolphin Project asking if I’d like to jump on a boat to see if we could find & ID the humpback seen off Hastings.. vimeo.com/1050712074
