SCORE ANOTHER PLUS for Barbados’ marine life.
That’s because marine biologists have discovered that the humpback whales which have been frolicking in the island’s waters are from a different breeding population than those in the rest of the Caribbean.
Word of this has come from marine biologist, fisheries consultant and member of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Nikola Simpson.
Whales usually migrate from the colder waters of the north Atlantic into the Caribbean between January and March. They have become a common sight as they breach and thump the water with their massive tails.
This year, there are two different pods – each made up of a mother and calves – which have been seen, simultaneously, at opposite points of the island. One set seems to prefer the waters off the Animal Flower Cave in St Lucy, while the other pod has been reported along the south-west coasts.
“What is quite exciting about these – and we have been seeing them for the past four years – is that it seems like those we are seeing in the eastern and south-eastern Caribbean are different from the rest in the West Indies,” Simpson revealed to Heather-Lynn’s Habitat.
“So really new results and research are coming out that they are a distinct breeding population, not mixing with the rest of the northern Caribbean and the Dominican Republic, which is where they have huge populations,” she said.
Simpson added that if this turned out to be true, then this was “exciting news”, but cautioned that much more research needed to be done.
She said the habits of these whales suggest they were of a different breeding population.
“These are coming down a lot further. These just seem to be travelling later and their patterns are slightly different because they are being seen later, not until like February. So they are coming down later and then going back later,” she said, adding that these whales were staying until April.
The marine biologist admitted that sightings in the last few years had dropped off. She has been urging all those whale watchers to take pictures of the tails.
“That’s why it’s really important and I have been asking people if they see them, to take pictures of their tails because, on the underside of their tails, they have these distinct markings. It’s like our fingerprints.”
The photographs of the tails would then be compared to those in a global whale catalogue.
“But we haven’t made any matches yet with ours and the ones in Norway or Iceland,” said Simpson. “But they are running the prints to try to see if there are any matches or to see if there are new whales to add to the catalogue which they have never seen or recorded before. It’s quite exciting.”
However, she is cautioning whale watchers to gaze from a safe distance.
“All the boats rush the whales and then that scares them and they dive. So we are asking people to safely watch them, to idle your engines, stay a distance off.”
Humpbacks whales have long been a feature in the island’s waters, so much so that there was once a whaling station in Speightstown, St Peter.
The whales journey to the warmer Caribbean waters to mate and have their calves.
“They usually don’t eat here and they go back to their winter feeding grounds, which are five main feeding grounds that they go to in the North Atlantic,” Simpson said.
