Lucky, A Whale's tail

Fifteen miles off the coast of Florida she slips from her mom, into the water. She’s fourteen and a half feet long and weighs over one ton. It’s the day before Christmas. The baby Right Whale feels a strange vibrating sound and the ocean thrashes and swirls around her.
High above, a plane circles and records the birth of the last Right Whale to be born in 1991.
“Hey, Jim! Did you see that?” asks the pilot.
“Yep! Those two whales sure are lucky. That ocean freighter just missed them!” responded the observer, “You know that little one just got a name to go along with her number.”
“What are you going to call her?” the pilot asks.
“Lucky, of course,” said the observer.
Thus begins a journey of survival.

For nearly three hundred years Lucky’s ancestors were highly prized by the whalers who left various whaling ports looking for the richest that whale oil could bring. Whalers considered the Right Whale to be the ideal whale to hunt. They were slow moving, lived in waters close to shore, floated after being killed, and were a major source of oil. For all these reasons, whalers named them the Right Whale. Once numbering in the tens of thousands, by the mid 1930’s their numbers in the North Atlantic Ocean had been reduced to 50. After nearly seventy years of protection, only about 300 Right Whales remain to swim off the coast of North America.
The Right Whale is a thick body baleen whale. It’s body length, 45 to 60 feet, places them in the medium size class for baleen whales. Baleen whales eat zooplankton. Right whales are considered “grazers” swimming slowly with their mouths open, scooping up shrimp-like copepods and krill, using their baleen, feathery like teeth, to capture their food.

Lucky nuzzles up to her mom and begins to suckle milk. For the next year, she will stay with her mom as they move north following the blooms of zooplankton that drift along the edges of the Gulf Stream. By the time, Lucky is five months old, she is seen frolicking with other whales in the Bay of Fundy. Those whales include: Humpbacks, Sperm, the huge Blue, and the occasional Orca.

As summer comes to an end, people from the Center of Coastal Studies, out of Provincetown, spot Lucky swimming in Cape Cod Bay.

The fifteen-foot rubber skiff moves quickly, passing Lucky, as they head for a male right whale in trouble. The whale has a rope wrapped around his tail and the monofilament net is lodged in his mouth. The entanglement is life threatening. As the small inflatable boat approaches one of the men in the boat speaks.

“He’s trailing about twenty feet of rope!” yells Jack.

“I think I can use the gaff and attach the buoys before he dives,” replies Tim. “There he goes!”

The male Right Whale tries to flee the boat. Two weeks ago, he swam into a gill net and now over ninety feet of net and line are wrapped around his fins. In trying to dislodge the net, he has managed to make it tighter around one of his fins and it’s beginning to cut into his body. If he doesn’t free himself, he could die.
The men have attached a line with several big plastic buoys. This is known as “kegging,” a technique that has been used since the 1700’s. The buoys add buoyancy and drag. This makes it hard for the whale to dive and it tires him out. The whale attempts to dive but the buoys make it difficult. He turns, 100 feet below the surface, and swims rapidly to the surface.

“Brace yourself! He’s going to breech!” yells Tim.

The whale seems to hang in the air before slamming down on the ocean’s surface sending a huge spray onto the boat.

“Good thing we wore our wetsuits!” shouts Jack. “But hang on the sea’s about to get rough!”

This is a dangerous moment. If the boat flips it would be very nasty for the men trying to save the whale from injury. The whale swims rapidly away from the rubber boat dragging the line of buoys. Old-timers call that a “Nantucket sleigh ride.” Back then, the whale would have been harpooned, and he would drag the whaler’s boat until he died.

Today the men are not interested in killing him but saving him. As he tires, the boat pulls along side and very carefully, Jack, begins to cut the gear entangling the whale’s fins.

“I think I got all of it!” shouts Jack.

Today is a good one for both the men and the whale, as the lines and net fall away. Another Right Whale returns to the deep, free of a man made hazard that has killed so many of his kind.

As the boat recedes into the distance Lucky joins her mom to nurse. Soon she will begin feeding on the copepods.

Lucky, her mom, and fellow whales follow the growth of plankton into southern waters. As Lucky grows, callosities begin to appear. These callous-like formations grow along her head and every Right Whale has a different pattern. This will allow scientist to recognize Lucky when she separates from her mom at the end of the year.

There’s a dark shadow-then sudden pain! Lucky moans. She dives deep to flee the shadow. Lucky has just joined the high percentage of all whales to have a close encounter with a ship at sea. She will wear the scars for the rest of her life. Again, she has been lucky. Had she surfaced, she would have been cut in half by the ship’s keel. There are more ships in the sea and more days when Lucky and her friends will swim in the same waters as the ships travel.

Today, over 60% of the Right Whales spotted by scientist wear scars from either encounters from ships or the cutting force of lines from fishing gear. It is estimated that over a third of the deaths each year can be contributed to these encounters. There is some hope, as people are being trained to release whales from entanglements. The Canadian government has recently changed the shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy by four miles. That change has dramatically reduced ship encounters with whales.

During the fall of 2004, Lucky has lingered longer than usual in the Bay of Fundy. She has come of age. She’s 45 feet long and weighs nearly 30 tons. Like a lot of
young whales, she has stayed longer than normal because of her new interest in males. In a week, she heads south to warmer waters.

“Did you feel that?” asked the Captain.

“Feel what?” replied the First-mate.

“I don’t know, but it felt like we hit a bump!” answered the Captain.

“In the middle of the sea?” asked the First-mate.

“Probably nothing. Continue on the heading to port.” said the Captain.

On January 12, 2005, Lucky is found dead off the coast of Georgia. She was pregnant with her first known calf. Lucky’s luck had run out.