Eubalaenea glacialis
Eubalaenea glacialis – The North Atlantic right whale – is among the most endangered whales in the world today and is protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and Canada’s Species at Risk act.
There are bout 400 individuals in existence in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The North Atlantic right whale spend their time between feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea and their winter calving areas of Georgia and Florida.
We named our project « Expedition Glacialis » to honor this mythical and endangered whale.
By the early 1890s, commercial whalers had hunted right whales in the Atlantic to the brink of extinction. Eubaleana Glacialis are still threatened today because they tend to get trapped in fishing gear and are often subject strike with vessels.
As the Arctic warms these dangerous encounters will become more common in their summer feeding grounds so it was important for us to adopt this beautiful whale as our projects mascot.
Will we have the chance to spot it again?
We hope through our visual, acoustic and thermal study to be able to improve the detection of this fascinating species and contribute to its protection by helping to delineate approach areas for boats and strengthen marine protected areas.
We will work closely with OGSL to notify visual sightings and with the bioacoustics lab of the University of Barcelona to document the acoustic signature of the whale. With Merinov and te device of BsB Marine if we have the chance to see a Glacialis, we will help to match the thermic detection with the species identification.
On the NOAA website you can find informations about The North Atlantic Right Whale and see their implemented caution zone for vessels.
You can listen to their sound real-time on Cornell bioacoustics portal.