One of the whale research organizations that we support and that crew work for, the Marine Education and Research Society, is the coordinator for a massive library of humpback whales on Canada’s Pacific coast (the Canadian Pacific Humpback Collaboration).
One gap area in their library is the identification of whales that spend time in Haida Gwaii waters. If you have photos of humpback whales from any of our trips in Haida Gwaii, they could be of use to science!
Now is a particularly important time to receive information on whales, because the species is up for re-evaluation of its COSEWIC status, which is currently set at of Special Concern.
MERS would love your photo of one or humpbacks from Haida Gwaii! You can submit it to them using the instructions on this page:
https://www.mersociety.org/data
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- – State that the photo was taken in Gwaii Haanas (or wherever you were when you took it).
- – The photo needs to be of the underside of the tail (Not the top side) and/or the dorsal fin (fin on the whale’s back).
- – Even half of the underside is useful.
- – See the other instructions at the link above.
- – Photos from any year in history is fine. We submitted some from 2007 recently.
Thank you!
