Nonchalantly trots by my truck and down our road in broad daylight.
“Don’t mind me buddy.”
My View of Life on the Dock
Nonchalantly trots by my truck and down our road in broad daylight.
“Don’t mind me buddy.”
An aerial survey team from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission saw the pair just over 7 miles from shore while doing routine surveys of the right whale calving ground. This is optimistic news for the right whale population, which now stands at about 411.
“Every calf gives us hope, and seeing Harmonia, who we’ve watched grow from a calf to a healthy mom, with her third calf is particularly exciting. The future of this species rests on the backs of dependable reproductive females like her,” said Philip Hamilton, a Research Scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.
Harmonia, right whale Catalog #3101, was sighted with her newborn calf about 7 nautical miles off Cumberland Island, GA, on January 2, 2020. Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, taken under NOAA permit 20556-01
For 40 years, the Aquarium’s right whale team has extensively researched and tracked the endangered North Atlantic right whales with the photo-identification catalog it manages. The scientific team monitors the whales’ arrival at breeding and feeding grounds, registering new calves, death rates, and measuring changes in stress and reproductive hormones through scat and blow, or whale’s breath, research developed by the team. The team collaborates with fishermen on new techniques to reduce deadly entanglements in fishing gear, and it works with lawmakers locally and nationally to lobby for protections for the whales.
On Aug. 7, the team collected a sample of Harmonia’s feces in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where she was sighted with two other whales. An analysis of her hormones indicated that she was pregnant. By Nov. 23, she was spotted off the coast of Florida, the first right whale spotted in the Southeast this winter, exciting researchers with hopes that she had migrated to warmer waters to give birth. She was seen again on Dec. 10 off the coast of Georgia by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium aerial survey team.
Harmonia is well-known and well-studied by the New England Aquarium team. She was born in 2001 to parents, Aphrodite and Velcro, who are both thought to still be alive. Harmonia also has at least six half-brothers and two half-sisters. Harmonia has previously given birth to two calves – one in 2009 and another in 2016. Her first calf barely made it past its first year before being struck by a vessel and killed during the summer of 2010. Harmonia’s second calf, “Gully,” is still alive but was discovered in 2018 suffering another major threat to right whales – entanglement in fishing gear, leaving severe wounds and a deep gouge in its head.
As the right whale team has developed its health assessment techniques using blow and scat samples from free-swimming right whales, Harmonia has been an invaluable test case. The team was able to gather two blow samples and one fecal sample from Harmonia in 2015. Those samples showed elevated levels of reproductive hormones, characteristic of pregnancy, and she subsequently gave birth to Gully 10 months later. That finding was pivotal because it was the first proof that a sample of exhaled blow could effectively detect pregnancy.
Looking back on Harmonia’s history, she was one of a handful of calves from 2001 who stayed with her mom into her second year – unlike most calves who are weaned by the end of their first year. Harmonia also gave birth to her first calf three years earlier than average and was pregnant by the age of 7. She’s had two suction cup tags attached to her – the first at age 2 so researchers could understand how she behaved underwater, and the second to assess how she and her calf vocalized. Her blubber thickness has been measured, and she’s been observed by a special aerial camera designed to provide accurate length and width measurement – all in addition to her involvement in the feces and blow hormone studies.
Harmonia has been seen by the Aquarium right whale team in the Bay of Fundy many times and almost every year up until 2011, but has not been seen there since. Due to ocean changes brought on by climate change, few right whales use the Bay of Fundy now. Harmonia is one of the 130 or so right whales that have adapted and now feed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where she has been seen every year since 2015.
“Harmonia” waves her fluke around in the air. Photo: Monica Zani, New England Aquarium/Canadian Whale Institute.
READ MORE HERE:
At Action Inc., our goal is to meet our community’s needs. Every three years, we conduct a community-wide needs assessment to better understand the issues that are most important to Cape Ann residents.
Please take five minutes to complete our survey and tell us the biggest challenges that you see facing Cape Ann residents today. Your input will help us improve our services in the future.
If you provide contact information, you will also be entered into a drawing for one of ten $25 Market Basket gift cards!
Thanks so much for your help!
Survey Links
English:Â actioninc.org/survey
Español: actioninc.org/encuesta
Portugués: actioninc.org/pesquisa
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This is my grandson Cole inside the Lobster Trap Tree. Love how this Lobster Trap Tree brings so much joy.
Happy New Year all you beautiful Mermaids! 🥰
Our next Sea Glass Art Night is almost here!!!
We’ll be creating Custom One-of-a-Kind Sea Glass Art that you’ll be able to take home!
🥪 We’ll also have drinks, food, snacks, and a great group of people to spend time with for the evening! 🍹
Tickets range from $40-60+ depending on the size of the piece that you would like to create, and can be reserved ahead of time!
Everything is included! (Food, Drink, Materials, etc)
You’ll also receive a BONUS Shopping coupon for the night!
We have less than 16 spots left, so be sure to RSVP if you’re interested, before they’re filled!
You’re going to make one of the most amazing nautical pieces of art that you’ve ever seen & get to take it home with you forever!
Join us this Thursday from 7-9pm for live acoustic with Brian Alex, lead singer of Boston’s Entrain. You don’t want to miss it!
When: Thursday January 9th 7-9pm
Where: Mile Marker One Dining Room & Bar (75 Essex Avenue Gloucester)
Details: Free event, make your reservations ahead of time
Learn More Here:
https://capeannmarina.com/event/brain-alex-entrain/2020-01-09/
January 7, 2020 GHS boys basketball home games tonight vs. Beverly
Freshman game at 4pm
JV game at 5:30PM
Varsity at 7:00PM
No doubt you heard yesterday that there was an incident at Rockport Middle School.  As a mother of a seventh grade Rockport student I can tell you that it was a long and emotional day.  It was a day of fear…then gratitude…then more fear….some disbelief, some confusion, some relief, some heartache, some disappointment…and lots of love and appreciation.  It was a night spent reassuring, addressing, soothing, explaining, and…mostly, listening.  As I type this (11:30 last night to post tomorrow…which for you is now today) my twelve year old is asleep in my bed next to me for the first time in, like, forever.
I will tell you quickly how the day unfolded in my little corner of the world and then, if you don’t mind, share with you just why I felt some of the things I did.
Please join us at our state-of-the-art teaching facility in Blackburn Center on Thursday, January 23rd for Gloucester Biotechnology Academy’s first Open House of the year.
Come learn more about this innovative program and how it can lead to an exciting career in biotech!
Applications for the 2021 class will be available, and students, alumni and teachers will be on site to chat with and answer your questions.
Please reach out to Lead Teacher Elizabeth Wing at elizabeth.wing@gmgi.org for more information.
REIKI TRAININGS with Marleen Wood
January 11 & 12 (Saturday & Sunday)
Ayurveda Wellness Healing, 25C Lexington Ave, 2nd Floor, Magnolia, MA
REIKI TRAINING LEVEL 1
Reiki Master Marleen Woodwill offer a class in Level 1 of Usui Reiki training.
Reiki is a Japanese hands-on healing technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. Reiki means Universal Life Energy, the energy that sustains all life. If one’s “life force energy” is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.
The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words – Rei which means “God’s Wisdom or the Higher Power” and Ki which is “life force energy”. So Reiki is actually “spiritually guided life force energy.”
Reiki treats the whole person including body, emotions, mind and spirit creating many beneficial effects…
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