US Navy
Marine Species Monitoring
2024-2025 Large Whale Season Summary
As we are deep into our “baleen whale season” here in the Mid-Atlantic, we thought it would be a good time to do a quick summary of what we’ve been up to. It’s been a busy season of field work with a couple dozen days of vessel and aerial surveys out looking for whales and still more to come as we approach the end of right whale migrations typically in April but potentially extending into May and even beyond. We are also excited to begin working with the Scientific Development Squadron (VXS-1) at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to conduct some of our aerial surveys with their De Havilland Twin Otter aircraft – considered to be the “gold standard” for marine mammal aerial surveys.
Navy pilots and civilian marine mammal observers with the VXS-1 Twin Otter.
We have two separate efforts focusing on cetaceans off the coast of Virginia. The first is our Offshore (Outer Continental Shelf) Cetacean Study, which focuses primarily on deep diving odontocetes like sperm whales. Four surveys have taken place as part of this effort recently--one in September 2024, two in late February 2025, and one in March 2025. We do observe some seasonality offshore, and as expected, no sperm whales were sighted on the September survey, but there were sightings of bottlenose and spotted dolphins, pilot whales, and loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles. The late winter sightings have included a fin whale, Risso’s dolphins, common dolphins, sperm whales, and also humpback whales on the transits from/to shore. Of course there is always the chance that an offshore survey will turn into a right whale day and we had this very situation in March when our aerial survey team spotted a group of six right whales 30NM inshore of the shelf break while the vessel team was working offshore.
The second effort is our Nearshore and Mid-Shelf Baleen Whale Monitoring Project. There have been twenty-two nearshelf and mid-shelf surveys since November, often with accompanying aerial surveys helping to cover more area, with sightings of mainly humpback whales, although a handful of fin whales, NARWs, and minke whales as well.
North Atlantic right whale monitoring, conservation and protection is a major initiative of the monitoring program, with increasing focus and investments over the past few years. NARWs were spotted this season mainly during Mid-shelf surveys, or on the transits out to the shelf break. Frequently, we’ve seen groups of surface active or socializing whales—most recently on 10 March with that sighting of a group of six—five males with one female. While photo-identification analysis is always ongoing, our team has documented at least 25 uniquely-identified individuals so far this season. One notable individual is #4540 accompanied by her first know calf in late December – quite unusual for a newborn to be observed this far north that early in the calving season.
Three of the six North Atlantic right whales sighted on the 10 March 2025 aerial survey. Photo by Todd Pusser. Taken under NMFS Scientific Research Permit #28184
The near real-time acoustic buoy has also had detections of all four whale species it tracks (humpback, sei, fin, NARW), and detections of NARW have triggered seven 15-day duration voluntary “slow zones” since December 2024, where vessels 65 feet or greater are asked to slow to speeds less than 10 knots when transiting through the area. Additionally, buoy detections allowed our field team to conduct focused area searches during vessel and aerial surveys, and ultimately a tag deployed on at least one occasion.
While the majority of the baleen whales will likely head out of the area soon, if you’ve been following this blog, you know the whales could pop up in the Mid-Atlantic when we least expect them, so check back often!
Known Individual NARW Sighted in 2025
- 1706
- 2023CalfOf1711
- 2024 calf of #3320
- 2406-Hammer
- 2795
- 3232-Lobster
- 3310- Neptune*
- 3401/Tux
- 3423-Epic
- 3545*
- 3821 Zigzag*
- 3903
- 3934
- 3950 (adult male)
- 4146
- 4220-Kermit
- 4360-Muskateer
- 4501
- 4523-Beaker*
- 4540 & calf
- 4980-Coral
- 5012*
- 5104-Wall-E
- 5190
The * indicates whales that have been sighted on our surveys in previous years.
