Watchers hope for happy ending
Adolescent marine mammal has not been seen breaching since Monday evening
Off the coast of Old Montreal, the unprecedented sight of a humpback whale breaching in the surging waters of the St. Lawrence has come as a welcome distraction for pandemic-weary urbanites.
But alongside the wonder runs a current of fear things could turn out badly, and hope the wayward tourist will return to his or her proper home 400 kilometres downstream before it’s too late.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Charlotte Nadeau, one of hundreds of whale watchers on the boardwalk near the Clock Tower in Montreal’s Old Port Wednesday, many with children. They “oohed” and “aaahed” each time the whale surfaced as close as 100 metres offshore, near enough to hear it spout.
“It’s so rare that I can see something like this, so close and from land,” Nadeau said. “But, at the same time, I’m worried for her safety.”
Nadeau and friend Karine Lapointe are among a handful of volunteers conscripted to work on a “whale surveillance team,” recording the whale’s movements and that of boats in the region for the Whales Online monitoring site run by the Quebec Marine Mammal Emergency Network.
Nadeau is certain COVID-19 is responsible for the humpback’s appearance here since Saturday because the pandemic diminished boat and shipping traffic that would normally have scared it off.
No one is certain why the adolescent — two to three years old and, at 10 metres long and 30 tonnes, slightly shorter and twice as heavy as a city bus — decided to become the first humpback known to have visited Montreal. It might have decided to venture from its normal summer home upstream close to Tadoussac or along the North Coast in the Gaspé to seek food sources away from adult competition, said Marie-ève Muller, a spokesperson for the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals based in Tadoussac.
“But it could also be disoriented, or lost,” she added.
There is also the possibility that it made a mistake, said whale expert Richard Sears, a St-lambert resident who has run the Mingan Island Cetacean Study centre for St. Lawrence marine mammals for 41 years. Or that it’s not overly bright. A humpback dubbed Humphrey deviated from its usual Mexico to Alaska migration and ended up in San Francisco Bay — twice. Unlike other whales, humpbacks appear to be curious and congenial, sometimes rising up to see what’s inside a boat, or snuggling up beside it. But it is hard, Sears noted, to truly get inside the mind of a humpback.
So far, Montreal’s whale appears healthy and its repeated, physically demanding breaching is considered a good sign. Whales may breach for a variety of reasons, including as a hunting technique, or to communicate to other humpbacks that are in the region, or to develop their physical strength. Mother whales teach their young how to do it.
But Montreal’s whale has not been seen breaching since Monday evening.
“It’s possible it’s feeling stress,” Muller said. “It’s not living in its normal home, it’s not in the same water, it’s not with the same prey, there is traffic around it, there is noise.”
Experts worry it could be struck by a vessel. Montreal police and the coast guard are keeping close watch, advising boaters to stay at least 100 metres away.
Although they are salt water animals, humpbacks can live in fresh water for weeks, but may develop skin diseases that could become infected. They are eaters of krill and our visitor could be eating small local fish, but no one is sure.
“If it does stay here for too long it could get weaker and perish,” Sears said.
Whales have been known to swim up rivers, and in most cases turn around and head home of their own volition. Benny the Beluga made it to within 30 kilometres of London in 2018, cavorting in the Thames River for three months before heading back to the North Atlantic. Sometimes they don’t. A fin whale that swam as far as Montreal in 1980 never left and eventually died.
Attempts to entice whales home in the past, either by making loud noises or broadcasting the sound of their predators, killer whales, have not been successful and could stress the animals, Muller said.
In this case, the hope is that our visitor will stay another week or two to take in the sights, then ride the St. Lawrence Express back to the comforting waters of home.