In an extraordinary event, the New England Aquarium airborne survey team recently sighted a grey whale off the coast of New England, a species that was declared extinct in the Atlantic over 200 years ago.
According to the New England Aquarium aerial survey team, on a routine flight 30 miles south of Nantucket on March 1, scientists noticed an unusual whale feeding through repeated dives and resurfacing.
Orla O’Brien, an associate research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, characterized the incident as follows: “I didn’t want to say out loud what it was because it seemed crazy.” The researchers circled the area for 45 minutes, taking further photographs that proved the whale’s identity as a grey whale.
Astonished by the sighting, Research Technician Kate Laemmle described her experience, stating: “My brain was trying to process what I was seeing because this animal was something that should not exist in these waters.”
Grey whales, renowned for their distinctive traits such as a lack of a dorsal fin, mottled grey and white skin, and dorsal hump, became extinct in the Atlantic Ocean by the 18th century.
