An endangered Northern Right whale and her calf were sighted in Corpus Christi Bay, heading up the bay's shipping channel.
"It's an absolute mystery how they got here," Tony Amos, a research fellow at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, told the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times.
Amos said the the mother was about 45 feet long and about 60 tons. The calf, about 15 to 20 feet long, had two cuts on its back and appeared to be suckling.
Amos said Monday he notified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has a group that deals with endangered whales.
Northern Right whales seek warmer waters in winter off the coasts of Georgia and Florida. They were designated an endangered species in 1973.
The whales got their name because they were a popular target of whalers and floated when they were dead, making retrieval easier, and therefore making them the "right" whales to go after, according to information from NOAA.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Related stories:
Sperm Whales in Gulf Seemingly Unaffected by Distant Seismic Sounds
A six-year study on sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico – designed to learn more about their abundance, migration patterns and behavior – suggests that long-range seismic sounds associated with oil and gas exploration and production don’t significantly affect the whales’ movement at distances greater than five kilometers, or about three miles.
Study helps preserve Arctic whale, Eskimo subsistence hunt
Research on one of the oldest-living mammals - the bowhead whale - has helped preserve a primary food source for Eskimos in the far reaches of Alaska, and also may provide a useful tool for studying genetic variation in other migratory animals.
Deadlines set for designating polar bear habitat
(AP) -- The federal government will designate "critical habitat" for polar bears off Alaska's coast, a decision that could add restrictions to future offshore petroleum exploration or drilling.
Whale songs are heard for the first time around New York City waters
For the first time in waters surrounding New York City, the beckoning calls of endangered fin, humpback and North Atlantic right whales have been recorded, according to experts from the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
UNH researchers tag first-ever free-swimming leatherback turtles in New England
University of New Hampshire researchers have tagged one male and two female leatherback turtles off Cape Cod. They are the first free-swimming leatherbacks ever tagged in New England.
Is it too late to save the great migrations?
Long gone are the days when hundreds of thousands of bison grazed the Great Plains, millions of passenger pigeons darkened the skies while migrating to and from their breeding grounds, and some 12.5 trillion Rocky Mountain locusts crowded an area exceeding the size of California. The subject of great migrations—lost and still to be saved—is explored in two new articles published online today in the open-access journal
PLoS Biology.
Big babies and small families make evolutionary sense
(PhysOrg.com) -- Macquarie University researchers have discovered and modelled the key factors responsible for offspring and family size.
Passports for penguins
Ground-breaking technology that will enable biologists to identify and monitor large numbers of endangered animals, from butterflies to whales, without being captured, will be shown to the public for the first time at this year's Royal Society Summer Science exhibition [30 June to 3 July].