A difficult autumn…

For the past two weeks, the weather has not been on our side. A significant number of days of field work were cut short due to the fog and, even when the latter lifted, the wind soon became too strong to take photos or biopsies.

Despite everything, we did luck out with a few nice days, notably in the downstream area in the vicinity of Île aux Pommes and Île aux Basques. We encountered herds of roughly sixty individuals, mainly adults and juveniles. Among them were several animals with distinctive markings from which we were able to take biopsy samples.

For our last week in the field for 2017, we cross our fingers that Mother Nature will cooperate and help us finish the season on a positive note.

Preliminary identifications of the past two weeks

Dl9038 Leucas
Dl9046
Dl9031 Dorothy
Dl0169 Blanchon
Dl1355 Pacalou
Dl1508
Dl0021 Yogi
Dl1396 Aquabelle
Dl0030 Athéna
 The complete list of identified belugas requires meticulous efforts to match individuals, which will be undertaken once the field season has come to a close.
Field Notes - 11/10/2017

Équipe du GREMM

Led by scientific director Robert Michaud, the research team of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals (GREMM) studies St. Lawrence beluga whales and large rorquals (humpback, blue and fin whales) at sea. The Bleuvet and the BpJAM leave the port of Tadoussac every morning to gather valuable information on the life of the whales of the St. Lawrence Estuary.

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