Grand Manan Whale & Seabird Research Station
GMWSRS 24 Route 776 E5G 1A1 Grand Manan, NB, Canada

Thanks CWRT and everyone else who made this work. It is great to see the process work from reporting to responding, especially in late December.

We are pleased to announce that our Executive Director, Laurie Murison, will be receiving an honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of New Brunswick, recognizing her life work studying marine life in the lower Bay of Fundy, public science education and conservation of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

We have started putting temperature tags on lobsters as well as the identification tag. The data from the temperature tag can be downloaded to a smart phone with Bluetooth by following the instructions on the three pages. It is best to download the app ahead of time. If you are uncomfortable with downloading the data or are unable to get the app, you can also carefully remove the tag, keep it in a secure place and contact Heather by text or phone 910-232-9567 or leave a message at 506-662-3804. She will arrange for the pickup of the tag. Thanks.

The beginning of the right whale calving season - 2 live calves (a neonate was found dead earlier). Hoping for lots more.

Very sad considering the declining right whale population but hopefully there will be more calves coming. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov//first-known-north-atlantic

Lobster tagging study 2020-21 We are continuing with our berried lobster tag study this year. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far we couldn’t do this without your help! As of October 24, 2020, we have put out >1500 yellow tags, and have had almost 600 tag reports, from 369 individual lobsters. Many lobsters were recaptured close to where they were tagged, but we did have a few (see map) who went a bit farther afield... One female traveled 260 nm (> 480km) during Nov 19 to August 8, moving SW into the Gulf of Maine (purple dot in left bottom corner of map). We heard from >60 boats in LFA 38, 36, 35, 34, and Maine. This year: we will continue to deploy yellow ziptie tags, each with a unique number. This year the tags say GMWSRS TXT 910-232-9567 which is Heather’s iphone we learned from last year that this was the easiest way for most people to report tags. If you see a tagged lobster, please text her with the tag number and location of capture at that cell number. The easiest way is to take a snapshot of the tag number (see photo above) and one of your plotter, and text those to Heather’s iphone. You can also call the research station landline at 506-662-3804, or email Heather at [email protected]. NEW this year: we are trying to see exactly which bottom temperatures berried females prefer. We are going to attach small temperature loggers to some females. WE NEED TO GET THESE TAGS BACK TO GET THE DATA, so if you see one of these grey thermal tags, please remove it from the lobster and text Heather at 910-232-9567, and we will figure out how to get the tag from you. Thanks everyone! Have a safe fishing season!

We haven't had very good weather this summer to look for basking sharks (fog and wind) but have gotten one 5-day archival tag deployed and recovered after it came off a shark. Zooplankton sampling is going well but no right whales in the Grand Manan Basin where we monitor the zooplankton and temperature profile. Our newest boat is pictured here - Xiphias - with our intern Rachel Forbes and researchers Drs. Heather Koopman and Andrew Westgate.

Great story about the storm petrels on Kent Island and what can be done during a pandemic to collect data. https://www.birdscanada.org/storm-petrel-research-continues/ Our researchers are back and hoping to start collecting data soon after their required 2-week self-isolation. Basking sharks and zooplankton are top priority to see what is happening this year. As with storm petrels, long-term studies are critical to understanding the diversity and change occurring in the Bay of Fundy.

We thought it was high time for an update on the female lobster study! Thanks again to everyone who is participating and reporting in tags for us. Since November, we have deployed >1450 tags, and received >470 reports back, for almost 300 individual lobsters. A few of them have been caught several times, and we even have one who has been hauled up 8 times (she likes traps, apparently!). We are hearing from a lot of you in LFA 38, but also a few fishers in LFA 36, Nova S...cotia, and even Maine. Thanks to everyone who has been passing Heather's cell phone number along (910-232-9567) - it makes it easy to text the information. A large majority of the lobsters are being caught right where they were tagged, or very close to that, but we have had a few interesting returns that we wanted to share. Remember that these points don't tell us exactly where each lobster was for the fall, winter, and spring, but just where she was tagged and where someone has seen her recently. Tag #85, tagged Nov 21, 2019 and recaptured June 12, 2020 is moving to shallow water up the Bay. Tag # 1258, tagged June 1, 2020 and recaptured June 10, 2020 is moving to shallow water near the island. And finally, tag #76, tagged Nov 19, 2019 and recaptured June 16, 2020 has moved to Maine. We plan to continue this study for at least the next three years. In the meantime, please keep sending in your tag reports - even through the summer. We hope that everyone is staying safe and that we will get back to normal soon. Thanks everyone!

Nice to see that Calvin and her 2020 calf has made it to Massachusetts.