MEET PIANO! This beautiful humpback whale was born in 2009 down in Caribbean waters and has returned to Cape Cod in each of the last four years. Her mother is called Springboard. PIANO has survived a ship strike (2011) a disentanglement from fishing gear (2012) and likely other predatory threats in her young life. How do we know all this? Dedicated researchers at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts have been performing research on humpback whales for decades and particularly studying our population known as Gulf of Maine humpbacks.
Long-term studies of individual humpback whales provide an important window into this amazing species. Whales like PIANO are not only well-loved by whale watchers but also key to their understanding of humpback whale biology, ecology and threats. Thanks to more than three decades of research by CCS and their collaborators, the Gulf of Maine humpback whale population is the most well-studied in the world. The results of their research here have been applied to studies of humpback whales world-wide, and new techniques for studying large whales are routinely developed and ground-truthed with their extensive data sets. The knowledge that they share with managers helps to guide protection measures for this endangered species.
Please consider supporting this critically important research on the Gulf of Maine population of Humpback Whales currently underway at the Center for Coastal Studies on Cape Cod. Consider joining us in supporting this work with a donation by accessing the link below. http://www.razoo.com/story/Support-Humpback-Whale-Research