There was a moment when Christine Gabriele was wondering whether she would ever be able to see one of her favourite creatures ever again.
The female humpback whale, aged 42, is known as whale #219 by Gabriele and the other biologists from Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve — was absent from her preferred Icy Strait herring-fishing grounds in Alaska.
There was no sign of the whale for two years.
Gabriele worried about the most dire. The heat wave that occurred from 2014 to 2016 that sweltered up the Gulf of Alaska and North Pacific Ocean caused the death of sea birds in large numbers. The researchers also observed a nosedive among that of the Alaska populations of whales known as humpbacks. It was due to warmer water which did not favor smaller fish and krill that seabirds and marine mammals consume.
As she drove in the direction of whale survey within Glacier Bay, Gabriele hoped.
One late July day, Gabriele’s friend Janet Neilson spotted a familiar whale tail in Icy Strait, just southeast of Glacier Bay. The number was 2219.
“I was so thrilled,” Gabriele said recently from her office in Gustavus, Alaska, just before stepping into her vessel for a whale survey in the late hours of August 2023. “She is very special to me. She was one of the first whales I was able to recognize when I began my career as an whale biologist in the early 1990s.”
The whale, mom of 13 or more calves that that biologists have observed in Alaska waters throughout time, displayed characteristics that could serve her well during tough times.
“She’s exceptionally unflappable and solid and quiet. She’s calm,” Gabriele said.
While 219 has dramatically increased the population of whales over the same time span to that of a human however, she did not have a baby calf along with the whale in 2014. This was fortunate.
“Females who had a baby during the initial phase of this heat wave were finding it difficult,” Gabriele said. “Gestation and lactation require a lot of energy therefore they started out in a low state.”
Despite the fact that 219 made its way to the warmer season during which the waters in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean were 4 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the norm between California through in the Gulf of Alaska — she seemed stressed.
“In the years 2018 and ’19, she appeared thin and her skin was sagging,” Gabriele said. “We saw her shoulders, because of her thinness. I’d bet on her having was unable to reproduce during the heat wave in the ocean, left for a different place and returned looking a mess.”
It is believed that the Alaska Humpback Whales travel between the Pacific Ocean in summer months and Hawaii or Mexico during winter. Gabriele believes that 219 could have had enough food outside of Alaska during the summers that she was not able to find in Icy Strait.
“I don’t know exactly where she went but she was forced to find a way of doing things differently,” Gabriele said.
Baleen whales such as the humpback are incredibly speed up their migration. December, January and the first part in February, the humpbacks are able to be able to survive on fat reserves. However, they depend on abundant food as they return to Alaska waters in spring.
Gabriele and her coworkers have estimated the Glacier Bay humpbacks declined by more than half in the current heat wave in the ocean. Then, in the years the period from 2019 to 2023, Whale population within the region has stabilized around 70% of its former amount.
“It really was a shock for me to watch this stable population of whales fall apart,” she said. “I discovered how closely the whales and me are to the chain of food. My dinner plate isn’t much distance from the whales’.
Gabriele mentions that biologists have conducted the humpback population study each year since 1985 with the same technique: taking pictures of the whales’ tailseach one as distinct as a fingerprint when the whales dive. This has enabled biologists to in telling the story of the whales.
“Lately the sad story to share, but I’m grateful we’re able tell it,” she said.
The bright side is that Gabriele said she as well as Neilson have recorded 11 calves during the summer of 2023. This is “a decent number.” When the calves come back in the future, the females in them will be able to produce their own calves to the group, which increases the population.
Yes! They have also observed and captured 219 during the course of this season. The familiar gray-black form that is arcing across blue Alaska waters brings peace to those who know her.
“When whales are healthy and we’re doing well,” Gabriele said.
