Nuzzling the shoreline with the curiosity and daring that made its ancestors easy prey for whalers, a young right whale is swimming slowly northward along the East Coast toward Martha’s Vineyard.
Last month, NOAA declared an Unusual Mortality Event for pinnipeds, a group of aquatic mammals that include seals.
Knowledge of the Atlantic great white shark has been relegated for too long to the fevered imaginations of nervous beachgoers and boaters. With the animals returning to the New England coastline in larger numbers, one state scientist with Vineyard roots is bringing that understanding out of the realm of the mythical and uncovering fascinating insights into this elusive two-ton, apex predator’s behavior.
There’s nothing worse than getting sick in the summer, and no group knows that better than the Island seal population which hopes to shake off a mysterious illness that has brought several weary seals ashore to die over the past couple months.
