Humpback Whale Encounter in the Moray Firth
July 24, 2001

On the evening of Tuesday 24th July whilst on a routine minke whale survey along the Southern Moray Firth, biologists from the Cetacean Research & Rescue Unit had a truly amazing experience when they encountered an 11.5 metre adult humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), just 3 miles from the coastline of the outer Firth!!!

The team spent a breathtaking two and half hours with the gentle giant as it approached our 5 metre inflatable boat on several occasions, rolling on its side to look up at us through the turbid water. With hearts in our mouths, we watched the magnificent creature in disbelief as we recorded its dive sequence and photographed the huge whale. We knew we were witnessing something quite unique...

Humpbacks are rare visitors to British waters. To our knowledge, there has only been one previous sighting of a humpback whale in the Moray Firth in recent years, in April 1982 (P.G.H. Evans, pers. comm.). Indeed, a review of the stranding archives for Scotland dating back to 1967 has revealed no records of humpback whale strandings ever occurring in this area of the North Sea. In the UK, humpback whales are most commonly found along the continental shelf and Atlantic frontier - from the Shetlands, along the north West Coast of Ireland and down to the St. George's Channel between Southern Ireland and the Welsh mainland. There have also been reports of the species in the Firth of Forth in NE Scotland, and several years ago an individual made its way up the Clyde Estuary towards Greenock (Port Glasgow), although no identification photographs of the tail flukes of this animal were obtained.

A comparison of the photographs we took with pictures of other humpbacks encountered in the UK has revealed no match at present. Digital images of the tail flukes and dorsal fin have since been sent to Judy Allen at the Marine Mammal Laboratory in the College of the Atlantic, Maine USA to identify this whale from the thousands of animals on file in the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalogue. As you can imagine, she was very excited to hear from us!

The latest news to date is that the animal has been identified from a population of animals being studied in Greenland!