On Monday, February 3, our team departed Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on a routine North Atlantic right whale aerial survey. Our plan: to fly over pre-established survey track lines off of New York City—the only available survey area with calm winds. Not in our plan: waking up to 4 inches of snow and low clouds, delaying our departure, and finding a new mom and calf North Atlantic right whale pair!
We made the 1-hour transit flight over a snowy Cape Cod and down to New York City. All was quiet until we passed two right whales off the right side of the plane. We broke our survey lines to photograph them and noticed right away that one was small. A quick check with the binoculars revealed that it was a mom and a very small calf. It was the smallest calf most of us have ever seen in the Northeast.
At this time of year, mother and calf right whale pairs are usually in the calving grounds off Florida and Georgia. That’s why spotting one so far north is very unusual. We photographed the pair and tried to identify the mom based on her callosity pattern—the way we identify all right whales. At the time we knew seven mother and calf pairs had already been spotted in the calving grounds. We wondered, “Are we looking at one of those pairs, or is this mom previously undocumented?” The calf rolled around over mom’s back and then slipped off, revealing a series of very familiar propeller scars behind mom’s blowholes. We shouted into our headsets, “It’s Accordion!”
Accordion, #4150 in the New England Aquarium’s Catalog, is indeed a newly documented mom. This is her first calf and the 8th known for the 2025 season! Accordion was first sighted in 2011 as a juvenile. She is named for the series of propeller scars on her back that make her so recognizable.
The excitement in the plane was sky high—pun intended—as we continued to circle around and photograph her and her new calf. None of us had this sighting on our bingo card today! And we had many questions. How old is the calf? Accordion hasn’t been seen since last July 2024 off of Hudson Canyon. Where has she been? Where did she give birth?
We then turned our attention to five container ships anchored nearby. These ships weren't moving, but Accordion and her calf were in the middle of the very busy New York shipping lanes.
Every year, mother and calf pairs navigate north from Florida and Georgia. They must pass every major shipping port on the East Coast of the United States. Sadly, they don’t all make it. Slow Zones encouraging mariners to reduce speed near the coast help reduce the risk of vessel strikes, but whales still remain vulnerable.
On this occasion, we reached out to our colleagues at the U.S. Coast Guard to issue a broadcast notice to mariners in the area to slow down. As we continued south on our survey line, we hoped Accordion and her calf would safely move on from the area.
Once we got back to Cape Cod, we shared the exciting news with our colleagues in the Southeast. They estimated Accordion’s calf was about 3 to 4 weeks old. Where she gave birth is still a big mystery. We hope to document them again later this spring.
