When most people look out the window of an airplane, they admire the fluffy clouds floating slowly past them. But when observers at the New England Aquarium’s aerial survey look from a plane, they are scouring the seas for marine animals swimming far below. And on August 16, the team received a great reward. While flying over the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, they observed more than 2,000 animals from 15 different marine species. The Atlantic Ocean marine sanctuary, 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, was designated in 2016. It includes four seamounts and three deep-sea canyons, landmarks where many different animals feed. Blue whales are the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth. Image: New England Aquarium. “The diversity of sightings was truly remarkable and a testament to why the Monument is such a special habitat,” Katherine McKenna, a researcher at the aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, said in a statement. “From regular visitors such as dolphins and sperm whales, to large baleen whales attracted by aggregations of zooplankton, and whale sharks and manta rays that follow the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the Monument brings together an incredible variety of marine life.” Anderson Cabot Center scientists documented 1,800 dolphins, an endangered sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), an endangered fin whale (Balaenoptera). physalus) mother with one calf, 11 whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), manta rays (genus Mobula), devil rays (genus Mobula), Chilean devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) and hammerhead sharks (genus Sphyrna). Just beyond the sanctuary, they also recorded an endangered blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) and a small group of endangered fin whales. Manta rays can have a wingspan of up to 26 feet. Image: New England Aquarium. “Seeing a variety of threatened and endangered species actively feeding at the Monument was particularly memorable and underlines the importance of protecting this productive habitat,” McKenna added. The Trump Administration has recently allowed commercial fishing in the Monument. During the aquarium’s previous aerial survey of this special habitat in July, scientists identified nearly 650 animals, including more than 600 dolphins, endangered sperm whales, a whale shark, and 23 pilot whales (genus Globicephala). A 2022 study, written primarily by researchers at the Anderson Cabot Center, showed that the habitat supports a diverse and distinct group of marine mammals.
