© Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod TimesOfficials with the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service examine a right whale calf that was found floating off Chatham Thursday.
A North Atlantic right whale calf, one of just 14 born this winter off Georgia, was found dead Thursday in the channel between mainland Chatham and Monomoy Island.
Chatham Harbormaster Stuart Smith said he was notified of the whale Thursday morning. Deputy Harbormaster Jason Holm and Wharfinger Mike Ryder located it drifting in the channel off Morris Island and pushed it ashore near the Stage Harbor Light. They reported the whale appeared to have been hit by a vessel and there was no sign of entanglement in line or gear, Smith said.
The whale, which had died recently, is between 27 and 28 feet long and had been identified earlier this year by the New England Aquarium, said Misty Niemeyer, necropsy coordinator for the Yarmouth Port-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, which responded to examine the whale in Thursday's spitting rain.
The calf was last spotted in Cape Cod Bay on April 28 with its mother "Punctuation." Most right whales left the bay as the spring plankton bloom waned. The calf found Thursday was first seen January 12 off Georgia with its mother, according to National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman Jennifer Goebel. Punctuation is a successful mother who has given birth to eight calves, Goebel said. Two, including the one found Thursday, have died in their first year.
