Baleines Spm Frag'iles

Roger Etcheberry tells us the facts:

 "It all started on a bright afternoon in late summer, September 16, 1983, where we watched a few blows off the rocks of the Eastern Miquelon. This is where we decided to go watch them more closely. The next morning we left Miquelon, in a 11 foot boat "LE FURET" belonging to Michel Borotra,. The weather was wonderful, glassy sea, not a whisper of wind. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by about 40 whales: humpback, minke, finback, all busy gorging on shrimp to build up reserves before fasting in the warm Caribbean waters during winter. That day we only managed a single photo of a Humpback whale tail fluke (with a 50mm lens), but this photo became important!    We sent it to Jon Lien, well known in Newfoundland for his research on these animals and the group he has put in place to deliver them from the nets of fishermen. He  established a contact for us with Allied Whale, a research group located in Bar Harbor, Maine United States. Many slides were sent to them in the following years. We knew that the pattern of the ventral side of the tail flukes of a  humpback whale was unique to each individual, much like our fingerprints. We soon learned from ALLIED WHALE that this first photo was of a known whale, photographed six months earlier, on March 10, off Puerto Rico by Dave Matila. This animal has travelled extensively, having performed a journey hitherto little known to science: 

 Þ in July 1989: Greenland 

Þ April 1990: Gulf of Maine 
Þ Summer 1992: Greenland (you know it is a female). " 

For several decades now the database of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon has been enriched by the observers who attest to this regular presence of these mammals in our waters. Here the species recorded locally. This list confirms that the archipelago is of great interest to observe the wildlife.