To Contact Us:

The Foundation for Center for Research of Whales
8810 West Skagit, Kennewick, WA 99336
Dr. James Lehmann
Phone 1-509-240-5029
Email: edecuador@yahoo.com

Website created and maintained by A.NYC

Currently, there have been approximately 1,500 individual whales identified in Ecuadorian waters. The majority of these whales travel from the Antarctic, returning to Ecuadorian waters for breeding during the months of June, July, August and September due to the warmer waters…and the abundance of food?...or just the warmer waters?. These months are their breeding months where multiple behavior characteristics associated with breeding will occur, such as….. While the majority of the whales come from the Antarctic, a few have been identified as coming from other Pacific pods such as those found around the Hawaiian islands. It is important to identify individual whales in order to study whale social behavior, history, migratory movement patterns, etc.

Much like humans have a fingerprint that stays with them for life, whales too have something similar to a ‘fingerprint’. Marks, scars and pigmentation can be found on the ventral surface of a whale’s fluke (the underside of the tail). These marks are individualistic, with no two whales having the same coloration or patterns, not to mention scars or other marks that might occur within their life.

These scars or deformations can come from a variety of sources. For instance, some humpbacks have huge portions of their tails missing due to sharks or killer whales (most likely occurring when they were calves). Other whales have scars caused by rock scrapings, barnacles, fishing nets, or boat engines, to name a few.
Researchers classify whales into one of nine broad categories depending on the pigmentation in the fluke. See if you can use the table to the left and classify any of the tails below......

Since they are mammals, whales need to surface in order to breathe. After surfacing, whales will dive and many times expose the underside of their fluke. It is at this time during field research that researchers can capture the pigmentation patterns using digital photography. Later during data analysis, the whale tails are classified(?) according to the broad pigmentation patterns. Thus a tail that has a predominately while ventral fluke will be in a different category than one having a predominately black spotted ventral fluke. This does not mean that certain whales are different from others in any way other the means by which they are identified.

Calves usually will have a milky-white ventral fluke until one or two years of age, which can make it difficult to distinguish one calf from another. Therefore, another approach researchers use to identify individual whales is to look at the dorsal fin (the small fin found on the back) and any additional body scarring. For instance, the dorsal fin might be severely scarred on one or both sides, or the fin might have a notch or nick on it. In either case, it is best to identify humpbacks using the ventral fluke method.
Breaching, while an awesome sight, will not always be beneficial to researchers who are looking to best identify the whale.