Biologists and researchers are asking for the public’s help in
keeping track of a North Atlantic right whale mother and her
newborn calf, first sighted off Plymouth Jan. 12. The pair was
seen by researchers off Plymouth Harbor Monday afternoon (Jan.
21), prior to a winter storm, but they were not sighted in
surveys by land Thursday or Friday, Regina Asmutis-Silvia of
Whale and Dolphin Conservation said Friday afternoon. The
mother, known as “Wart,” and the three-week-old calf have drawn
great interest from North Atlantic right whale specialists
because calves are typically born in warmer waters off Georgia
and Florida in the winter, and they typically don’t appear in
Cape Cod Bay until the spring. The pair has been seen within a
mile of the shore, from the Cape Cod Canal to north of Plymouth
Harbor, Asmutis-Silvia said. Right whales remain low in the
water and blow out a V-shaped mist. The adult whales have white
patches, called callosities, on their head. The youngest calves
don’t have the white patches and