This story is part of a weather partnership with WTKR News 3.
As the temperatures drop, some of Hampton Roads’ biggest part-time residents have made their way offshore.
Kristin Rayfield, a naturalist for Rudee Tours in Virginia Beach, hosts whale-watching tours during the winter months. She said humpback whales are mainly spotted on guided tours, but fin whales and North Atlantic right whales can also be seen off the Virginia Beach coast.
“We see the juveniles because the adults will head all the way down to the breeding grounds, which is down off of Dominican Republic,” Rayfield said. “The juveniles don’t have to go down there yet, so they’re not quite opened up for that. They kind of go where there’s some food for the wintertime. A lot of times, they’ll be right off our coastline here, and we have plenty of fish.”
Rayfield said Rudee Tours’ whale-watching season runs through the end of December into January and February.
“They spend their summer time within their northern breeding grounds, usually off the coast of Massachusetts (or) Canada,” she said. “Then in the wintertime, they’ll migrate south. Those adults are heading down to the Caribbean, and we’re seeing the juveniles that don’t have to head down there.”
Depending on the day, tour guests can see some fan favorites. One is Mojo, a whale who seems to like the area. Rayfield said she’s been spotted nearly every year since 2012, and other spotters have seen her near Newfoundland and the Dominican Republic.
“We have a photo identification with the whales,” Rayfield said. “Our research team will take photos of their tail flukes. Each fluke is completely different with a pattern on the bottom of it. We photograph those to catalog these whales. We’ve been doing it since 2011.
“We have over 310 different humpback whales in our catalog so far, and they migrate south, so we see some of the same whales each year. We’ll see some new ones each year, (and) we’ll have a few that we repeat visitors. We have some that we’ve seen lots of years in a row and some that we only see one time.”
However, as temperatures across the world rise, environmental shifts can change how the whales migrate. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, how climate change impacts whales’ bodies is unknown, but warmer temperatures do impact their habitat.
“Most notably, the timing and distribution of sea ice coverage is changing dramatically with altered oceanographic conditions,” the administration said in a report on the species. “Any resulting changes in prey distribution could lead to changes in foraging behavior, nutritional stress, and diminished reproduction for humpback whales. Additionally, changing water temperature and currents could impact the timing of environmental cues important for navigation and migration.”
A 2022 report from the Marine Mammal Commission said scientists began recognizing how climate change may affect marine mammals by the 1990s. The report states humpback whales could have earlier arrivals at feeding grounds in warmer years, which is associated with higher risk of entanglement.
The NOAA reported that there is evidence to suggest that most humpback whales experience entanglement over the course of their lives, and they are often able to shed the gear on their own. However, no one knows how many whales become entangled and do not survive.
Rayfield said each whale-watching season is different, and some seasons have 100% of trips seeing whales. Most of the time, thought, she estimated that about 80% of trips out on the water get to see a whale. For trips that don’t, tour goers can receive a voucher for a future tour.
“Here, we see them the colder temperature water, so in the 40s and 50s (temperature) waters. (The whales are in the area) whenever the fish are here for them.”
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com
