The minke whale that traveled up the St. Lawrence for more than 450 kilometers was still in Montreal late Tuesday evening. He also spent the whole day very close to the shore of Sainte-Hélène Island, without showing the slightest sign indicating that he could go back downstream, and possibly his natural habitat.
According to what has been observed The dutythe young cetacean, about three to four meters in length, remained all day in the same area, located right next to the sculpture three discs, of Calder, less than 10 meters from the shore. At this place, as in the Le Moyne channel, where he was on Monday, the whale was swimming against a strong current.
Details of the case could not be obtained from the Marine Mammal Research and Education Group on Tuesday, but the minke whale still appeared as energetic and in good physical condition. He was still swimming against the current when The duty left the scene shortly after 9:00 p.m.
Like the day before on the Cosmos deck, many curious people were on Tuesday evening to observe and photograph the whale, which surfaced at intervals of two to five minutes. We could therefore observe the minke whale with, in the background, the Quai de l’Horloge, the Montreal Ferris wheel and the Cirque du Soleil tent.
The Quebec Marine Mammal Emergency Network continued to monitor the presence of this minke whale, possibly only a few months old, in order to document the situation. You should know that calves of this species separate from their mother after barely a few months of breastfeeding. It therefore sometimes happens that juvenile individuals go astray. In 2016, then in 2017, cases of dead young minke whales were documented in the Lévis region.
Condemned animal?
For the moment, no intervention is planned to try to capture or scare this animal. Such an operation has never been attempted in Quebec for an animal of this size that swims freely.
To hope to return to its natural habitat, the St. Lawrence estuary, this minke whale would have to turn around and go down the seaway for several hundred kilometres, through the intense commercial traffic on the river.
The species is well known in Quebec, since it is very frequently observed in summer in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, and particularly in the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park. The minke whale is not a species at risk, since it would have several hundred thousand individuals worldwide. Japan and Norway also hunt the species on a commercial basis, despite an international moratorium on whaling.
The Humpback Whale of 2020
This is the second time in less than two years that a large cetacean has been found in the Montreal area. In May 2020, a 10-meter young female humpback whale had spent more than a week in the area.
It had attracted hundreds of curious people every day, who came to observe it near the Quai de l’Horloge. In particular, they had been able to see her perform dozens of spectacular jumps out of the water.
This humpback whale, which had caused quite a stir in Montreal, had finally died following a “sudden event”, according to the report of the cetacean’s necropsy. Even if the trail of a collision with a ship in the St. Lawrence Seaway remains very plausible, the scientists who analyzed the case could not confirm this hypothesis.