The Story of Silver, A Humpback Whale
Wednesday, April 6th, 2005So, what does a person do at 9:20 in the morning, when that person has no job to go to, and no vacation planned? Why, you start googling things from the past, of course!
SILVER – Humpback Whale
Perhaps no whale can show the highs and lows of whale research like Silver. This adult female taught us so much, but suffered horribly at the hands of humans despite being a member of a protected species.
Silver’s first sad encounter with humans happened sometime before we met her in 1979. By the time we first saw her, Silver was missing half of her tail. While we can never be sure a boat propeller cut it off, the clean slice of a wound indicates to us it was likely a sharp blade which took away part of her tail. Amazingly, Silver was able to do everything every other whale could and was even pregnant during the first year we saw her.
In the winter of 1980, Silver gave birth to the first of 5 calves we saw her produce. We saw her and her 1980 calf, later named Beltane, on many days during the summer of 1980. After that summer Beltane, like most calves, weaned and separated from the mother. She started returning to the area on her own in the following summer. In 1985, when she was five years old, she became the first whale of any kind anywhere in the world followed from birth to reproductive maturity. In 1985, Beltane was sighted with her first calf, Cat Eyes, who we still see today.
Silver also taught us a lot about humpback social organization. Humpback whales on their feeding grounds are thought to form random groups which stay together a day or less. While this is often true, we also know that whales can build up friendships. In 1979, 1982, and 1984, Silver was repeatedly sighted with another big female named T-Square. Interestingly, both whales were pregnant in all of those years; in years when they were not, they were never seen together!
Silver also had calves in 1983 (Aster), 1985 (Peninsula), 1988 (Coral), and 1990 (Chablis). But in spring 1991, Silver’s life came to a tragic end. In early May her carcass was found on a beach off of Long Island with steel cable wrapped around it. The cabling could have come from a fishing boat; it could have been dropped from a tanker or other large ship. But while this big female was able to tow the cabling for a while, it eventually ended up taking her life.
We don’t know how old Silver was when she died; since she was an adult in 1979, she had to be at least 15-20 years old and perhaps more. We had no good way to age her, either alive or dead. But we still regret losing this whale before she could have lived out her natural life span. In memory of her inspirational life, both of our research boats have been named for her, Silver and Silver II.
My train of thought went like this… I saw a mention of the stages of grief, and started thinking about how many funerals I’ve been to, and I remembered that even the Whale I adopted in 1989 ended up dying, so I googled her. Silver. Silver the Whale. I originally adopted her as a gift for my friend’s boyfriend, because we liked that Pixies song “Silver,” but I didn’t know his address, so I had all the info come to my house, and I just ended up keeping her to myself.