Meet Lucy Baldwin, Ecological Information Officer at NEYEDC!

Lucy started working at NEYEDC around 3 years ago, joining the organisation as an Ecological Data Officer and now working as Ecological Information Officer. Lucy’s work largely revolves around the centre’s ‘data in’ and ‘data out’, helping to oversee NEYEDC’s data collation, management, and how this is shared with and utilised by data users. Lucy also works closely with local groups and organisations in the North and East Yorkshire regions, helping support them to make biological records. Before joining NEYEDC, Lucy studied for an MSc in Marine Conservation and spent several years volunteering for marine conservation organisations, including collating and managing cetacean records for the north-east region of the UK, training survey volunteers, and surveying from land and boat in the north-east and Scotland. Lucy also previously spent a season as a wildlife guide on a whale-watching boat in the Hebrides, spending many hours in the company of her chosen species. You can find contact details for Lucy and the rest of the NEYEDC team here: About — neyedc.

A large Minke Whale surfacing in Scotland (c) Lucy Baldwin

Lucy’s chosen species is the Minke Whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata. “There are whales in Yorkshire?!” – this is a common response to people learning that yes, our Yorkshire coastline not only supports a fantastic range of seabirds and marine mammals like seals and dolphins, but also some of their larger cousins! The Minke Whale is the smallest rorqual whale (whales that have grooves on their throat, as well as baleen) and the second smallest of all the baleen whales. They are a cosmopolitan species, occurring from the tropics to the poles worldwide, but their primary range is in the northern hemisphere where there are two subspecies currently recognised: the North Atlantic (B. a. acutorostrata, the subspecies present in Yorkshire and around the UK), and the North Pacific (B. a. scammoni). The Minke is said to get its common name from a nineteenth century German labourer, Meincke, who whilst working on a Norwegian Svend Foyn whaling boat regularly misidentified Minke Whales as Blue Whales, causing much mockery from his crewmates who called the whales ‘Meincke’s whales’. A small change in spelling and pronunciation later, the name Minke seems to have stuck.

Minke Whales are medium sized, reaching between 6.5 – 9m in length and 450kg in weight. It is a sleek, slim whale with a pointed and flattened rostrum (head), a relatively tall and falcate dorsal fin, and a dark grey to brownish-black upper side. It generally shows relatively little of itself when it surfaces, where you might see its rostrum break the surface first before it rolls forwards exposing a long back and its dorsal fin, which is approximately 2/3 down its back. The blow of a Minke Whale is indistinct or invisible, unlike that of the large, bushy blow of the Humpback Whale which is an occasional visitor to Yorkshire shores. If you’re lucky enough to see a Minke Whale up close, another distinctive feature is a white band on otherwise dark flippers.

Minke Whales have anecdotally increased in numbers on the Yorkshire coastline over the past decade, with fishermen and boat operators reporting increasing sightings, but systematic recording of marine mammals is difficult and not undertaken regularly. SCANS, a large-scale scientific survey for cetaceans in European Atlantic waters undertaken by the University of St Andrews, was completed for the third time in July and August 2016, with analysis continuing into 2022. You can read more about SCANs here. Analysis completed in 2021, based on the 2016 survey, estimated an abundance of 603 animals in the survey block containing the East Yorkshire coast, but this does extend across a large area from the north-east coast to Norfolk (see references). Interestingly, the same survey block in the 2005/2007 survey estimated over 1,000 individuals, and comparative modelling completed for the two surveys suggests that the predicted density of animals/km2 has actually decreased in the North Sea area around Yorkshire (Lacey et al., 2022), with density increasing in the north and central North Sea and around Scotland. Whilst this was a rigid scientific study, it was completed last in 2016 and the information was extrapolated and modelled over the region.

Ultimately, it is difficult to know if anecdotal information reflects a true increase in Minke Whale presence in Yorkshire. If Minke Whale numbers are increasing, this could mirror a change observed for other cetacean species along the coastline such as the Bottlenose Dolphin, where small numbers have always been present but increases in numbers have been significant over the last few years. The exact reasons for this are unknown, but it is likely to involve actual increase in population numbers and/or changes or increases in the availability of their food. Recent sightings for the Yorkshire region can be found on the Sea Watch Foundation website: https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/recentsightings/.

A young and inquisitive Minke Whale approaching a boat (c) Lucy Baldwin

In Yorkshire, Minke Whales are most often sighted in the late summer and early autumn, often peaking between July and September, but they can appear as early as May. Increases in sightings seem to align with food source events like herring spawning, but they do feed on a variety of small schooling fish species including mackerel.

Minke Whales can be sighted from land or by boat. For land-watching, a headland is an ideal location, best on a calm, flat day with little wind. Good locations in Yorkshire include between Staithes and Whitby, Flamborough Head, and Bempton Cliffs. Minke Whales will generally complete a sequence where they surface 3-5 times in quick succession, ending this with a dive where they will typically stay underwater for 3-10 minutes. If you spot a Minke surfacing, try to note the direction of travel and focus on a location about 25m away from the last surface location; they can be difficult to keep track of but rarely re-surface in the same location in one sequence. Wildlife-watching boat trips are now common on the Yorkshire coast, from reputable and experienced companies such as Yorkshire Coast Nature. Minkes have both a reputation for being shy, and for being inquisitive with boats. One of their nicknames, ‘slinky minke’, alludes to its cryptic surfacing behaviour which can be difficult to keep track of – they will often simply disappear. Sometimes, however, they seem to express great interest in vessels, surfacing very close to them, swimming on their sides along their length to investigate or ‘spy-hopping’ to get a better view. Another of their nicknames is the ‘stinky minke’…for anyone who has spent any length of time in the presence of this species, their distinctly bad breath becomes another method by which you can be reasonably certain a Minke is in your vicinity, even if you haven’t spotted it yet!

In years gone by, Yorkshire was a hub for whaling rather than whale-watching, particularly in Hull and Whitby. Whitby was the capital of a profitable whaling trade, which began in the 1753 when two boats departed for Greenland. Whilst the number and fortunes of the individual boats out of Whitby fluctuated throughout the whaling operation until its last ship, the Phoenix, was decommissioned in 1837, the industry was a dominating presence in the area and many locals were employed by it. This included in the processing products such as oil, glue, and boning. Whaling in Hull started much earlier, in 1598, and peaked around 1820 when Hull had the largest fleet in Britain with over 60 ships. Boats took seals and polar bears as well as whales. It is thought that in total the Whitby whaling operation may have taken upwards of 2000 whales, whilst in Hull’s most successful year alone, they are thought to have taken ~680 whales from 62 vessels. Whaling is a significant part of Yorkshire’s industrial and cultural history but happily Yorkshire’s modern association with whales is now more positive, with many people now experiencing the joy and excitement of glimpsing whales from a headland or boat trip on our coastline.

The splash of a Minke feeding (c) Lucy Baldwin

Recording and monitoring

NEYEDC accepts marine as well as terrestrial records. We are currently embarking on a project to better represent marine records in our database, working with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and other organisations in North and East Yorkshire to simplify marine data flows in the region and enable us to access important records such as those of cetaceans and marine mammals.

Further information and acknowledgements

References:

Whaling in Whitby (The Whitby Guide): Whaling in Whitby, Learn more about Whitby's Whaling History (thewhitbyguide.co.uk)

Hull and Whaling (Hull History Centre): Hull and Whaling | Hull History Centre

Scarborough Maritime History Centre: Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre | History of the Whitby whaling industry (scarboroughsmaritimeheritage.org.uk)

Whitby’s Whaling History (Visit Whitby): Whitby’s Whaling History | A Visit Whitby Whaling Guide

Scans 3 final report: https://scans3.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/2021/06/SCANS-III_design-based_estimates_final_report_revised_June_2021.pdf

Lacey, C., Gilles, A., Herr, H., MacLeod, K., Ridoux, V., Santos, M.B., Sheidat, M., Teilmann, J., Sveegaard, S., Vingada, J. and Viquerat, S., 2022. Modelled density surfaces of cetaceans in European Atlantic waters in summer 2016 from the SCANS-III aerial and shipboard surveys.

The Natural History of Yorkshire in 100 Species

#67 Minke Whale by Lucy Baldwin

Recording and monitoring

Further information and acknowledgements