NARW identification Catalog Annual reports

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has supported the New England Aquarium to maintain the North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog since the Catalog’s inception in 1986. The Catalog is a photo-identification database that serves as the primary tool to monitor this species and is one of the most heavily used of the Consortium databases. Starting in 2014, NMFS expanded their support to include additional important research that leverages the data in the Catalog. These include: 1) an annual assessment of all human-caused scars on right whales, 2) case studies of whales that have been entangled in fishing gear or struck by a vessel, 3) near-real-time matching support for the calving ground and biopsy studies, and 4) an annual assessment of each whale’s visual health based on photographs. Each year, the Aquarium provides NMFS with a report of the work done under this contract for the previous year. To make the information in these reports more accessible to researchers, managers and conservationists, In 2019 we started uploading these reports to the NARWC website. These reports have not undergone peer review and should be treated as preliminary results. Question about the data or its use should be directed to the NARWC Executive Administrator.