Grand Manan Whale & Seabird Research Station, GMWSRS 24 Route 776, Grand Manan, NB (2026)

08/16/2026

Synchronicity!

I was thinking about pairs figure skating, and maybe you were thinking about a song by the Police, but whatever your reference for “synchronicity” is, our last two drifters were following it perfectly.

Often when we release multiple drifters in one location, they end up taking completely different paths as they are caught up in little mini-currents. Well, not this time. We released L14 and L15 at the same spot north of Grand Manan on August 10, and they stuck to each other like glue (or maybe like cementum, which is the biological adhesive that female lobsters make to keep their eggs anchored and stuck together while they develop?) for 6 days. The first map shows you the location of their release, with the black and yellow star, and then where they had drifted to on August 16 (black polygon). They took an interesting initial path, first over and up to Campobello, and then settled into a prolonged set of up-and-down movements in the Grand Manan Channel with the tide, slowly making their way from west to east.

That first map is quite busy, so I decided to also show you a 24-hour snapshot of these drifters, from 4 pm August 14 to 4 pm on August 15. In the second map, you can see where they were at the start (yellow and red star) and where they were 24 hours later (green polygon). You can see how close their paths were. This second graph also gives you a sense for the power of the tide on the back (west) side of Grand Manan. Each of those up-and-down (okay, NE-SW) drifter tracks within a tide phase covered 9-10 nautical miles. Remember, that’s in only 6 hours. It also shows us how far a larval lobster might travel, depending on which currents it gets caught up in, and where.

We will continue to update you on our summer research activities. Coming soon: more on water temperatures, and reports that lobster egg hatch is very late this year (spoiler: in both cases, it's cold). Questions? [email protected]

08/05/2026

Goodbye to Ken

On the last weekend of July, we said goodbye to Ken Ingersoll. Most of you know that he passed away unexpectedly in March of this year. Ken was not one for formalities, so it was only natural for friends and family to gather together to celebrate his life, and his birthday, over a meal. We told stories, and shared memories and laughter, and food. We had hot dogs on the BBQ, there was a big table of cookies, cakes, and other desserts for Ken’s sweet tooth, and the Research Station brought Ken’s favourite meal: turkey dinner.

This weekend tribute also included three of Ken’s beloved lighthouses: sunrise at Swallowtail, sunset at the Whistle (Long Eddy to some of you), and Machias Seal Island. Given the remoteness of Machias, I need to explain how this one fits in. The day after Ken’s birthday celebration, a small group of us went out to scatter his ashes at sea, in a place that meant a lot to him. Those of you who knew him well will know why this location was important. It seemed very fitting that we were joined by a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins when we stopped the boat.

As we scattered his ashes, our team dropped one of our surface drifters into the water, at the same spot. The first map below shows where that drifter went, two days later. The second map shows an enlarged view of the location of the drifter that morning. Now you understand the Machias connection. Perhaps we should not be surprised.

To Ken: Happy Birthday, buddy. We miss you, and we wish you were here. The coffeepot will always be on. And your lighthouses will always burn bright.

08/02/2026

More drifters! And the nuances of the tide…

We have been busily deploying surface drifters for the past month or so, and we thought it was a good time to share some more results. If you recall, we are deploying these surface drifters to approximate where newly hatched larval lobsters might travel to while they are in their planktonic phase and are carried by currents. We often report on some interesting drifter tracks where we deploy two drifters at the same spot, and then we watch those two drifters take completely different routes to end up in different locations, depending on the small local current that they first get caught up in. This time, we have a case where two drifters (L7 and L14) were released at different locations in Grand Manan waters on July 27, and then took different paths around the island to end up very close to each other four days later, southwest of Machias Seal Island. You can see these tracks in the first map.

It is also informative to look at the small-scale nuances of the tide. Even though, according to the tide table, we might be in the flood or ebb phase of the tide, exactly how the water moves during these phases varies a lot depending on where you are. Those of you who work on the water in the Bay of Fundy already know this, but others might be interested in just how much variation there is. The second map shows a snapshot of the movements of four drifters over a one-hour period on July 27 (3:30-4:30 pm). For each drifter, the red dot with the black circle shows where the drifter was at the end of that hour, and the little red circles trailing behind show the direction and the distance travelled in that hour. L16 went just over 2 nautical miles almost due south, L15 went 1.4 nautical miles southwest, L12 also went southwest, about 0.4 nautical miles, and L14 went half a nautical mile to the NORTHwest! Not only does direction vary depending on location, but so does the speed of the tide, or how “hard” it runs.

We have mentioned this before, but it is definitely clear that both location AND tide phase are really important factors determining where a planktonic larval lobster might travel to. Keep in mind that all of the eggs from an individual female’s clutch do not hatch at the same time – this happens over multiple days, and in some cases, weeks. This prolonged hatching period means that newly hatched larvae will enter the water column at many different times and tides. With this strategy, one female’s larvae will not all end up in the same place. In essence, female lobsters avoid “putting all of their eggs in one basket” [pun intended].

Questions? Email Heather at [email protected]

07/12/2026

North vs. South

Well, you asked for it…how did water temperatures in the Grand Manan Basin compare with those from the Northeast Banks during this past season? And now, we have an answer for you.

We have coverage from November 2025 to June 2026 in these locations. In the first graph, you can see the water temperature data from the hobo logger on the trap in the Grand Manan Basin (“535-North”, orange line) compared to the one from the edge of the Northeast Banks (“536-South”, dark blue line). Yes, it is indeed a bit warmer further south, closer to the Gulf of Maine. The difference is most notable from March to May, when the bottom water temperature from the North tag is about a degree cooler than the South tag.

For fun, I thought it would be interesting to go back a few years, since we also had loggers on traps in the same general areas in the fall-winter-spring of 2021-2022, again from November to June. In the second plot, you can see the big difference in water temperatures between those seasons in both locations (2021-22 Basin is light blue, and 2021-22 Banks is green). I have already noted in a previous post that this past winter was cooler than previous years, and now you can see just how large that difference is in both parts of LFA 38 – it’s up to 3 to 4 degrees C at some points in the fishing season.

Now there will be a lot of factors that go into this variation, including exactly where the traps were set and how deep they were. But I do think that these data point to a trend of cooler temperatures in the last two years that many fishers have also been talking about. Recent observations of a cooling trend in the Gulf of Maine have been linked by oceanographers to changes in deep-water circulatory patterns (the title of the scientific article is below; you can find it with an internet search), and I suspect that is what we are experiencing in LFA 38. It will certainly be interesting to see how the summer shapes up in terms of organisms that are dependent on temperature for their growth and metabolism.

Questions? [email protected]

Here’s the article: Record, N.R., A.J. Pershing, D.B. Rasher. 2024. Early warning of a cold wave in the Gulf of Maine. Oceanography 37(3):6–9.

07/08/2026

Fun tagged lobster reports!

It has been an exciting few days. First, someone fishing in Nova Scotia waters (LFA 35 is still open) caught a tagged lobster with a thermal logger on it yesterday. It’s always fun to get one of these back, but this one had 19 months of data because I had tagged her November 28, 2024! Yes, 2024! And even better, this very kind fisher downloaded the data onto his phone, sent it to me, and released the lobster with her tag still on.

You can see the temperatures that the lobster encountered over those 19 months in the graph with the blue line. We can see that female lobsters experience quite a temperature range over the year – remember, this is all at the bottom. The thermal trace also seems to indicate that she did not crawl into a trap and get hauled over those 19 months (since there are no sharp vertical lines, which is what we see when the trap gets hauled).

I thought it would be fun to overlay water temperature data from a trap in the Grand Manan Basin for the same time period. That is the second graph, where the LFA 38 trap data are in orange and the lobster is still in blue. She would have been released close to the LFA 38 trap in November 2024. It looks like she stayed in that vicinity from Nov 2024-May 2025, since her thermal trace parallels the trap data. Since LFA 38 is closed in the summer, we don’t have trap data again until the season opens in November. But it looks like the lobster had shifted away from LFA 38 by that point (likely moving ENE to where she was eventually caught yesterday), since her thermal trace diverges from the trap data. Last piece of fun info: this lobster was a v-notcher when I tagged her, and the fisher reported that yesterday she was carrying eggs. Makes sense! Those will hatch this summer, and she will likely molt afterwards (and lose her tag) and start the process all over again.

Then, if you recall my post from June 25, I shared that Jacob Knowles, who fishes around Mount Desert Rock, had caught a lobster that was tagged in the Grey Zone on September 26, 2025. Well today, he caught ANOTHER tagged lobster that had been tagged on the same day in the same place – and this one was about 3 miles from his June 25 recapture. Usually, tagged female lobsters seem to be completely independent of each other – but it looks like these two had a similar path in mind. Interestingly, the lobster that Jacob caught today was caught by another Maine fisher on May 27, about 20 miles to the east. None of the other lobsters tagged on September 26 have been reported, so we don’t know where they might have ended up…

Thanks as always to the fishers who report tags, and especially to the people who download thermal data! Questions? [email protected]

07/04/2026

Driftin’ the night away….🎼

This is the season for lobster eggs to hatch, so we are once again releasing surface drifters to mimic how lobster larvae might be carried by currents in their early stages of life, when they are planktonic and float around near the surface. We are interested in seeing where larvae that hatch in Grand Manan waters might end up after their “sail around on the currents”. In the photo you can see one of the drifters (L11) being released yesterday, giving you a good view of what they look like at sea. Everything below Andrew’s hand will be underwater, with the flag, the SPOT transmitter and the VHF radio above the surface.

It amazes me how far these drifters can go, and quickly. On the map you can see the paths of two drifters, L4 and L11, that were released yesterday at the blue star. L11 looped around overnight and ended up not far from the release point. L4, on the other hand, is definitely headed south. This is over 24 hours! The nuances of exactly where the currents are and how they interact at the surface will clearly influence where our drifters, and presumably the larval lobsters, end up.

We will keep you posted on the fates of these drifters and others we will release over the next few weeks.

As usual, send any questions to Heather: [email protected]

06/28/2026

Let’s take a look at spring water temperatures!

As LFA 38 traps are coming out of the water, marking the end of the season, we have the chance to look at how the water temperature at the bottom this spring compares to springs of previous years. We have had some hobo thermal loggers deployed on traps for the past several years (2022-2026), and looking at the data, we can see that 2026 (green line) was definitely cold! These loggers recorded temperatures in roughly the same location each year (although we all know that do traps move around somewhat as the season progresses and fishers seek more productive spots), in the deep water east of Grand Manan.

As we already saw in a post I did in early May, 2026 marked VERY cold water in March, below 3 degrees C. But now we also know that the water stayed cold, not even breaking above 4C until the end of April 2026. This is very different from all the previous years, even 2025 (blue line) where temperatures were above 5C by the end of April. Therefore, we had a prolonged period of unusually cold water this year that we certainly have not seen in the past five years. I did hear that lobsters were not moving a lot this spring, and temperature would have played a role in that.

You will note that the hobo for 2025 stopped recording at the end of May, but fortunately someone caught a tagged lobster at the end of June 2025 (also in the deep water east of Grand Manan), that we can use as a proxy. If we compare the bottom temperatures on June 24 (the last day of our 2026 data), it looks like we are still a bit cooler than last year. The 2026 temperature on June 24 was 6.3C, and the 2025 temperature from the lobster on June 24 was 6.9-7.2C.

This information is really interesting and important, because not only do bottom temperatures have an impact on lobster biology and movement patterns, but they also affect zooplankton energy content and reproduction, which in turn affect herring, basking sharks, whales, and other animals in our Bay of Fundy ecosystem that are part of this food web.

I will also note that we cannot do this alone! Thanks very much to the LFA 38 fishers who help out on this project by putting out tags, reporting them, and downloading the loggers. Questions? Email Heather at [email protected].

06/26/2026

Another lobster moves south!

Exciting news: one of the female lobsters that was tagged in the Grey Zone last fall was caught last week by a fisher from Maine. She was tagged September 26, 2025 and was recaptured June 17, 2026, about 2 miles northeast of Mount Desert Rock. But this lobster will be famous, as she was caught by Jacob Knowles, a fisher who posts a lot on social media about lobsters, fishing, tags, and fishing boats. His post where he shares the information about the lobster is linked below. This lobster will certainly be seen by a lot of people since Jacob has a lot of followers! The map from Jacob’s post shows you the straight-line distance between where she was tagged and where she was caught…and as he mentions, we know that lobsters probably don’t travel in a straight line, so she likely covered more ground than that.

It’s always fun when someone catches one of our tagged lobsters, so please keep the reports coming in. You never know how far these females can go! Thanks to Jacob for reporting this one.

Questions? Email Heather: [email protected]

06/20/2026

Summer is here!

The summer solstice will be upon us tomorrow, so make sure you enjoy the longest day, and shortest night, of the year. June is also the time that the Grand Manan Whale & Seabird Research Station gears up for another summer of research activities, and when we open our museum and gift shop for the season.

The museum and gift shop will open officially for the summer on June 25th. We will be open from 10-5, Wednesday to Sunday, until just after Labour Day. We are typically closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Prior to June 25, we will be open by chance (when we can). We have a lot of new shirts, hoodies, and other marine-themed goods (see the photo), so come on by to check them out.

Research is getting underway as well. The boats will go in the water soon, and we will start our research on larval lobster movements with drifter deployments, we will continue our long-term monitoring study of Bay of Fundy zooplankton, and we will see if any other reports of tagged lobsters come in. We look forward to seeing you on the water!

As always, if you have any research questions, feel free to send them my way at [email protected].

05/09/2026

Lobsters are waking up!

Well, we know they aren’t really sleeping all winter, but we do know that their metabolism and activity decline significantly when the water is cold. But we are starting to see some action. Over the past few days, I have been getting reports again of people catching tagged lobsters. Yesterday, someone from Vinalhaven, Maine, caught a lobster that had been tagged in the Grey Zone in September…a trip of 99 nautical miles, as the crow flies. That fisher reported that the lobster looked great (described her as “pretty angry” - !!) and her eggs looked good as well. You can see her straight-line path in the map.

It has been REALLY cold on the bottom of the Bay of Fundy this winter and spring. The graph shows data from Hobo thermal loggers over the past few winters, and you can see that winter/spring 2026 (the red line) was much colder than the previous two years – in fact, the water dipped below 3 degrees C – I am not sure I have seen that before. Things are warming up though – someone hauled a Hobo thermal logger on a trap yesterday, and it reported a bottom temperature of close to 5 degrees C. Here’s hoping for a strong and safe spring fishing season for everyone as things warm up again!

It is also time for us to start planning our summer search activities. We will be busy on the water again this season, collecting zooplankton, doing surveys, and deploying more drifters.

We are looking for a guide for our small marine museum for the summer (~mid June to Labour Day) – we have a federal grant to pay a student, so if you are interested in this position, please email Heather at [email protected].

Grand Manan Whale & Seabird Research Station

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