Cape Cod - Index

Cape Cod - travel_guide_2008 - Index

■ activities cape & islands
Avellar noticed that whales never failed to capture the
attention of his passengers, so he began scheduling regular
excursions specifically to view the animals. To provide an
educational component to the trips, he tapped the Center
For Coastal Studies, which had only recently been launched.
The convergence proved fruitful for both Avellar’s
Dolphin Fleet and the Center; well into the 1990s, whale
watches were the chief source of data on the area’s cetacean
population.
“It’s really been a model for this type of partnership
between a commercial enterprise and a nonprofit research
organization around the country—and around the world,” says
Jarzobski. The Center signed on with Provincetown’s other
whale-watch line, Portuguese Princess Excursions, in 2006.
Of the half-dozen or so New England ports from
which whale watches now operate, Provincetown
remains the closest to Stellwagen Bank, the 842square-mile
National Marine Sanctuary that is the
summer home to six species of cetacean—the order of
marine mammals including whales and dolphins. Its
shallow underwater plateau, formed by the same geological
processes that created Cape Cod, drops precipitously at the
edges. The upwelling currents that result mix surface and
bottom waters, creating a nutrient soup abundant in
plankton, the basis of a rich marine ecosystem. After
spending the winter breeding in the Caribbean, humpbacks
and their fellow cetaceans come here to gorge themselves on
54
Cape Cod Travel Guide Annual 2008
Top left and right: Tail lobbing and breaching are typical humpback
whale behaviors. Above: A whale calf sticks close to its mother.
WILLIAM DESOUSA-MAUK