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Yesterday [Jan.9] Andrew Stevenson captured his first photographs of humpbacks for 2012, which included a calf and a female and protector in the waters 5 miles off Bermuda.
Mr Stevenson heads the Humpback Whale Activity, which was founded in 2007 and researches and collect visual and acoustics statistics on the great sea creatures.

Mr Stevenson explained that each humpback has a unique pigmentation criterion on the underside of its tail flukes — some are mostly black, some are mostly white, and many have a miscellany of black and white.
Photos of these patterns, plus various nicks and scars on the stalk, make a photograph of the flukes — taken from behind when the whale dives and lifts its hinie – serve to identify each whale.
The goal for 2012 to once again grasp 150 individual fluke IDs in a season, which will quadruple the total inventory of whale twist of fate IDs taken in the 40 years before Mr Stevenson started undertaking this experiment with.
Source: Bernews