just got this email (including article below) from my neighbor; makes me feel warm & fuzzy about my community. hating that i missed this...
"I just saw my first whales!
If you live in Flagler, they're out there right now (12:30PM Friday).
I saw 3 off the coast from N. 11th street. Reports of a group off by the pier.
Go look, and tell your friends!
If you don't live here, sorry for the interruption! You're missing something cool!"
The grand sight of a whale splashing in the ocean is usually associated with Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Baja or the Northeast. But not Florida. Despite the Florida peninsula -- with 1,200 miles of coastline -- stretching far across the water toward the Caribbean Sea, few people seem to think of Florida and whales together.
Yet Florida's coastal waters are frequented by several species of whales. And the eastern shore is a special place for northern right whales, which come here almost exclusively to give birth, right now during the winter.
That's extraordinary, but it's even more so knowing that there are only about 300 northern right whales left. They are the most endangered large mammal in the world, by some accounts.
"In the world of natural history, one of the great phenomena is that right whales are having their calves right there off the coast of Florida," said Dr. Jim Hain, a whale expert at Associated Scientists at Woods Hole in Massachusetts. "And in fact, there's this remarkable event that's taking place right in Florida for this small population of endangered whales. Florida's a remarkable place with the manatees, springs, the Everglades -- and the right whales are right there and one of the interesting aspects of what Florida is really all about."
Some more interesting phoenomana about whales that I never knew...thanks for sharing! :-)
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