NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary

NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary New England's only National Marine Sanctuary, located east of Boston and between Cape Ann and Cape Cod. HQ offices in Scituate, MA.

Visit the sanctuary's website at http://stellwagen.noaa.gov for more information.

Drumroll please! 🥁 Thanks to the "Birds Supporting Birds" research initiative and partnership, the National Marine Sanct...
09/13/2026

Drumroll please! 🥁

Thanks to the "Birds Supporting Birds" research initiative and partnership, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary are excited to introduce this year's Philadelphia Eagles starting shearwater lineup. 🏈

Flying low and long - #93, Franklin! 🦅

Master of figure eight routes - #00, Phil! 8️⃣

Classic flyer with a dash of fishy flavor - #96, Hoagie! 🐟

Best webbed foot runner - #95, Liberty! 🏃‍♀️‍➡️

The map shows the first month's movements of all the tagged great shearwaters. Continue to tune in here to analyze their flying stats as they travel to the end zone of the Southern Atlantic Ocean with updated maps provided by NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

Spread your wings and fly to https://marinesanctuary.org/birds-supporting-birds/ to learn more about this Super Bowl-worthy team-up.

Happy ! 🐳Whales are marine mammals, and that means they breathe air just like we do! Humpback whales have two blowholes...
09/09/2026

Happy ! 🐳

Whales are marine mammals, and that means they breathe air just like we do! Humpback whales have two blowholes, or nostrils, on the top of their head, and these blowholes are connected directly to their lungs. When a whale comes up to the surface, they exhale the breath that they've been holding and we can often see this exhalation, which we call a spout or blow. When we go outside on a cold day, we can see our breath forming water v***r. When a Humpback whale exhales, their body temperature is so much warmer than the ocean temperature, that we can see their breath too!

After exhaling, a Humpback whale will typically surface a few more times before taking in a big breath of air and diving below the surface, Here in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the water is pretty shallow and the whales are often feeding, so they usually hold their breath for about 5-15 minutes. They can hold their breath even longer, about 45 minutes maximum, but the record is almost one hour!

Have you ever seen a whale spout or blow? Were you close enough to smell their fishy breath?!

📸: Image 1: A Humpback whale exhales at the surface, its water v***r breath visible above its head. Image 2: A Humpback whale's blowholes at the surface. Credit: Caitlin Fitzmaurice/NOAA. Photos taken with a zoom lens while following wildlife viewing guidelines. You can learn more about safe boating around whales through the See a Spout and WhaleSENSE pages here: https://stellwagen.noaa.gov/protect/whales.html

Happy ! 🐳Did you know that we can tell individual Humpback whales apart from their tail, or fluke, patterns? Just like ...
09/02/2026

Happy ! 🐳

Did you know that we can tell individual Humpback whales apart from their tail, or fluke, patterns? Just like humans all have a unique fingerprint pattern, all Humpback whales have a unique tail pattern.

These patterns can range from all white, to all black, or somewhere in between. Patterns develop from natural pigmentation, scarring from attacks by predators, barnacle attachments, or scarring from human interactions (usually entanglement or collisions with ships). While patterns may shift in the first few years of a whale's life, they become more stable as the whale reaches adulthood. Humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine are given names primarily based on the shape of these patterns.

This is an individual named Owl! Can you see the two dark circles, one on each fluke? Scientists thought that these resembled the big eyes of an owl!

📸: A Humpback whale lifts its tail above the surface of the ocean. Credit: Caitlin Fitzmaurice/NOAA.

These are just a few things that we think are kinda chic at Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary ✨Kinda chic to rem...
08/17/2026

These are just a few things that we think are kinda chic at Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary ✨

Kinda chic to remove marine debris from the ocean. Marine debris can cause harm to wildlife, so we stop to pick up as many balloons as we can while we’re out on our research vessel.

📸: Amy retrieves a balloon from the ocean. Credit: Anne-Marie Runfola/NOAA



Kinda chic to to study whales using non-invasive suction cup tags attached via drone. These short-term tags allow us to see what the whales are doing below the surface, tracking their depth, pitch, roll, acoustics, and sometimes even video footage. Stay tuned for more updates from this year’s whale tagging!

📸: A drone hovers over a whale, getting ready to release a suction cup tag. Credit: Caitlin Fitzmaurice/NOAA. This research is conducted under MMPA Permit 27272-01.

Kinda chic to educate the public about marine life. We travel with our life-sized inflatable whale to public events, providing whale anatomy tours and sharing information about local marine life and our research projects.

📸: Sam, Caitlin, Laura and Alice prepare for inflatable whale tours. Credit: Samantha Tolken/NOAA

Kinda chic to study indicator species like seabirds. We attach satellite tags to shearwaters to learn more about their movement and migration patterns. We will be sharing updated maps on the movements of this year’s tagged birds soon!

📸: Tammy and Liam attach a satellite tag to a Great shearwater. Credit: Michael Thompson/NOAA

Kinda chic to explore shipwrecks and maritime heritage. Our Stellwagen Mapping Initiative has been busy mapping the seafloor and using an ROV to explore underwater cultural heritage, including shipwrecks.

📸: Evan K. operates an ROV while looking at several screens during a Stellwagen Mapping Initiative mission. Credit: Samantha Tolken/NOAA

Kinda chic to follow wildlife viewing guidelines. It is important to give wildlife lots of space- for their safety and yours! Give us a wave if you see us out on a Boater Outreach for Whale Watching trip, sharing resources with recreational boaters for safe boating aroun

Are you visiting Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary this summer? Keep an eye (or ear) out for some of our avian v...
08/14/2026

Are you visiting Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary this summer? Keep an eye (or ear) out for some of our avian visitors, who are also here for the season. Species like the laughing gull, with its distinctive, laugh-like call, nest in New England for the summer before migrating south for the winter.

Learn more about Stellwagen Bank’s birds of summer ⬇️
https://stellwagen.noaa.gov/visit/birdwatching/guide-to-santuary-birds.html

📸: A Laughing gull standing on the beach. Credit: Peter Flood

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175 Edward Foster Road
Scituate, MA
02066

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+17815458026

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