We’re thrilled to introduce the newest member of the MERS team, Megaptera!

Megaptera is a new-to-us Hurricane 733 rigid hull inflatable. The name comes from the genus name for Humpback Whales that means “big wings” in Latin. Like wings, we anticipate this new MERS vessel will help us travel further and continue to expand our research and response work around Vancouver Island.

As many of you know, this is not MERS’ first vessel. For the last two years we have been using the small but mighty “Fluke”. Fluke is a great boat, but its smaller size meant we were more restricted in terms of the distance we could travel, number of crew we could have aboard, and the conditions we could work in. Before Fluke, we had the opportunity to access a larger vessel, Merlin, due to a remarkable arrangement with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). However, this shared access has not been available for the last 2 years.  

Since then, we have been searching for a new vessel. When we found Megaptera online for a great price, we knew we had to jump on it right away! It was exactly what we were looking for.

Megaptera will allow our growing team to increase research project and data collection capacity, expand the area we work in, improve staff safety, and enhance our ability to assist with wildlife response efforts in cases of animal injury, entanglement or other such incidents. Current and upcoming projects with this vessel include:

• Humpback Whale population monitoring through photo-identification
• Monthly line transect surveys to look at marine mammal abundance and distribution over time
• Collision and entanglement scar research to understand the severity of  of these threats
• eDNA (environmental DNA) collection to investigate this non-invasive way of sampling Humpback Whale genetics
• Monitoring and responding to entangled or injured marine mammals (as tasked by the Marine Mammal Response Program at DFO)

Due to careful financial management over the years, we were able to obtain the vessel using our savings, but there are considerable costs to getting the vessel running and set up for our work. Such costs are not covered by government grants, so we are reaching out to our supporters.  

Starting October 8th, help us reach our goals in the Float Our Boat campaign by donating.  Donations will receive a Canadian tax receipt.