MCERC Marine Mammal & Megafauna Catalogs
MCERC maintains catalogs for marine mammals and other megafauna related to our organization’s research activities. These include the MCERC Caribbean Cetacean Catalog, the Puerto Rico Humpback Whale Catalog, the MCERC Turks and Caicos Islands Humpback Whale Catalog and the MCERC Cetacean Catalog of the Dominican Republic. The MCERC catalogs contain detailed information about all sightings of individual marine megafauna, groups, their behaviors, physical characteristics, and much more. MCERC uses the data for analysis leading to contributions in science. It is the goal of the researches to contribute discovery leading to a greater understanding of how humans can participate in stewardship of healthy marine ecosystems.
The MCERC database of known humpback whales dates back to 1978! Through dedicated surveys, collaborations, and public contributions, our scientists, interns, research assistants, and citizen science contributions, continually add records to MCERC catalogs and oceanwide repositories.
Interested in participating? Click on the links in the pulldown menus at the top of the website pages to earn how you can be a part of conserving our oceans.
Have you recently been to Puerto Rico or the Turks and Caicos Islands? While there, did you see any humpback whales? If you did see humpbacks AND you took photos of them, you can send those photos to the MCERC through our Facebook page below to assist in our ongoing research!
P.S.) We will submit your photographs, along with credit to the photographer, to the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog NAHWC.
NOTE: By submitting your photos and videos you are giving MCERC permission to include the images and the information you provide for science and education. We especially need the photos of the underside of the tail (flukes) and the dorsal fin on the back from the side, as well as the body with scars and other markings. It is important to include the date the photo was taken, the time of day, and location of the whale or general vicinity. “Bad photos” often give us good science information! If people take a picture from far away and it is blurry or tiny, we would still love to have them submitted. Cell phone photos are worth a shot to match and identify! If you have photos from previous years, especially if they are time stamped or have metadata, they are very important to our science. We would love to have those images submitted as well.
Large-Scale Catalog Collaborators:
