N.B. whale researcher's stunning drone photos are turning heads

Gina Lonati's first brush with marine life came early. When she was five years old, her family took her to Sea World in California, where she came face to face with a dolphin — and knew immediately that she had just glimpsed her future.

"I still have the photo that my family took, of me looking at the dolphin for the first time and just being so captivated," Lonati said. "I was just thrilled, and knew I wanted to work with marine mammals as a career."

Years later, she is doing just that. 

Lonati, now a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, studies the health of large whales in Atlantic Canada in a watery "classroom" perfectly suited to her research.

"The reason that University of New Brunswick kind of called me was [because] there are whales right in its backyard," Lonati said.

Lonati spends about three months of the year on the water, and the rest of it on land at the university.

It is deeply rewarding work, but it is also often troubling.

There are clear signs of dwindling numbers of right whales, which are dying faster than they can reproduce. With just over 330 remaining, these whales are regularly injured by ship strikes or suffer lethal injuries from fishing gear entanglements.

Climate change and changing currents are also affecting the location and quantity of their food sources.

"We went out in 2020 in the Bay of Fundy hoping to see some right whales and didn't see a single one," Lonati said.

Lonati hopes her research will yield information that can help turn the tide.

Government policies tend to focus on population numbers: how many whales died in a year, how many calves were born, how many entanglements were observed.

"But what I'm interested in is the health of the individual whale," Lonati said. "What's their body condition? Are they able to get pregnant? Are they finding enough food?"

Of course, to gather that information, you have to get an up-close-and-personal look at a whale in its natural habitat — without getting close enough to cause the very stress you're trying to prevent.