Animal Cruises in New England | Where to See Loons, Bald Eagles, Moose, Sharks & More!
Grab your binoculars and climb aboard one of these top New England animal cruises for an unforgettable adventure.
LOONS
Squam Lakes Natural Science Center / Loon Preservation Committee (Holderness, NH)
OVERVIEW: Two worthy nonprofits join forces for this pontoon boat trip on Squam Lake, where the first major efforts to protect NH loons began in the 1970s.
CAPTAIN/CREW: A Squam Lakes Natural Science Center naturalist is your pilot and guide, with help from a Loon Preservation Committee biologist.
COMMON SIGHTS: Loons, mallards, double-crested cormorants, kingfishers, great blue herons, bald eagles, hawks, hooded mergansers, common mergansers.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: Once spied on Squam: a juvenile red-throated loon, a species that spends most of its time in Arctic regions.
FUN FACT: Loons are long-lived—the oldest NH loon, which dwells on Lake Umbagog, is nearly 30 years old.
BOOKING INFO: Ninety-minute cruises offered June–August. $27/$23 kids. nhnature.org
OSPREYS
RiverQuest (Haddam, CT)
OVERVIEW: The lower Connecticut River is a hot spot for wildlife-watching, and RiverQuesthas been cruising it through all seasons in search of all kinds of critters for almost 20 years.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Married founders Mark and Mindy Yuknat: He’s a captain with more than 7,800 cruises under his belt; she’s a state-certified naturalist.
COMMON SIGHTS: Ospreys, bald eagles, hawks, ducks, and other wildlife including foxes, deer, and coyotes.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: A RiverQuest cruise once spotted a gray seal in the water near Lyme—rather unusual for this ocean swimmer.
FUN FACT: Using their rotating outer talons like opposable thumbs, ospreys position their caught fish head-forward for better aerodynamics in flight.
BOOKING INFO: Three-hour osprey cruises offered July 15 and 18. $40. (Note: RiverQuest has many other types of cruises, including osprey/eagle trips in spring.) ctriverquest.com
BALD EAGLES
Sea Venture Custom Boat Tours (Bar Harbor, ME)
OVERVIEW: Though he offers itineraries for any interest, owner Winston Shaw has special cred when it comes to spotting our national bird: He’s founder of the Coastal Maine Bald Eagle Project.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Captain Shaw is a Maine native, naturalist, and Registered Maine Guide who’s logged more than 50,000 miles by boat in the greater Mount Desert Island area alone.
COMMON SIGHTS: Bald eagles, ospreys, belted kingfishers, black guillemots, loons, blue herons, black-backed gulls, laughing gulls, and many more.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: Mola molas, aka ocean sunfish, one of the heaviest known bony fishes in the world (up to 21/2 tons).
FUN FACT: For nearly four decades Shaw has conducted an independent study of Maine’s coastal bald eagle population, encompassing 650 miles of shoreline and 150 islands.
BOOKING INFO: Custom cruises offered early June–October. Hourly fee based on number of passengers (six maximum); see website for details. svboattours.com
SEABIRDS
Maine Seabird Tours (Vinalhaven, ME)
OVERVIEW: The son of the late ecologist Bill Drury, a renowned expert on Eastern seabirds, award-winning guide John Drury has avian expertise in his blood.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Drury is a Maine seabird ecologist who became a charter captain after years spent ferrying researchers and gear to Seal Island and Matinicus Rock.
COMMON SIGHTS: Razorbills, puffins, Arctic skuas, great cormorants, black guillemots, Arctic terns, eiders, Wilson’s petrels, and many more.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: An ancient murrelet, which hails from the northern Pacific Coast; south polar skuas and long-tailed skuas.
FUN FACT: One of Drury’s biggest lures: the chance to see the famous lone red-billed tropicbird that has returned annually to Seal Island since 2005.
BOOKING INFO: Custom cruises offered May–early November. $90 per hour (six passengers maximum). maineseabirdtours.com
SEA CREATURES
Dive-In Theater with Diver Ed (Bar Harbor, ME)
OVERVIEW: There’s nothing else quite like this 20-year-old interactive cruise, during which passengers watch live onscreen as “Diver Ed” explores underwater and collects sea life to bring aboard for a closer look.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Skippering the Starfish Enterprise are Captain Evil (aka Edna Martin) and Diver Ed (aka Martin’s husband, Ed Monat, a former Bar Harbor harbormaster and Smithsonian marine ecologist).
COMMON SIGHTS: Sea stars, sea cucumbers, crabs, lobsters, sand dollars, sea snails, anemones, worms, urchins, jellyfish, sponges, barnacles, scallops, mussels, and many more.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: Rat-tailed sea cucumbers and giant sunflower sea stars (2 feet wide, with as many as 10 arms).
FUN FACT: Monat has been dive-bombed underwater by a white shark look-alike known as a porbeagle shark, and a monkfish once swallowed his arm (no harm done).
BOOKING INFO: Schedule and prices for 2020 were still TBA at press time, but typically the two-hour cruises are offered Memorial Day–Labor Day; see website for latest info. divered.com
WHITE SHARKS
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (AWSC)/Captain John Boats (Cape Cod, MA)
OVERVIEW: Though AWSC has long offered elite charters ($2,500 for up to five people), this year it’s debuting an affordable alternative that’s more like a whale-watching cruise—sign us up!
CAPTAIN/CREW: Captain Russ Burgis is a Plymouth native who’s been running whale-watching trips at Captain John Boats for 20-plus years.
COMMON SIGHTS: Seals, sea turtles, and various whale and bird species—and with luck, white sharks (though sightings are not guaranteed).
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: Right whales, basking sharks, and mola molas. Last year a white shark was seen feeding on a whale carcass in Cape Cod Bay.
FUN FACT: Sharks have multiple rows of teeth that continuously replace one another—making their mouth something like a fearsome conveyor belt!
BOOKING INFO: Four-hour Saturday cruises offered mid-July–late September. $95. (Note: Departs from Provincetown.) Advance purchase strongly recommended. atlanticwhiteshark.org
MOOSE
Maine Quest Adventures (Medway, ME)
OVERVIEW: Born and raised with Baxter State Park in his backyard, Millinocket native Bryant Davis has decades of experience finding the local four-legged celebrities.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Co-owners and Registered Maine Guides Bryant and wife Sherry run moose-spotting pontoon boat cruises on Millinocket Lake (they also offer canoe, kayak, and van options).
COMMON SIGHTS: Moose, bald eagles, deer, otters, rabbits, loons, ducks, foxes, and many more.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: The Canada lynx, common in its namesake nation but a rare threatened species in the U.S.
FUN FACT: Cruises may include a stop at the c. 1907 Ambajejus Boom House, the only such structure that survives from Maine’s great logging era.
BOOKING INFO: Two- or three-hour cruises offered July–August. $49/$29 kids; reservations required one to two weeks in advance. mainequestadventures.com
WILDLIFE GRAB BAG
ELC Outdoors (Errol, NH)
OVERVIEW: This cruise on Lake Umbagog is right in the middle of a wildlife refuge that straddles two kinds of forest habitats, so you can see species native to either.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Trips are led by various ELC staffers, including river manager Eric Souther, who first got the Umbagog pontoon boat tours started back in 2011.
COMMON SIGHTS: Any of the 200-plus bird species that live in the refuge (including loons and bald eagles), plus beavers, moose, deer, and other wildlife.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: Black bears and bobcats.
FUN FACT: At the northern end of Lake Umbagog is a massive swath of floating peat (750 acres) that has been designated a National Natural Landmark.
BOOKING INFO: Three-hour cruises offered early June–late September. $60/$45 kids. 603-215-0002; elcoutdoors.com
WHALES! WHALES! WHALES!
Dolphin Fleet of Provincetown (Provincetown, MA)
New England Aquarium/Boston Harbor Cruises (Boston, MA)
New England Eco Adventures (Kennebunk, ME, & Hampton Beach, NH)
OVERVIEW: Since New England has no shortage of worthy whale-watching cruises, these are a mere sampling: Dolphin Fleet, the oldest on the East Coast, has 45 years’ experience; NEAQ/BHC has four catamarans that are among the biggest and fastest in the country; New England Eco Adventures uses rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) to help reduce the carbon footprint of whale-watching.
CAPTAIN/CREW: Dolphin Fleet and NEAQ/BHC both have captains and crew with decades of experience in whale-watching, as well as New England–trained naturalists who help narrate the adventure and collect scientific data. New England Eco Adventures, founded in 2018, taps into the experience of Captain Gary Grenier, a veteran of Maine whale-watching for 15-plus years.
COMMON SIGHTS: Humpbacks, finbacks, minke whales, Atlantic white-sided dolphins, blue whales, pilot whales, harbor porpoises, and many more.
UNCOMMON SIGHTS: North Atlantic right whales, white sharks, beluga whales, sei whales, sperm whales—even manatees.
FUN FACT: One of the NEAQ staff’s favorite bits of trivia to share: Whale poop is a key ocean fertilizer, and thanks to their deep dives, whales disperse those nutrients throughout the water column, from the ocean floor to the surface.
BOOKING INFO: • Dolphin Fleet: Approx. four-hour cruises offered mid-April–October. $53/$35 kids. whalewatch.com• NEAQ/BHC: Approx. four-hour cruises offered March–November. $53/$35 kids. bostonharborcruises.com• NE Eco Adventures: Three-hour cruises offered late May–mid-October. $99. newenglandecoadventures.com
