About Cynde

Cynde McInnis grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Oddly enough, although surrounded by farms, she fell in love with whales at the age of eight. In 1994, she graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Psychology, focusing on learning and development. In August 1994, she interned with Ocean Alliance and Cape Ann Whale Watch of Gloucester, MA. Told she would eat, sleep and breathe whales, she thought, “What could be better?”

This three-month internship turned into a career. In her 29th season as a whale watch naturalist, she is currently leading trips for 7 Seas Whale Watch out of Gloucester, MA. She has led over 2500 whale watch trips and taught hundreds of thousands of people about whales and the threats they face in our oceans today.

Cynde has also coordinated and participated in teacher training programs sponsored by the University of Georgia and The Museum Institute for Teaching Science, MITS.  She has led camps for children in the Gloucester area and teaches at Maritime Gloucester. She was the education chair for the American Cetacean Society for two years and Vice-President of Cetacean Society International for two years.

Today, Cynde is very involved with whale conservation from many angles. She is an adjunct professor at Salem State University--teaching Environmental Interpretation, Intro to Tourism as well as a freshman seminar on, you guessed it--whales! She is co-organizing a conservation campaign called Year of the Right Whale to ensure right whales get the protection they need. Most recently, she is the co-chair of the North Atlantic Whale Watch Naturalists Association.