The get naked species.

"Which species would you get naked for?" A question that I was once asked, and too which in a moment of madness, made possible after 2 weeks of surveying in the Scotia Sea without seeing any life, I foolishly replied the blue whale. In my defence I wasn't thinking straight, my mind befuddled by 3 weeks of early starts and long days battling the elements; but somewhere along the way I had also agreed that I wouldn't just get naked for a blue whale, but I'd run naked around the ship. Believe me, I really wasn't thinking straight, because the ship in question was the James Clark Ross (100m plus), the probability of seeing a blue whale was high, and it was autumn in the southern hemisphere so the whales were not going to be the only blue mammals on show. Fortuitously for me, and more importantly for the crew of the JCR, we sailed into a blizzard just as we were approaching a series of unidentified spouts on the horizon.

That was April 2005 and I still haven't seen a blue whale, but the idea of a get naked species has stuck. It makes for an interesting topic of conversation over dinner, and each person I've asked has a different species and a different reason. Blue whale, tiger, oceanic white tipped shark, southern right whale dolphin, gorilla, snow leopard, otter ..... etc., etc. and so the list goes on.

Why the blue whale when I could have chosen the Baji, possibly still alive in 2005, or the Vaquita, which I was lucky enough to both see and record in 2008. Good question! Perhaps it is because blue whales are the largest animal on the planet, yet we know so little about them. Perhaps it is because I've made recordings of blue whale "song" in north east Atlantic and wondered about the animals that could sing at such such low frequencies. In case you were wondering some blue whale calls go down to 10Hz, if you had excellent hearing and hadn't attended too many rock concerts when you were young you might be able hear down to 20Hz. Really impressive when you think about it. Anyway for better or for worse blue whales and I have at date with destiny, but fortunately for everyone here that special day has yet to arrive.

So, which species would you get naked for? Answers on a postcard to ...........

The Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project: Exciting results from Operation Calanus!

The Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project: Exciting results from Operation Calanus!: L-R: Echosounder trace showing ascending and descending whales; Zoomed in view showing food and whales diving out of the food patch! R...

The Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project: Operation Calanus - TAG ON!

The Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project: Operation Calanus - TAG ON!: L-R: Canadian Research Permit for 2011; Rene attaching the timer release belt on tag; Rene with his 20 m carbon fibre pole with tag att...

A whale sized breathalyser!

Why would anyone in their right mind want to breathaylse a whale? And what is about that heady cocktail of stale air and water that interests a  whale biologist?  To cut a long story short - HORMONES! That cocktail of stale air contains secrets about a whale's short term stress levels and a female's reproductive status. Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal gland in response to stress, and progesterone is a steroid hormone involved in pregnancy. Some very clever people at the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) and Mingan Island Cetacean Study (MICS) have been developing tests to detect trace levels of cortisol and progesterone in whale breath, and hope to measure stress responses to man made sounds and to detect which females in a population are pregnant.

So how do you breathaylse a whale? Believe me it's not easy, a lot of patience is required and you do need a whale sized breathalyser. The whale sized breathalyser is essentially a very, very, very clean (triple washed) ladies nylon stocking, in a quilters ring, attached to the end of a long, carbon fibre pole which can be placed above the whale's blow hole when it breathes. We call it "blow sampling". Below is a photographic guide to blow sampling.

Step 1. Find a whale and try and get down wind of it.

Step 2.  Place the whale breathalyser in the "blow", making sure there is no cross contamination from other whales.

Some people go to extremes to ensure that we get an excellent sample!

Ramp Style "Extreme" Blow Sampling to collect a Meduse quality sample.

Once collected, the quality of each blow sample is assessed and graded on a four point scale; 1 - Poor, 2 - Medium, 3 - High and 4 - Excellent. So for example the sample collected from Meduse (see the image above - Ramp Style "Extreme" Blow Sampling) would have been graded as  excellent because the breathalyser kit was placed right above the blow holes in the direct path of the blow. Each sample is then sealed with an inhibiting agent to prevent the natural biological breakdown of the hormones we are interested in, and sent back to the lab for analysis.

"The Inspector Gadget of the Oceans".

Meet the "Inspector Gadget of the Oceans" otherwise known as the Little Leonardo W2000-3MPD3GT data logger, a very important tool in our trade and one that is helping us to shed light on many new and interesting aspects of whale behaviour. 

The Inspector Gadget of the Oceans (W2000-3MPD3GT) ready to go in his white floatation suit and piggy backing a Sirtrack GPS data loger. The Rising Sun on the tail is in honour of our Japanese friends and collaborators at the University of Tokyo.

Like "Inspector Gadget", the W2000-3MPD3GT has many tricks hidden within it's tiny body. The data logger is about the size of a small hand held torch (ø28 x 168 mm ), weighs 168g and has 512mb of memory; but for it's size it packs a mighty punch, and is able to record nine different parameters during it's ride on a whale's back.

1. 3M or Three Axis Magnetometer. The tree axis magnetometer records the strength of the earth's magnetic field every second in three different planes; X, Y and Z. This data is used to give us the whales heading with respect to magnetic north.
2. P or propeller. The propeller at the front of the logger logs the whale's speed through the water every second.
3. D or depth. A pressure sensor in the Logger records the whale's depth every second, enabling us to see where in the water column it is diving.  
4. 3G or Three axis accelerometers. Inspector Gadget's 3 axis accelerometers measure the acceleration due to gravity every 1/3rd of a second in three different planes; X, Y and Z. We use the data from the accelerometers to measure how well an individual whale glides through the water, and how often it has to stroke (beat it's flukes) allowing us to assess it's overall body condition.
5. T or temperature. A small temperature sensor at the back of the data logger measures the water temperature through the water column as the whale dives. Water temperature affects both the speed of sound, very important for species that have evolved to use sound for communication, and the structure of the water column.

 

Our Inspector Gadget wears a sleek, white, torpedo shaped floatation suit, and is attached to the whale using a suction cup. His floatation suit also houses a VHF radio beacon and a timer release mechanism.  The VHF beacon allows us to track the whale each time it surfaces to breathe, and also allows us to find our Inspector Gadget again once he releases from the whale. The timer release mechanism is used to break the vacuum in the suction cup so that our Inspector Gadget can return to the surface with his valuable data.

The Inspector Gadget of the Oceans hitches a ride on "Splish" (H002).

When we get back to shore we give Inspector Gadget a good bath in fresh water, dry him down and then plug him into my laptop to download his memory.  It is only now that we get a first look at the raw data he has recorded.

Raw data captured by Inspector Gadget during his five hour and forty minute ride on "Splish" (H002).

Body condition, stress and reproductive success.

Time for a little theory, but I promise to keep it simple. 

Fat, well fed whales float better than thin, stressed whales because they have a higher lipid content in their blubber. When a fat, well fed whale dives it will have to beat it's tail flukes more frequently to counteract it's inherent buoyancy; while a thin, stressed whale will sink more easily and have to beat it's flukes less frequently. Conversely when swimming back to the surface; a fat, well fed whale uses it's inherent buoyancy to help it ascend; while a thin, stressed whale has to beat it's flukes more frequently. Thin, stressed whales with a poor condition are less likely to reproduce because they don't have sufficient blubber reserves to sustain themselves or their calf.

How do you measure the body condition of an animal the size and weight of a truck? Cue the Inspector Gadget of the Oceans, a whale sized breathalyser, laser photogrammetry and a biopsy dart.

Tagged! Our very own "Wide Body!"

 Not wanting to be "size-ist" in any way, shape or form,  but yesterday we tagged our very own "wide body", and to paraphrase Queen and Freddie Mercury " Fat bottomed girls you really do make our rockin' world go round"!

"Move over, wide body coming through!".

"Wide Body"! "Fat bottomed girl"! Whoah, enough of the sexist and size-ist language.  So let me apologise profusely, but both phrases are very apt descriptions of a mature, adult female humpback whale. Yesterday we tagged the oldest female in the MICS catalog, H002 or "Splish" to her friends. Believe it or not Splish is almost as old as me, and yes I know what you are thinking ..... "that's ancient!". She was first photographed back in 1980; that was the year of the Moscow Olympics, Mount Saint Helens, the Empire Strikes Back, Pac Man ......... and also the year that the American public voted in a B-Rate actor as their 40th President. In case you were wondering, I was nine in 1980.
 

But why all the excitement over a "Fat bottomed girl"? Female humpbacks are integral to the Miller Lab's "Body Condition Project", which is attempting to understand the relationship between stress, body condition and behaviour; and ultimately how this links to an individual's reproductive success. More details to come in future blogs!

Seduced by Meduse!

Last Thursday (1st September) we had a repeat date with Meduse (H607). Meduse is a male humpback who it appears is a little bit confused about his sexuality, and who has a predilection for blue rubber over the fairer sex. The blue rubber in question is our research boat Sirocco, and if you are within 400m of Meduse he makes a b-line for Sirocco; while this makes for some interesting encounters, it can be a real challenge if you are trying to study natural behaviour.

The Kelp Dance.

We first encountered Meduse on 22nd July, while he was trying to seduce his female escort. "Lazy Zhu" (H731), and that was when we tagged him for the first time. Over the next week, whenever we encountered Meduse he became more and more possessive of Sirocco and would jealously guard his new found love from the advances of other inquisitive whales.  Skip forward five weeks to September 1st and here was Meduse again, performing his underwater ballet in an effort to impress Sirocco.  As part of the "Body Condition Project" we need to get repeat data from the same animal at the beginning and the end of the season to see how body condition changes with time on the feeding grounds; and as Meduse made himself so readily available it seemed rude not to tag him again. Undeterred by the tag Meduse continued his seduction of Sirocco. much to the dismay of "Boomerang" (H706) his chosen partner for the day.  It is a good job that females are blessed with patience because Meduse eventually gave up on Sirocco and headed off into sunset with Boomerang.
 

Meduse flying the flag for Canada & MICS.

I have to say that each time I am lucky enough to see it, I am blown away watching the underwater ballet of Meduse.  It is incredible to watch an animal his size (20m) turn, loop the loop and roll all within a body length; then do it again and again. His pectoral fins are put to good use throughout this intricate dance, being extended and retracted to generate lift and drag when and where required. As for spatial awareness, again blown away; Meduse knew exactly where our very expensive Simrad echosounder was and made several passes by it, each time within a few centimetres.

Vaquita news update!

The "Vaquita" or Gulf of California Porpoise is the most endangered marine mammal in the world; and in my other life I have been involved in an international project to analyse acoustic line transect data to improve automatic click detectors within the PAMGUARD framework to be better able to assess the current status of the Vaquita population.  In November this year myself and Dr. Douglas Gillespie from the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews,  along with colleagues from Mexico and United States will be presenting the following paper at the 162nd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego, California.
 

Towed hydrophone surveys for monitoring trends in the abundance and distribution of the critically endangered Gulf of California porpoise, “Vaquita”.

René Swift1, Shannon Rankin2, Tim Gerrodette2, Barbara Taylor2, Douglas Gillespie, Jonathan Gordon1, Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho4, Armando Jaramillo-Legorreta4.

1. Sea Mammal Research Unit, Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 8LB. U.K. 2. Southwest Fisheries Science Centre, 3333 N. Torrey Pines Court, La Jolla, CA 92037, U.S.A. 3. Instituto Nacional de Ecologia / CICESE, KM 107 Carretera Ensenada-Tijuana, Ensenada, B.C. 22860, Mexico.

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is a critically endangered small cetacean found only in the upper Gulf of California, where fisheries bycatch remains an acute threat. Cost, shallow heavily fished areas and the vaquita’s extreme avoidance of noisy motorised vessels argue against using large vessels typically used for visual line transect surveys. Towed hydrophone surveys, using RainbowClick semi-automatic detection software, were carried out from a 24' sailing trimaran in autumn 2008. Ultrasonic (~130kHz) vaquita echolocation clicks were reliably detected and tracked using classification parameters developed for harbour porpoise. Transects were sailed on 49% of days, and 31 groups were detected within the vaquita’s known range and in areas not easily surveyed using traditional methods. Although very high levels of ambient noise presented challenges for acoustic monitoring, perpendicular distances were calculated to 30 groups giving an estimated strip half-width of 198m. The detection algorithm has since been implemented in PAMGUARD software and significantly improved using survey data. Shallow, heavily fished areas remain difficult for estimating and monitoring trends in abundance. Towed arrays proved effective for the former and may remain the only alternative for the latter. Precision is likely to remain low for the quick detection of small rates of increase.

For more information about the desert porpoise (Vaquita) visit the following sites:

• http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/vaquita.htm
• http://vaquita.tv/
• http://www.vivavaquita.org/

For more information about PAMGAURD visit:

• http://www.pamguard.org/home.shtml

The fog festival continues!

This mornings weather report courtesy of the blue house.

The calm before the storm - "Come in number 755 it's time to be tagged!"

Sunday promised much and didn't let us down. Equipment and personnel took a battering on our way west to Point Ouest and Banc Parent, and accumulated tiredness and frustration (AKA Field Lag) crept to the surface when a 12 volt battery powering the nerve centre of our operations (my trusty laptop) gave up the ghost 2 hours into the trip. Sometimes it is useful being able to swear in many different languages. Undeterred by our minor setback and resorting to pencil and paper, hey if it was good enough for the Russian Space program, we continued south and west. The wind and tide abated, the sun came out, and we hit a purple patch, porpoises and Atlantic white-sided dolphins. Then came the call we had been waiting for "Sirocco, Sirocco pour Rafale"......... "We are with 3 MN, and our position is 7miles due north of you........ ". Christian opened up the throttle and soon we were skimming north and seeing spouts. 

Following two spouts we came upon a female humpback (Stalagmite) being escorted by a male (Tmain). Stalagmite was happy to approach the boat and we were treated to a display of pectoral slaps and spy hops; however there was little time for me to enjoy the show as the pressure was now on to prepare a tag while Stalagmite was still interested in us. Cue more blue language as cable ties broke and Tygon tubing decided that today was the day it didn't want to be bent. Finally the tag was ready and the rest as they say should have been easy; place tag in the TAD (tag attachment device), tie myself in, raise the tag pole, wait for Stalagmite to swim by and deploy the tag. Like I said it should have been easy, but I like a challenge and it was going to be one of those days. The tag bounced off and our chance with Stalagmite was gone.

Cue another 2 humpback whales; number 755 (a small male), and close associate 708 (another male), perhaps it was going to be our day after all. An easy life is just not my way, and so it proved with tagging 755. Pole fully extended, 755 sinking below the boat, a quick prod some way down from the dorsal fin on the right hand side, tag floating back to the surface............... Hang on!..... No tag in the TAD, no tag at the surface, in fact the tag was defying the laws of buoyancy and heading down into the depths below............................compute brain, compute brain..... whir, click, click, whir........"TAG ON!". "Time ........12:12:22, way-point 7". Somehow we had successfully attached a tag to humpback 755, now we waited to see if it would stay on. Shortly after tagging there was a lot of surface interaction between our whale, its close associate 708 and another humpback, miraculously the tag stuck and somehow migrated up the flank to sit in a perfect position just below the dorsal fin.

  

The waiting game over we followed at a respectful distance, listening to our VHF for the tags beacon and scanning the horizon trying to catch each surfacing, religiously noting down the time and position of every dive. As the minutes ticked by we nervously watched the horizon for signs of tropical storm Irene and listened intently to each new weather forecast. Would the tag release at it's allotted time (1500 hours) or were we going to be in for a long anxious wait? "Blow, fluke, blow, dive, blow, logging.........." so the hours passed.

From Rafale, Alain biopsied our whale as our hands were all tied up with tracking. The blubber sample that Alain collected will be used to assess stress levels by measuring cortisol concentrations, measure toxic loading and to determine at what level in the food chain our whale was feeding at.

The designated hour arrived and we waited with fingers crossed for continuous beeping from the tags VHF beacon, which would signal that it was back at the surface and had released successfully. Our whale surfaced and dove at 15:01 and the tag was still clearly attached.. "Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep....." the tag was off, and the time was 15:07, seven minutes from release to the suction cup filling up and falling off. Time to find the tag and collect our valuable data, while saying thank you to 755 for sharing this brief glimpse into his life. Within a minute we had retrieved the tag, and within 5 we had packed up and were heading back to base at 26 knots ahead of the advancing Irene.

A forecasters lot is a happier one, a biologists lot is not such a happy one....

In the end the forecasters got it right on Saturday and the the fog finally cleared at around 09:30. After some frantic sandwich making we were on the water by 11:30 heading west to Point Nord and Banc Parent in our trusty blue RHIB "Sirocco".  Many miles and many hours later we returned to nurse our sore limbs and sunburned faces with a single minke whale , 20 grey seals and 5 puffing pigs under our belt. I was reminded of a quote from Shakespeare's "Scottish Play".

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools"

Rafale, the second MICS research boat out on the water on Saturday, faired a little better and finally made contact with a humpback mother and calf in the twilight. Perhaps our luck was about to change; if only Irene could stay away another day.

A forecasters lot is not happy one.......

A forecasters lot is not a happy one.......  Up at 5 this morning to be greeted by a wall of fog! It seems that the weather gods are not wanting to play ball, and Irene is on her way. It has been one of those years and the forecasters have more often been wrong than right. Here is a quick guide in case you're confused.

Forecast: "Sunny with light winds" 

Reality: Fog so thick you can't see beyond the end of your noise & Beaufort 4 or above.

To be fair it is a difficult job and I've just got a touch of the cabin fever. We'll see what the weather gods say at 09.:00.

Vote for MICS in “Call for the Wild!” Campaign!

We are currently collaborating with our friends at the Mingan Island Cetacean Study (MICS) based in Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, Quebec. You can help support MICS by voting for them in the "Call for the Wild" campaign.  For more details I'll hand you over to Chris (Herr Dr. Christian Ramp).

" Vote for MICS in “Call for the Wild!” Campaign!  MICS is one of five charitable wildlife organizations participating in the Call for the Wild campaign of Jamieson Laboratories, a leading natural health product provider. The campaign lasts from August 16 to September 18 and Jamieson Laboratories will donate a total of 100,000 $ among the 5 NGOs. How much MICS will receive depends entirely on you! Everyone can vote for their favourite NGO on the Jamieson facebook page (also non-facebook members), and the NGOs will receive the equivalent of the vote share. I.e. If MICS gets 5% of the total votes, we will get 5,000$, if we get 20%, 20,000$ and so on. So please vote for us! Everyone can vote once per day – so come back every day and cast your vote for MICS! You will have to enter your name and email address, so that the system can check if you've voted already. There is a box which you can tick if you want to get information from Jamieson laboratories or not. Your data will not be used or forwarded to anybody else. The link to vote for us is:

http://www.facebook.com/jamiesonvitamins

You need to enter a Canadian Postal Code, you can follow this link to find a post code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_G_postal_codes_of_Canada, they are always 3 numbers and 3 letters. I.e. the Station is at G0G 1V0.

Please feel free to send this link to any of your friends who might be interested in supporting us.

Thank you!"

Shedding light on the underwater behaviour of whales.

Understanding the free ranging behaviour of any animal is difficult; understanding the underwater behaviour of an animal the size of a blue whale (30 plus metres and weighing in at over 100 tonnes) makes life a little more interesting! Throw into the melting pot the fact that despite their size baleen whales are often "shy"; only come close to shore for a couple of months a year, quite often in remote locations; and even then are only available at the surface for a few seconds to breathe every 10 to 20 minutes and you'll start to get an idea of some of the difficulties that every field biologist faces. Then there is the weather!

Fortunately we have a number of different tools at our disposal, which allow us to make the most of the opportunities that we have.  These include non-invasive suction cup attached data loggers which ride on the whale and allow us reconstruct it's underwater movements, scientific echo-sounders to map prey fields and hydrophones to record underwater sounds. Piecing together the data collected from these various sources gives us a brief glimpse into the whales' underwater movements and behaviour in relation to their prey.

The beginning of an idea ........

Too much time at sea talking to god on the porcelain telephone, listening to the haunting down sweeps of blue whales in the north east Atlantic, recording the 20Hz pulses of fin whales on pop-ups and sonobuoys and wondering. A 2005 sighting survey around south Georgia with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a chance meetings with krill scientists from BAS and the University of Hull, a krill pendulum, a canabalised sonobuoy and lots of electrical interference both on the hydrophone and in my head.  Plenty of time for questions to mature.

Why baleen whales?
I'll respond with a question or two of my own.  Have you ever been up close to a fin whale and marveled at their beauty, grace and agility or wondered how they successfully feed on animals no bigger than you hand? 

Why sensory ecology?
Dolphins do it with sound, they echolocate to navigate and find their prey. Baleen whales? No one knows! Perhaps they use touch, sight, sound, taste or smell or a combination of different senses at different scales .... watch this space!

Where have all the whales gone?

Another day on the water pounding our way east from Mingan to Falaise Puyjalon on the north shore of Anticosti Island, then west along the north shore of Anticosti to Pointe Nord, before returning to Mingan via Île aux Perroquets. Sightings in the bag:

• A single fin whale heading south east
• One minke whale traveling west, 
• And a "puffing pig". 

A month ago traveling the same route saw us wading through a soup of porpoises, minke, humpback and  fin whales. Now we are asking ourselves "..... where have all the whales gone?" If you know where they are, send your answers on a postcard to funkyfinwhale.blogspot.com