Bahamas Beaked Whale Ecology Study

Support Wild Dolphin Conservation - Adopt A Dolphin!

2008-12-16T10:09:00.003-05:00

BMMRO has partnered with Friends of the Environment to once again offer an Adopt-A-Dolphin Programme. The goals of the programme are to increase awareness about marine mammals in The Bahamas and to support existing research efforts in Abaco. Your adoption will directly contribute to these efforts. Follow this link for more info: http://www.friendsoftheenvironment.org/adoptadolphin.html

The perfect gift for Christmas or Birthdays!

Two Amazing Days in North West Providence Channel

2008-06-13T22:13:00.003-04:00

Our Study Area

2008-06-09T21:38:00.004-04:00

The Bahamas Beaked Whale Ecology Study is focused in the Northern Bahamas. This map shows our study area split into 4 transect grids: Northwest Providence Channel, Northeast Providence Channel, Tongue of the Ocean (aka TOTO) and Cul-de-Sac (the end of TOTO). These transect grids all fall within The Great Bahama Canyon - the largest underwater canyon in the world.

To make sure that our survey effort is evenly distributed throughout each transect grid we have created a series of randomly generated transect lines (or legs) within each grid. The ship follows the transect lines until we have a sighting, then we leave the line (if need be) to complete the encounter. At the end of the encounter we resume transit along the transect line until we have another sighting. The chart below shows our progress thus far. Each yellow line is a transect leg that we have run since we started on May 15th. We still have a few legs left to go (those in black off Grand Bahama)! Wish us luck!

Dolphin Day!

2008-06-08T23:41:00.008-04:00

June 6, 2008

We started out at Burrow's Cay off the east end of Grand Bahama, and had hoped to head towards the Berry Islands, but the weather was not cooperating. Instead, we followed the canyon wall over to South Abaco. On the way we sighted Rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis) and later we had a group of Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) bow-riding! There were two small calfs in the group of spotted dolphins that breached repeatedly - we got some great photos!

Rough-toothed dolphin - note the long rostrum and white lips. Also, notice there is no crease between the melon (head) and the rostrum (as there is in bottlenose or spotted dolphins,
for example).

Atlantic Spotted dolphin - "What, no spots?" Spotted dolphins are actually born without spots, and accumulate them with age - the more spots, the older the animal. In this picture you can see a distinct colour pattern: dark gray on the dorsal surface fading to pale gray on the underside of the dolphin. When very active, this pale gray area may look pink - this is from blood circulating near the skin's surface (like a blush).

We anchored at Rocky Point that evening and went to the Sandy Point "Fish Fry" that night for a little taste of home. This weekend is The Bahamas' Labour Day holiday weekend, so there were alot of people out to celebrate.

A Day of Rest

2008-06-05T21:28:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday we had to make a visit to AUTEC to refuel, which was slated to take us about 8 hours due to a broken pump! The weather was bad for research, so we had a day ashore. We spent the day reading on the beach, sailing, snorkeling and relaxing. By the end of the day, the boat was fueled up and we were all recharged - ready for two more weeks of whale encounters!

Sperm Whales in TOTO

2008-06-03T22:48:00.004-04:00

A couple pics from an encounter we had in the Tongue of the Ocean in May. The photo on the top shows the characteristic "lopsided" blowhole of a sperm whale (always points to the left). We can use their crooked blows to help us determine which direction they are headed - even from a large distance. The bottom photo is showing a sperm whale's dorsal fin. Also note the very wrinkly skin!

Whale Pics: June 2, 2008

2008-06-03T22:34:00.004-04:00

Photos from yesterday's mixed encounter with Cuvier's beaked whales (left) and Blainville's beaked whales (right). It may be hard to see in this picture, but the Cuvier's beaked whale is an adult male - we are able to tell because he has two teeth projecting from the tip of the lower jaw. This is typical for adult male beaked whales, however the location and
size/shape of the teeth varies. Cuvier's beaked whales also have the characteristic white colouration as seen in the photo - this is more pronounced in adult males.

With a Kogia here, a Kogia there, here a Kogia there a kogia...everywhere....mucho Kogia!

2008-06-03T22:14:00.002-04:00

Another fairly decent weather day, though it did breeze up a few times. Our transect line took us from South Abaco down to North Eleuthera today. As the title suggests, we had alot of Kogia sightings. However, we also saw (having detected acoustically) some Cuvier's beaked whales off North Eleuthera. We got samples from an Adult Male and an Adult Female! We also sighted some Atlantic bottlenose dolphins near shore.

Hooray for the calmness!

2008-06-02T23:01:00.002-04:00

The weather finally shaped up! Today was a nice sunny day with Beaufort 2 sea state - very workable! We had a great day full of encounters (9 sightings total). The highlight was a mixed encounter with a Cuvier's beaked whale and two Blainville's beaked whales that were interacting with each other. We have not seen or heard of this happening before! Promise to add photos and more info tomorrow. We just spent about two hours wading through data so it's hard to stay awake.

Congo Town

2008-06-01T10:39:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm trying to catch up on what's happened over the past week....

On May 23rd we were still working within the AUTEC range using both our hydrophone and their bottom-mounted array to acoustically search for beaked whales and sperm whales. At the end of the day we anchored off Congo Town and decided to go in to look around. We met some very friendly characters and managed to find someone to make us conch fritters! (very good)

There are alot of goats wandering around Congo Town - probably more than there are dogs. My theory is that the goats have filled the "potcake niche". (Potcakes are our local Bahamian mutt - now an officially recognized breed - "The Royal Bahamian Potcake")

R/V F.G. Walton Smith

2008-06-01T10:24:00.002-04:00

The R/V F.G. Walton Smith is the University of Miami's research vessel, which we are chartering this month. The boat was named after F.G. Walton Smith, the man who established University of Miami's marine laboratory, and coincidentally was also one of the people who lobbied for the creation of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park in The Bahamas.

The photo shows a sperm whale with the Walton Smith in the background.

Wind, Wind, Go Away......

2008-05-27T20:52:00.003-04:00

Today's Blog is brought to you by the letter B, and the number 6.

Today's seastate condition was a Beaufort 6. The Beaufort scale is used to describe the strength of wind at sea. A Beaufort zero would be glassy calm, while a Beaufort 12 would occur during a hurricane. Our preferred sea state for survey is less than B3...

Fingers crossed for good weather!

Spotlight on Acoustics

2008-05-26T13:18:00.008-04:00

Beaked whales are cryptic animals. They spend little time at the surface, and often dive for long periods making them difficult to track. Because of this we do not know as much about the distribution of beaked whales as we do other species; however, since there is a link between low-frequency sonar use and the stranding of these animals, it is important to find out more.

Recent reviews have indicated that under ideal conditions between 23-45% percent of Cuvier´s and Blainville’s beaked whales would be visually sighted during a survey, needless to say that under poor sea conditions these numbers decrease drastically. One way to help us find out more about these animals is the use of acoustic tracking equipment, like the setup that we are using on this cruise.

We are towing a 400 meter cable (photo on right) with four hydrophone units at 200 and 400 meters distance, recording with a sampling rate of 192 k/second, allowing us to monitor a frequency band up to 96 kHz. Since the energy of most beaked whale vocalisations is situated in the 30-50 kHz range we will be able to detect these animals when they are diving and hopefully increase our sighting rate. We are using Rainbow Click (see middle photo, pink dots are beaked whale clicks) and PamGuard programs to monitor acoustic activity.

This helps us in our search of knowledge about these amazing creatures!

At Anchor

2008-05-26T10:10:00.002-04:00

Yesterday the weather picked up quite a bit, so we came over to Green Cay on the eastern side of the Tongue of the Ocean (see the arrow in the map) to anchor in calmer waters. Green Cay is uninhabited, except by some goats which we noticed on our last visit in October 2007. While we're sitting here today I'll try to catch up with what happened over the past few days.

Quote of the Day

2008-05-24T14:51:00.003-04:00

"If rivers can have mouths, then oceans can have tongues."
- Bob Pitman, Tongue of the Ocean, Bahamas

May 21, 2008

Our first sample of the day!

2008-05-22T22:20:00.004-04:00

The sample is divided into 3 parts. Note the vial on the right with
skin and blubber.
For scale, the vials are about 4cm tall.

Source of luck in Fresh Creek?

2008-05-22T21:29:00.004-04:00

The team went in to Fresh Creek last night for some R&R at Hank's Restaurant (a cool place to go, if you have the chance). This morning we were rewarded with increasingly calm weather - the best we have had yet! Using our towed hydrophone array we detected both beaked whales and sperm whales. We got a visual on the Blainville's beaked whales and were able to get a biopsy sample! This sample will be used to evaluate population stocks, to investigate levels of pollutants in the whales and to help determine what the whales are eating (using stable isotopes).

Had a sighting of a Pygmy sperm whale, but did not get photos.

Later, we had another encounter with Blainville's beaked whales and got another biopsy sample. It will be very useful to have multiple samples from the same area.

As the sun started to descend, we spotted sperm whale blows through the haze at the horizon. The acoustics station also detected their clicks on the hydrophone, so we used both visual and acoustic cues to close in on the sperm whales. They were sighted one more time before we lost our daylight. We ended the day with another beautiful sunset!

Recovering the CTD

2008-05-20T15:54:00.002-04:00

Four species day

2008-05-18T22:36:00.002-04:00

Our track took us from the Berry Islands southwards. Despite the large swell and Beaufort 4-5 conditions we managed to sight both Pygmy and Dwarf sperm whales this morning (if you've seen one before you know how hard this can be!) The weather calmed when we got close to Nassau and we had a couple distant beaked whale sightings, and some dolphins that were too far away to identify. We completed that track line and started another that took us back towards the Berry Islands again. When we completed our line we deployed another CTD. We are going to do this several times throughout the cruise to try to gain a picture of the habitat that our study animals are living in.

We finished our day exercising on the main deck, with the beautiful sunset behind us and a yummy brownie with vanilla icecream waiting for us!!!

May 17th - p.m. edition

2008-05-18T22:30:00.002-04:00

The afternoon got very interesting when a young Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) breached multiple times across our bow! This is a very rare behaviour for densirostris (see photo). There are many possible reasons why a whale may breach: to communicate with others, to avoid predators, trying to dislodge parasites, because it's fun?! We do not know what caused the breach at this incidence, but it sure was exciting!

Soon after, two Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) were sighted. Two beaked whale species down... we are still on the lookout for the elusive Gervais' beaked whale.......

At the end of the day we did a "CTD" (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) Profile with a sample of seawater from 1500m. We were also looking at parameters such as dissolved oxygen content.

First Sightings :)

2008-05-17T10:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday the weather turned out to be pretty nice. We briefly saw some dolphins and a group of Blainville's beaked whales, which we also detected using the hydrophone array. (Also a possible hammerhead shark sighting)

Today (May 17) it's a bit windier so we are heading towards the NW. No joy yet, but our eyes are peeled!

Bird sighting

2008-05-16T13:10:00.001-04:00

The sneaky Red footed booby that was circling the boat. Sorry the picture's not too great - maybe we'll see another one!

Hail, Hail, The Gang's all here!

2008-05-16T11:50:00.004-04:00

Rough passage yesterday across the Gulf Stream. We cleared customs in Bimini and then made passage to Sandy Point to pick up the rest of our crew and equipment. We did some surveying and tested the hydrophone. No whales or dolphins, but some friendly birds - including a red footed booby that comically tried to land on the anemometer. We ended the day with a beautiful sunset.

Today (May 16) we are at Sandy Point finishing equipment set-up and are just about to raise the anchor to pick up one of our transect legs that will take us to the Berry Islands tonight.

Welcome!

2008-05-01T12:12:00.000-04:00

We have set up this blog as part of our education efforts for the Bahamas Beaked Whale Ecology Study (BBES). BBES is a research project of the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organisation. BBES objectives are to determine beaked whale distribution in the Great Bahama Canyon and to examine their population structure through photo-identification and genetic analysis.

The next step in the Bahamas Beaked Whale Ecology Study is a month long cruise to survey the Great Bahama Canyon. The cruise starts on May 16th, 2008 and we hope to update the site regularly with photos and an anecdotal log of our voyage.

For more information about marine mammal research in The Bahamas, visit: www.bahamaswhales.org .