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!
1 comment:
How did you get the sample. Cross Bow etc?
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