This is the third FIU-SPAWRAC expedition to study sperm
whales and other deep-diving whales and dolphins off Guadelupe Island in the
eastern Caribbean Sea. I was able to
join the expedition – led by lab researcher Dr. Jeremy Kiska - for 4 days, but
the team got started a few days before my arrival and will stay on until the 18th
of April. Below is the account from the
days I was there. For more information
on the project, check out our 2014 blog posts, and stay tuned for exciting
developments. We are working on several scientific
papers and also have been working with Patrick Greene (SymbioStudios) to
produce video projects for teachers to use in K-12 classrooms! We’ll also be
sending out tweet updates (@symbiostudios, @mikeheithaus) and we will update
the blog once the expedition gets wrapped up!
-Mike
Day 1 – April 10,
2016
Patrick an I arrived yesterday evening and joined the crew
onboad our mothership Saravi III. So far the trip has been a success! The team spent the first three days using
towed sonar to map the distribution of potential sperm whale prey from
nearshore waters to 1500m deep and around a seamount that has been a sperm
whale hotspot in the past. They also
managed to encounter a number of sperm whales – including a group being harassed
by false killer whales – and Mehdi Bahktiari
(the designer of the whale cameras we are using) deployed the first
camera of the year. Unfortunately, the
suction cup worked too well, and the camera has not popped off yet and is
missing in action. The cameras have
built-in release mechanisms so it will come off – hopefully before the whale
swims far beyond the range of our transmitters we use to pick them up (about 20
miles).
We got underway at 530 and had time to get our gear together
while we steamed to the learest gas station (about 2 hours away). Once we had
filled up, we headed straight offshore
to 1000m of water to listen for sperm whales.
After the challenges of finding whales during my last trip (2014), I
have to say it was very exciting to hear that there were sperm whales in the
area the second the hydrophone hit the water.
Because the hydrophone is directional, we knew which way to head and it
wasn’t long before we were in the small boat getting ready to deploy a camera!
Putting a camera on a sperm whale isn’t particularly
easy. First, you have to find and stay
with the whales, which can be challenging when they regularly dive for more
than 25 minutes. A whale can travel a
long way in that amount of time and often the boat is too far away to approach
the whales before they dive again. That
is what happened on our first try to get close.
It looked like the same thing would happen on the next surfacing of the
whales, but we headed towards them slowly just to try to get an idea of the
direction they were heading. We got
lucky. The whales stayed at the surface
for a long time and lab scientist Kirk Gastrich’s slow approach got us close as
the whales were taking their last breaths before diving. We thought we had just missed the group when
one last whale popped up for two last breaths close to the boat. We had one change, and we were able to deploy
the camera.
Unfortunately, the deployment didn’t last super long. After about 15 minutes, the camera was
up. After viewing the video we found out
why – a young whale kept bumping into the whale with the camera, several times
knocking the camera. Amazingly, the
suction cup held up to three pretty major hits, but on the forth it came off. Although we didn’t get the data we wanted it
was good to see the camera can take so much abuse, and there was a great
sequence of the adult whale producing a coda (a train of clicks to a specific
rhythm) and the smaller whale answering.
We also saw that our new headlight system will be perfect for getting
images from the darkness of the deepsea without disturbing the whales!
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| Deploying an Exeye camera on a sperm whale |
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| View down the body of a whale wearing the camera |
Day 2 – April 11,
2016
Today was one of those simply amazing days! We got going early in spite of rain showers
and headed straight offshore. We were
rewarded with an encounter with Fraser’s dolphins shortly after leaving the
harbor at Malendure. It didn’t last
long, which is typical of Fraser’s. A
group split off and came to ride the bow briefly then shot off to continue on
their way. Like yesterday, we heard
sperm whales as soon as the hydrophone hit the water and we were off in search
of them. It wasn’t long before we saw
the characteristic blows off in the distance!
Unfortunately, the conditions weren’t great at the time and even though
we had the tagging boat, Jeremy in the filming boat, and Saravi III we had a hard time staying with a group. Luckily there were whales all over –
individuals and small groups could be seen in the distance, all seeming to head
north. After a couple hours we finally
had our chance and got close to a group.
Unfortunately, we weren’t quite close enough and I wasn’t able to get
the camera to stick to the whale! It can
actually be hard to get the suction cup to stick because there are only a few
parts of the body that aren’t too wrinkly (which keeps the cup from sticking)
and sperm whales shed their skin a lot.
If the cup hits a spot where the whale is shedding, the cup can’t stick.
We weren’t thwarted by the miss and stuck with our
efforts. As we went through the day
trying to get close to the whales we encountered many other species (7 in
total). Jeremy saw dwarf sperm whales –
which are small and shy – and we heard humpback whales while trying to figure
out which direction the sperm whales were going. A group of spotted dolphins came to ride the
bow while we were trying to get close to a sperm whale (not helping at all),
and we saw a Gervais beaked whale (a deep-diving toothed whale that is not
often seen) as well.
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| Spotted dolphin |
Eventually we got our chance. The winds had died down and a juvenile whale
was lingering at the surface (and showing some interest in the boat). It was just the opportunity we needed and the
camera was deployed…for three minutes. A
look at the video showed that the lip of the cup was on a spot where the whale
was sloughing skin. With about 10 whales
spread around the boat we made a quick trip to Saravi III to get ready to deploy again. On the way a group of rough-toothed dolphins
showed up, but we didn’t have time to spend with them and headed back to the whales.
Over the course of the next hour we spent time trying to deploy. The whales were socializing with each other (especially some juveniles) and were very relaxed so we could take our time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to deploy without disturbing the whales. My previous three deployments had been on the side of whales’ dorsal fins, so this time I tried for the smooth area on the back between the blowhole and dorsal fin. A fortuitously timed swell and Kirk’s expert driving gave me the perfect opportunity. The camera was deployed, and we started tracking the group. It was amazing to watch the animals for so long without them worried about our presence!
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| Sperm whale group |
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| Sperm whale with camera |
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| Whale-cam view of two other sperm whales |
It turns out this camera was stuck really well. In fact, as the sun set it was still on the
whale after more than four hours. With
the swell building and multiple boats that need to be towed by Saravi III we had to leave the area far
offshore where the whales were to spend time in shallower waters near the
coast. We can’t go into the harbor at
dark so we will be on one hour watches tonight as we patrol the shallows listening
for the camera to pop off…I get the 2am shift!
Day 3 – April 12,
2016
We started the day very early since we were already offshore
when the sun rose. I have to say that I
really enjoyed my 2am watch with the amazing stars and calm seas. Conditions this
morning were not ideal, but we headed north to try to listen for the missing
camera. We quickly found sperm whales,
and launched both small boats to work with them in hopes of getting biopsy
samples. While the small boats tried to find the whales again in the swell and
chop, the Saravi III broke off and
headed 12 miles north to listen for the VHF signal. Unfortunately, the wind was
already picking up and we were unable to get close enough to the whales for a
sample. The rest of the day was spent
searching for (and not finding any) sperm whales, dodging nasty rain squalls, and
bailing a leaking filming boat. We did have a nice brief encounter with spotted
dolphins at least! Tomorrow we will
continue our quest to find the camera – Mehdi thinks he heard it faintly to the
north.
Day 4 – April 13,
2016
It was a nice day to be on the water, with flat calm seas
greeting us early in the morning. But
the sperm whales were not cooperating.
The hydrophone produced no sign of sperm whales when Saravi III got out to sea. It wasn’t a good sign since sound travels so
far. We did run into a large group of
pilot whales though. The group of maybe
100 animals was spread out over a wide area and were resting and traveling very
slowly. We spent a while with them, but
the Saravi III and our inflatable
tagging boat broke off quickly to go look for sperm whales in an attempt to get
one more camera deployed before Patrick and I had to leave and to get Jeremy
started with biopsy sampling this year.
Jeremy and I were on the tagging boat and had an amazing encounter with
Fraser’s dolphins. We found maybe 400-500 animals in four tight groups leaping
to the south, then changing direction before moving south again. Jeremy had never seen anything like it. We didn’t linger though – there were sperm
whales to find.
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| A large group of Fraser's dolphins on the move |
The filming boat stayed with the pilot whales for quite a
while before they saw a large pilot whale in deeper water come to the surface
and violently tail-slap the surface.
Almost immediately, the sleepy pilot whales they had been with woke up
and started swimming quickly in the direction of the tail-slaps and deeper
water.
Unfortunately, despite good conditions and a very determined
effort we didn’t find any other animals the rest of the day. Whale watching boats reported a similar
experience – no sperm whales to be found on the west coast of Guadeloupe
today. It is interesting that we saw a
big group of pilot whales today and no sperm whales. We had a similar experience in 2014. When we saw pilot whales, there were no sperm
whales and vice versa. Pilot whales are
known to harass sperm whales until they regurgitate – then the pilot whales eat
what comes up – so maybe the sperm whales have moved somewhere else
temporarily.
When the day was over it was bittersweet to be packing
up. It was an amazing trip, and I am
sure there will be more great work in the next few days before the project
wraps up. After that it is time to
analyze the data we have collected, finish the films and classroom videos, and
plan the next steps in the research!
