Welcome onboard!

By writing this article I truly hope to share extraordinary moments that one can live when one goes with CIRCE as a research volunteer. " Extraordinary " is a small word to let you think about what one can feel when a killer whale is hunting next to the boat … However, before I make you dream, let me situate the context in which I made my trip.

So, I went to Algeciras for two weeks during the month of April 2003, in order to find the Spanish team of CIRCE for a " killer whale mission ". In fact, the aim was to study a new killer whale population that has been observed the year before around Barbate (Strait of Gibraltar).

The only deception of the trip was the weather that decided that we would not navigate for the first days because the rain and the wind were too strong to leave the port. After three days of waiting, the sun shown a few of its rays and we were finally able to embark to carry through with the mission.

The first trip at sea was amazing … we were expecting to wait before we could see a dorsal fin on the horizon, but after less than fifteen minutes, many individuals appeared a few hundreds of meters from the boat. That very day we observed certain tuna hunting techniques, some of which were near the "almadraba" that are frequent in this zone. The killer whales where swimming alongside the boat with big chunks of tuna in their mouth, it was really impressive.

Each of the next trip were really more fascinating than the last one; we made acoustic recordings, photo-identification in order to number and identify all the different killer whales present, record the dive time of certain individuals …

Back to land, we also had to deal with all the data gathered during the day. Interesting as it allows the initiation of one to different computer databases and it shows us that research is not only being on the field!

This trip is the second in which I take part and, like the first one, the memories it will leave me are indescribable … I could have gone on and on for pages and pages to tell you all the interesting times of these two weeks. However, what I can certify is that the scientist team is really sympathetic: each one informs you and implies you in all the actions, all in a very relax mood …

I have to leave you now, I hope that I gave you the will to continue to get passionate for cetaceans and why not go one of these days with CIRCE … See you soon for new adventures, I hope so…

Mathilde Saboureau

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CIRCE Newsletter n° 5 - made by Philippe Verborgh, Martine Bérubé and Mathilde Saboureau