Welcome onboard!

For this season 2003, we are pursuing our different programmes started the preceding years, as much in the Ligurian Sea as in the Strait of Gibraltar. Here is a little sum up:

On the Gibraltar side:
We have already done a "killer whale mission" in April near Barbate during which we discovered a new group of a dozen individuals. Their hunting behaviours are different from the ones used by the group present in the middle of the Strait.

In June, we will be working for the European Union with a "LIFE" mission which consists of counting all the cetaceans present on the South coast of Spain, in particular bottlenose dolphins and porpoises which are the target species of the program because they are considered either endangered or vulnerable on all European coasts.

Like the preceding years, research volunteers will join us in July and August to discover the scientific work on cetaceans and help us with our work on the boat and on land. The season will start with another "killer whale mission" to continue our study on interactions between killer whales and tuna fisheries. We will see if the individuals present are the same as the other years or if there have been changes in the group’s formations.

The "bottlenose dolphins and pilot whales missions" will be to update our photo-identification catalogues and to start an important acoustic work on those two species. The photos will be taken from our motorboat Elsa and we will use our zodiac Lobo for the acoustic recordings. The interest of the zodiac is to be able to shut down the motor at the right moment in order to minimise noises on the recording.

On the Ligurian Sea side:
We will focus our efforts deploying new satellite tags on fin whales. This year, we will be collaborating with an American researcher, Bruce Mate, who has been developing a reliable tag system for ten years. We are, of course, expecting a lot from this manipulation, which will be held during three weeks in August from a catamaran. Will we have the chance to break through the mystery of Mediterranean fin whales to finally discover where do they disappear in winter?

Ask the program

In this issue, you will learn more about the killer whale and its different behaviours in the world. Then, as promised, we will tell you all about the research done in May on sperm whales of the Strait of Gibraltar: how to detect their diving depth using hydrophones.

next page >>

CIRCE Newsletter n° 6 - made by Philippe Verborgh, Christophe Laplanche & Anne Collet