Notch's Girlfriend

Yesterday we encountered a whale that had been escorted last year by Notch - an infamous breacher/pec-slapper who put on some amazing aerial displays last year including a 15 minute display of over 20 full breaches. Song recordings and genetics confirmed that Notch is a male and he is back in Cape Verde again. We biopsied the female that he had been escorting, and her new calf. We will be able to see if he sired this calf, and how many others for that matter.

Notch's Girlfriend

Dodgy picture of a male magnificent frigatebird

We took two more samples in the morning - what may have been a young male. This whale was small with a lot of scars, and did some breaching including one full breach (tail and all out of the water!) quite unexpectedly about 50m from our stern. This whale was travelling with a female without a calf. The five samples collected yesterday brings to 19 the number of tissue samples collected this year. Altogether we now have DNA samples from 43 individual whales which is close to ideal sample size of 50 which is required for most decent population genetic analyses. We are delighted to get so many in such a short period, considering there are so few whales around here (we encounter the same individuals on an almost daily basis, but only biopsy 'new' animals).

I am flying back to Dublin via Manchester this afternoon after 2 memorable weeks of productive fieldwork in great company. Thanks to Darren Craig for the trojan work and enthusiasm - twas great craic. We owe so much to Pedro Lopez Suarez ('Pedrin') too, for helping us with sampling permits, chartering boats, pick up our fuel every day and for sharing so much of his knowledge about the whales and the local area. This research is simply not possible without his help. José was our skipper for most of the past fortnight and has been superb - he always keeps a cool head and has great control over the boat, managing to keep the splashes to a minimum... so important considering our camera and biopsy gear hate sea water.

Pedrin at work on the Tartaruga do Mar  whale-watching boat

From Left: Pedrin, Conor and José (by Darren Craig)

Darren will take a breather for a week or so before Simon Berrow arrives on May 6 to carry out another 2 weeks of fieldwork. Darren will keep you all posted on this blog.

Until next year...

Ciao

Conor Ryan