Saturday, August 11, 2012

Day 2: Got some sounds!

Spotted dolphins
(Photo: M. Kaplan; NMFS permit #15530 to CRC)

Yesterday's low sightings numbers were more than made up for by this morning. Not 15 minutes after leaving the harbour did we catch a group of pilot whales, followed shortly by a few bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). An hour later we came upon rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis), and then, a large group of spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata). In total, we had 9 sightings today of these four species while travelling 126 km. 

Spotted dolphin with a "cookiecutter" wound from a cookiecutter
shark bite (Photo: M. Kaplan, NMFS permit # 15530 to CRC)
While we didn't find the species we are looking for, this cetacean abundance let us try out the towfish for real. It was deployed 3 times for a total of 45 minutes of recording, split among rough-toothed dolphins and pilot whales. Once back on land, we had a look at the recordings and found lots of clicks and some whistles. So the towfish is looking good. Now to fix the drifter buoy once and for all...

Spotted dolphin (Photo: M. Kaplan, NMFS permit # 15530 to CRC)

Spectrogram of two pilot whale whistles picked up by the DMON while in the towfish






1 comment:

  1. Very interesting data. Written is a way that even a non-scientist is able to understand.
    Natan V

    ReplyDelete