Another exciting day for the crew of "Wild Whale." (That's our research vessel). Today we worked with two groups of pilot whales that had merged into a single group. Four of these animals had been satellite tagged earlier in the trip, allowing us to find them rather easily. Conditions were also calm (from Beaufort sea states of 0-2). We we arrived at the group, the first task was testing Russ Andrews ECG (electrocardiogram) tag designed to measure whale heart rates using a suction-cup tag. This tag deployed well giving us the time and opportunity to test our Dtag3 on Hawaiian pilot whales.  Daniel Webster skillfully attached the Dtag and the pilot whale swam with it for ~ 4hrs. A quick look a the data shows resting behavior of the animal with some social sounds and shallow dives. The tagged animal below had a small mark from a cookie-cutter shark bite just below the Dtag site. In the pics below note the tag on the pilot whale, and the pilot whale traveling closely with a conspecific. These two animals traveled close before, during and after the tag duration, thus it will be exciting to examine potential acoustic communication between the two animals!

Dtag on a pilot whale. Tag stayed on for 4 hrs.

Tagged whale (background) and neighbor whale.

Day 14. Compared to our day of tagging and tracking false killer whales, the past few days have been relatively quiet. We've seen several groups of pilot whales, as well as spotted and striped dolphins. Collaborator Russ Andrews has been working with pilot whales to measure the relative blood flow within their dorsal fins using a FLIR infrared camera. 

In the evenings, we've had a bit of time to start looking at the Dtag data, although this job will mostly take place after the trip. Below is an example of dive profiles for the Dtagged false killer whale for a 30 min segment of when the tag was on the animal. In the future, we'll pair these dive profiles with sound files, 3-D movement and acceleration of the whale. 

Dive profiles of the Dtagged false killer whale

Sounds from a Dtagged melon-headed whale

Sounds from a Dtagged false killer whale

(Photo: A. Mooney; CRC NMFS permit no. 15530)

Got em!  Dtagged a false killer whale!  The tag stayed on over 3 hrs (the programmed duration) which was fantastic. The animals led us into some very bumpy water, but we stayed with the radio beacon of the tag and found it. Greg Schorr did a fantastic job of actually tagging the whale, and helping us track and retrieve the tag. The picture to the right shows the tag (gold) being suction-cup attached to the whale via the carbon fiber pole.  More details to follow tomorrow.