The shakedown

The shakedown

We’re up here in the Bay of Fundy to collect data for my dissertation research project. My advisor, Dave Johnston, conducted his dissertation research in the same location 10 or so years ago and we are following up on his work taking advantage of new technology that has become available to us since then. We’re using DTAGs (Digital Acoustic Recording tags) that will attach to the back of fin whales using suction cups. These tags will stay on the whale for a few hours and then will detach and we will recover them and download the data. They record fine scale whale movements like pitch, roll, orientation, and acceleration. We also have another boat that will be using a scientific echosounder that sends high frequency sound into the water column and records backscattered sound that we presume is prey for the whales. We will link whale fine scale movements with presumed prey availability during a flood tide near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy.

The Bay of Fundy has some of the most extreme tides in the world, and as the water floods the bay during an incoming tide; it creates a predictable food source for foraging top predators at the north end of Grand Manan Island (we call this area the Long Eddy). We hope to better understand how whales exploit these regular aggregations of prey.

It was a very long three day drive and ferry ride to get from Beaufort, North Carolina to Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. Luckily we only had to tow a boat up the last day of our trip since we had very nice friends storing it for us in Massachusetts. Our first day was spent getting situated and waiting for the arrival of our fearless leader, Dave Johnston, who was delayed in his arrival due to many flight issues associated with hurricane Irene. He made it up here late Friday night, and we got out on the water early Saturday morning to test out our gear (aka shakedown cruise). The image below is some echo sounder output of a bottom layer of prey we found close to one whale as it exited the Long Eddy moving south.

[photo size=’large’ title=’Bottom layer near Getz as he exited the Long Eddy’ link=’http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2011/08/echosounder-image.png’ icon=’zoom’ lightbox=’image’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2011/08/echosounder-image.png[/photo]

The tagging boat got some good looks at a few fin whales and even saw one lunge feed at the surface. They took some photos to add to our photo ID database, and we have already been able to match one whale, Getz (see photo), who was here 10 plus years ago when Dave was collecting data for his dissertation. It appears that at least one whale keeps coming back to Grand Manan, much like the researchers that study them. Both just seem not to be able to get enough of this place. It’s my first time here, but it certainly does seem like a special place.

[photo size=’medium’ align=’right’ title=’Getz in the Long Eddy’ link=’http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2011/08/NotchFin.jpg’ icon=’zoom’ lightbox=’image’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2011/08/NotchFin.jpg[/photo]

So it’s been a slow start for us. Hurricane Irene brought us some wind and rain the past few days so we haven’t been able to get out on the water since our “shakedown” cruise. The good news is that this has given me time to familiarize myself with some software and do some more planning that I wasn’t able to get done before we left. The bad news is that we are losing valuable time from the 14 days we have here to collect data. More good news is that the weather is looking good for tomorrow and the tides are cooperating. Flood tides are in the morning. Keep your fingers crossed for us for a good weather week with lots of whales. Stay tuned….