Sing us a song on the hydrophone Mister Splashy Pants!
Posted by Leandra onboard the Esperanza
Our hydrophone team at work.
©Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac
Here is a video that explains how the hydrophone works. As you can see by the t-shirts it was made before we reached these cold waters!
Yesterday we dropped the hydrophone in the water from one of our boats. As we left the ship there were no whales in sight. About 30 minutes after we had launched the hydrophone, I could verify that it was working as it should, but all I could hear was waves and water. All of a sudden Clive spotted a blow, and we tried to get closer.
There were two humpback whales at first. I listened to the sound coming from the hydrophone, but could hear nothing. Female humpbacks make sounds, but only the males sing, in order to attract the females. These could have been females, which might explain why we didn't hear them. However we still have to analyze the recordings before drawing any conclusions.
One more humpback whale soon appeared on the scene; in total we spotted seven humpbacks during the day. The weather was calm, so we could switch off the boats engine in order to minimise disturbance.
I also note the behaviour of the whales. Here we could only see blows, partial flukes, and the most exciting behaviour was rolling. Whales in Brazil are more exhibitionistic: they show their fluke, breach and flap their pectoral fins.
The pattern on fins and flukes are like fingerprints, which make it possible to identify individual whales. Our pictures can be matched with other catalogues, and this way we can find out if they have been spotted elsewhere and learn more about their migratory patterns.
Our onboard research programme includes whale sightings, photo-identification, whale acoustics (sound recordings) and a marine debris survey. The results will hopefully help us understand more about whales, the population structures, migratory patterns and other behaviours. More research can help end whaling, by proving that lethal methods are not necessary in order to learn more about whales. We can also take the results to the IWC, together with the results from the whale tagging project.
- Leandra
More:
Maybe you have some whale fluke pictures lying around? There is a group on Flickr that collects pictures of whale flukes from the Atlantic or the Pacific:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/humpbackflukes/
Comments
any additional technical info on hydrophone set up? manufacturer of hydrophone, sofware for analyis etc.
Posted by: karl | January 3, 2008 12:22 PM
what are you doing, whales are being killed
Posted by: gary a | January 3, 2008 12:36 PM
Leandra,
Are you using the microphone now? If so, have you heard any whales? Unfortunately, if you are not able to save a whale can you record the crying of it so people can hear the suffering of it and send it to the Japanese people and maybe they can start petitioning as well to stop whaling? Just a thought. Have you heard anything about Tweety and if you will get her back for this expedition? Can you let us know if you know the coordinates of the whaling ship? Sorry for so many questions...lol Thank you for showing me how this microphone works and be safe and take care. Let everyone know me and my kids are praying for you and the whales.
Posted by: Stacey | January 3, 2008 1:55 PM
Male humpbacks tend not to sing on the feeding grounds, but both sexes and all age classes make social sounds. Collecting sounds from feeding animals would be very worthwhile.
Posted by: EJE | January 3, 2008 8:35 PM
Ei Lelê amei!!!!
O Video não esta abrindo.
beijocassssssss no coração
Posted by: Rosi Ventura | January 4, 2008 1:16 AM
Congratulations for you all of the Esperanza crew! I'm following your work on behalf the whales from my computer here in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Your efforts are priceless on keeping this "good-fight" against the whales hunters.
I will "dare" to give you a suggestion (even with my poor English skills...).
What about to post in the Greenpeace site a world map with the actual location of each japonese whalers vessels and boats you localize in the Southern oceans (something like Google Earth with a kind of a radar screen)? By doing this, you will provide everyone in the world, by Internet, to "see", at a simple mouse click, where each japanese hunter ship is at any time. You also can include in this screen, among little spots indicantig the ships location, a linkage of the most recent images you captured of the hunter boats, the hunting operations itself and of the acts of Esperanza against the huntings. It would be even more dramatic if you also combine with these images those sounds of the whales you recorded from de hydrophones.
Imagine that! Everything live in a geographic way that averyone can understand clearly and can keep track everyday, like a novel or a diary.
I believe that this method would be of more efficent to call and keep attention of more people on your protecting activities, increasing consciensious worldwide on behalf of the cause o protecting whales from killing.
I hope you could understand the idea I'm sending. Please ask if it isn't clear.
Sincerelly,
Rogério
Posted by: Rogério G. Oliveira | January 12, 2008 8:32 PM