For the month of June BMMRO was based out of Hope Town in East Abaco with a goal of obtaining photo-id and biopsy samples from beaked whales outside the Great Bahama Canyon, to understand whether these animals are part of the same population or a different stock.

Over 2,000 km were covered in 17 days of effort, resulting in 66 sightings of 11 different species, including 3 beaked whale species, and the collection of 57 biopsy samples, 42 of which were from beaked whales.

This survey has produced an unprecedented number of beaked whale tissue samples in a short amount of time. These data will be useful to answer the question of how beaked whales from different areas in the Northern Bahamas are related genetically, and will increase our understanding of foraging ecology of the 3 beaked whale species found in the Bahamas.

Sightings List:
Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) (n=2)
Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis) (n=4)
Pan tropical spotted dolphin (Stenella attenuata) (n=1)
Melon-headed whale (Peponocephala electra) (n=1)
Short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) (n=1)

Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) (n=12)
Gervais beaked whale (Mesoplodon europaeus) (n=6)
Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) (n=16)
Unknown Mesoplodon species (n=1)
Unknown Ziphiid species (n=1)

Sperm whale (Physter macrocephalus) (n=3)
Dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima) (n=10)
Pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) (n=2)
Unknown Kogia species (n=1)

Unknown cetacean (n=2)
Unknown small cetacean (n=1)
Unknown medium cetacean (n=2)

Map showing the locations of the Great and Little Abaco Canyons, and our vessel tracks (the 1000m - 4000m isobaths are shown).	Map showing the locations of our sightings.