Summer 2008 Earthwatch Season Begins.

The summer Earthwatch season has started sucessfully, with a fantastic team staying at the research centre. We got out on the water every day, a total of 9 days, covering 381.9 nautical miles.

The team experienced 12 encounters with Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins of the inshore type (Tursiops truncatus), and a single sighting of a Dwarf Sperm Whale (Kogia sima).

The groups of dolphins that were documented ranged in group size from 1 to 17, with a mean group size of 7.2 animals. There were 14 sightings of calves. Lots of social behaviours were observed: a mother-calf pair surfing with the calf in echelon position, a calf repeatedly swimming upside down at the surface, aggressive mating and fighting, and both known foraging behaviours for our population, crater feeding for razor fish, and corraling jacks onto shallow banks.

Due to less than perfect weather conditions, that is a Beaufort sea state of 3 or more, for the majority of the teams' stay, only 1 random line transect was completed. On the 5th leg of the transect that comprised a total of 6 legs, Bottlenose dolphins were spotted at Rocky Point, an area of preferred habitat for these animals.

Sperm whales were heard acoustically with a handheld hydrophone from the boat, and using a simple directional hydrophone, an approximate position was estimated. The whales were never found however.

Special thanks to one of our summer volunteer staff members, Natalie Ashford-Hodges, for putting this story together.