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Support our work!. Arcticswirl has been registered as a non-profit organization and you can now donate money to the project here on this site to “keep us going”. In the sidebar menu you can find the Donate button for contributions to the research. We are very grateful for those supporting us and look forward to the work in August! 

End of first season.

The first season of Greenland Halibut fishery ended on Wednesday (14/6) and we are now looking at the results and preparing for the next season, which starts 31/7.

We battled with weather (rough seas) that limited the opportunities of working with the acoustic gear and surprisingly with sperm whales that seemed to have lost interest in the line fishery.

Unlike previous seasons, the depredation events were concentrated on the first week of fishery.

We heard and saw sperm whales on the fishing grounds, but to our great surprise they were not interested on the lines. We observed twice whales that clearly “investigated” all five vessels hauling in their lines, but instead of approaching they travelled away. Similar events were also reported by the fishermen. 

 Fishing in the midnight sun.

 

We are trying to figure out what this was about. One possibility is that these were individuals that had not learned the technique yet, and the individuals we have observed before were somewhere else. This seems a bit unlikely since the whales clearly came towards the boats. Young fishermen Erik, who participated in the field work onboard Iolaire, pointed out that the Greenland Halibut was much smaller than in the beginning of the season. We have now interviewed the skippers who saw depredation and they all say that this happened when they had large fish on the lines. It is rather amazing if it indeed turns out that the whales only come to the lines if the fish is large enough. Luckily this kind of data is available, also for the catches from previous seasons, and we will look into this in more detail. This approach will add to our understanding of the behavior and potential mitigation measures.

Fisherman Arto Laukkanen took excellent footage of the sperm whale they saw on the first day of fishery, 22/5. This individual was not identified last season, and is now added to the catalogue of known individuals depredating on the lines. The same boat observed three sperm whales a few days later, something that was recorded last year as well. One very large male and two smaller ones. We hope to see these whales in August and identify them. We know very little of the social structure of the male sperm whales in these waters. In literature they are described as solitary, however this observation as well as others from winter season (when groups of more than 10 males have been seen) give a more complex picture.

 Iolaire under way.

The towed hydrophone array (courtesy of Vanishing Point Marine ) worked very well and we hope to be able to record depredation events in August. We have some really good sound recordings of sperm whales and also of the sound of the fishing fleet hauling in the lines – last year these sounds seemed to alert the whales to the fishing activity.

Light breeze.

The weather has taken a turn for the better and we have sunshine and calm seas. Yesterday we went out to the fishing grounds and made more sound recordings of the sperm whales. No whales were seen near the fishing vessels during this particular haul, although the fishermen have met sperm whales on almost every other occasion. Heading out today as well!

Calm weather is good for sighting whales.

Out again.

The weather forecast states that the wind ought to change direction soon and the fishermen are about to head out again, which means that we go out too. We are making everything on board shipshape and preparing ourselves for the sail.

The change of wind.

Fair winds.

Jonathan has gotten the hydrophone array all set up and we took Iolaire out for a stroll regardless of the varying weather forecasts. However, the waves proved to be a bit too steep to conduct proper hydrophone towing, so we decided to turn back and talk with the fishermen of Stø.

Conditions were not favourable. Fred at the helm.

 Fisherman Lauri Pietikäinen joined us for this season too.

 

 At the heart of the research, the hydrophone workstation.

The weather forecast for next week seems promising with light winds and a low wave  height, which is good news for going out. Stay tuned.

Season of 2017

We are back at the fishing village of Stø and the Greenland halibut season has  started. We are on site with our dear old friend, the Sailboat Iolaire and her splendid skipper Martin.

 S/Y Iolaire, our research vessel.

Depredation events have been seen by the fishermen throughout the week and we even managed to get a video from one of the fishermen documenting these events. 

Dr. Jonathan Gordon

Our team spent a good day out at sea setting up hydrophones (courtesy of Dr. Jonathan Gordon and Vanishing Point Marine) and taking ID-photos. We saw one Spermwhale in addition to hearing many of them via the hydrophone. We are so very lucky to have Dr Jonathan Gordon, a pioneer on benign sperm whale research, as part of our team. His wealth of knowledge about these animals is indispensable.

Volunteer crewmember Lene and the Captain, Martin.

The main focus for this season will be to get a more detailed idea of the depredation behavior through a combination of acoustic and visual observations. Photoidentification of the whales interacting with the lines is also a priority. We continue to work closely together with the fishermen and the whalesafari crews.