Today the teams and equipment were ready to start surveying for whales. The ship is towing hydrophones that allow the acoustic team to monitor for whale sounds while visual observers watch from the flying bridge. As you can see from the picture, the acoustic monitors spend all day inside the main scientific lab monitoring computer screens and listening, while tomorrow you will see that the observers spend all day outside watching for whales with special binoculars. The visual observers saw (and acoustic monitors heard) lots of dolphins today. The acoustic monitors heard one group of a few Cuvier's beaked whales, but the wind was up for a brief period during that time and the observers did not see any. The tagging team is champing at the bit!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Start survey
Today the teams and equipment were ready to start surveying for whales. The ship is towing hydrophones that allow the acoustic team to monitor for whale sounds while visual observers watch from the flying bridge. As you can see from the picture, the acoustic monitors spend all day inside the main scientific lab monitoring computer screens and listening, while tomorrow you will see that the observers spend all day outside watching for whales with special binoculars. The visual observers saw (and acoustic monitors heard) lots of dolphins today. The acoustic monitors heard one group of a few Cuvier's beaked whales, but the wind was up for a brief period during that time and the observers did not see any. The tagging team is champing at the bit!
