Author - Mark Simmonds

As we focus on our own sporting prowess at the London 2012 Olympics, maybe it is a good time to think about some of the gold-medal holders in the animal kingdom too.

LONGEST SWIM
The longest mammal migrations are made by the whales too – a humpback travelling from its feeding ground in Antarctica to the breeding ground off Colombia may cover 5,176 miles (8,334 km). The gray whales are also contenders for this gold medal and also cover vast distances.

DEEPEST DIVING
The deepest diving mammal is probably the sperm whale. 2000 m has been recorded but indirect evidence indicates that they may go a further 1000 m. The beaked whale family are contenders for this medal too and are known to dive to similar depths.

LONGEST DIVER
The record for the longest dive may belong to the sperm whale too – two hours and 18 minutes were recorded. Team Beaked Whale is again a contender in this sport.

LARGEST
Of course the largest animal on Earth is the blue whale – the heaviest recorded weighed 209 tons (190 tonnes) and the longest measured 110 feet and 2 inches (33.5 m). A similar length to a Boeing 737 jet airliner. (The fin whale comes second!) 

LOUDEST VOICE
The loudest sounds made by any animal also come from the blue whale (and the fin whale) – these low frequency pulses can be up to 188 decibels.

MOST TUNEFUL
The longest and most complex song produced by any animal is that of the humpback whale. Each song may last for half an hour and contains many components.

Team Whale are also contenders in the following events:

FASTEST SWIMMER
Dall’s porpoises can reach 30 knots which is about 34.5 miles per hour.

MARINE GYMNASTICS
The spinner dolphins with their amazing high spinning leaps from the water might be the gold medallists here but don’t discount the amazing aerial displays by the humpback whales.

LONGEST LIVED
Perhaps not really a sport but certainly an important attribute and the bowhead whale is now known to live up to about 200 years. This probably makes them the longest-lived vertebrate animal.  

Occasionally accounts come our way of observations on whales that are unusual and very interesting. I recently heard of one such incident and asked the guy who told me the story, Bertie Gregory, who is a student at the University of Bristol, if he would write it up so that we could share it.

He kindly did and here is that account beautifully illustrated by some of his own photographs:

Last summer I visited the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada, to aid a wildlife tour guide on his boat. The majority of our trips involved searching inlets and sounds for black bears, bald eagles and the mysterious coastal wolf. About once a week however, we’d take guests out to sea to find grey and humpback whales. During the summer months, these two species come in huge numbers to feed on the explosion of aquatic life. The grey whales spend most of their time in shallow water, often less than 20m deep, feeding on mud dwelling invertebrates. The more charismatic humpbacks meanwhile, feed on small fish further offshore.

As a result of their huge numbers, we saw both species on every trip. All the while on the water we’d always be watching out and listening on the radio for orca (killer whales). The pods which visited the waters we searched for were the ‘transient’ variety, they feed on marine mammals and are notoriously hard to find as they’re constantly on the move up and down the coast. For that reason it was common for there to be only one sighting a week by the tour operators. The other variety, known as ‘resident’ killer whales tend to stay around the same area feeding on fish. There is much debate over the taxonomy (evolutionary classification) of killer whales and its generally agreed that there is probably more than one species as the different ‘cultures’ have not interbred for thousands of years.

I was particularly keen on finding them as up to then my sightings were limited to the various BBC landmark series! On one particular afternoon, we had a full boat of 12 guests and decided to make our way to Cow’s bay, an area we had consistently seen grey whales for the past few weeks. Just as we exited the harbour, I heard the boat’s radio crackle briefly; my boss, the boat’s captain, took it off the latch and held it to his ear. After a couple more crackles he turned to me and smiled, ‘the black and whites are out there’, he said. In very good spirit, all the tour companies work together and let each other know where the various animals are. Whenever the possibility of a rarer sighting came up, as with the coastal wolves, we didn’t tell the guests immediately because as quickly as they’re spotted, they may just disappear. My boss changed the course of our 20 foot Boston Whaler away from Cow’s bay, directly out to sea. As we got closer to the GPS coordinates we had been given, more details came through. A voice once again crackled on the radio, ‘there’s more than ten of them’, my ears pricked up. I stood up out my seat and scoured the water ahead of us with my binoculars; 500m ahead was the boat we’d been hearing from. Suddenly, I spotted numerous ejections of water-vapour, firing high up into the air, the tell-tale sign of whales.

Whale watching regulations state that boats aren’t allowed to approach the whales closer than 100m, but the killer whales didn’t know this as all twelve headed towards us. I’m a passionate wildlife photographer but these whales were proving tough to get good pictures of. Their faces were only up for a fraction of a second, followed by their proportionally massive dorsal fin, before they dived back under the surface.

I then heard another pair of exhalations but this time from behind the boat, they sounded deeper and louder to what we’d heard so far that day. I turned to see two adult humpback whale surface 30m from the boat. The killer whales weren’t approaching us, they were approaching the humpbacks, we just happened to be in their way! The killer whales got closer and closer to us, barely 5m away before they dove under our boat towards the humpbacks. Then everything went eerily quiet. All the whales were under the water, the boat engines were long switched off.

The silence was broken by an almighty trumpet from underneath the water; it vibrated our stomachs right down to the core. The sound was made by one of the humpbacks and moments later it surfaced continuing to let out these very elephant like noises. The killer whales then surfaced all around it, rolling on their sides and tail slapping. Never before had any of the guides (some with 30 years experience) seen killer whales attacking adult humpbacks. What’s more, within the pod of orca were a couple of juveniles- signified by their white skin having a yellow tone. These two youngsters were getting stuck in swimming just metres from the humpbacks, as they tried to join in on the action.

After a good half hour of the killer whales tail slapping, harassing and chasing the humpbacks, the tables turned, the 15m long humpback adults had had enough. The next time all the whales surfaced, it was the humpbacks that were doing the chasing.

Unfortunately, our time on the water was up, what should have been a two hour whale watching trip had already become three and an half. I begged my boss to stay but (apparently!) the customer is always right and understandably some of the small children on board were getting very cold. I’ll never know how the story ended. I feel very privileged to have witnessed such an incredibly rare event. I’ll be going back next summer to try my luck again!

Bertie Gregory
Bertiegregoryphotography.com

Charles Dickens had a lot to say about Christmas.

Indeed some suggest that in many ways he invented the Christmas festival that many of us now enjoy in much of the western world and beyond. A Christmas world of snowy streets, jolly family feasting and, of course, a time when charity is also remembered amongst the mid-winter festivities.

Dickens lived when there was much poverty and great suffering in both the expanding cities and the often hostile countryside of Britain, and many children were caught up in this. At the same time there were also a better-off part of society, a burgeoning middle-class and a political system that had it within its power to help. Dickens recognised these things and his stories, at least in part, were morality tales aimed at highlighting and ultimately ending the suffering of people, especially children. Consider the weird and jarring scene in A Christmas Carol when the eponymous miser Scrooge spies a bony claw-like hand under the robes of the jovial and festive figure of the Ghost of Christmas Present?

Here in abbreviated form is the scene:

‘From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at [the Spirit’s] feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.’

Scrooge is so dismayed at their appearance that he can only manage to ask the Spirit if the poor children are his.

The resounding and chilling reply comes back ‘They are man’s!’

Then the Spirit adds, ‘This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.’

The fact that these figures are portrayed in the company of the third Christmas ghost (the one of the current time) emphasises that Dickens is signposting issues of his day for his devoted readers.

Dickens was very much a social campaigner and active not just in illustrating the pressing issues of the day but also a champion of certain charities. Are there lessons in this for those of us trying to campaign today?

His writings were immensely popular. The books so famous now were equally so when first published and mainly sold in serialised form. They were Victorian soap operas with a keen readership avidly awaiting each chapter and each new series and Dickens himself (something of an actor) would also perform them in modified form to packed theatres.

February 7th 2012 is the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’s birth. We shall be hearing much more about him in the coming year. A new biography reportedly suggests that this great Victorian moralist was a flawed individual himself; eventually abandoning his wife of many years and many children for a younger actress. This bleak interpretation of his character may disappoint his current fans, but what is undeniable about Dickens is the effect of his writings, and our ongoing fascination for him and his stories. Is he the major literary figure in the English language? Is he greater in his influence than Shakespeare? I think he is. He wrote in a way that was accessible to all. His stories grip, entertain and gently educate with a pervasiveness that remains effective today. Adaptations of his stories still abound. We never seem to tire of Dickens. Even as I write, BBC TV is featuring as part of its Christmas season his deeply twisted tale of Great Expectations and the entry to the New Year here in the UK will be marked by something of a festival of films on TV derived from Dickens’ stories.

What would he have made of our modern forms of communications: twittering, tweeting and blogging, films in three dimensions and the live-streaming of You Tube and the rest of the new-dimension of the internet? I think he would have engaged heartily with all of these things as new ways to tell stories, even though he would have had censure his wonderful erudition for the brevity much of this new ‘information highway’ is best suited to.

And what does any of this have to do with whales and dolphins? Well, at the same time that Dickens was trying to open the eyes (and the purses) of those around him to the inhumanity of man to man, so animal suffering was also starting to be recognised and addressed and, in fact, Dickens was again in the vanguard of this reform. In 1824 the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals was formed and Dickens was both a member and a great supporter.

Bill Sykes the principal villain in Oliver Twist is famously cruel to his poor but faithful dog, Bullseye, as well as abusive and bullying to all around him, culminating in the awful murder of his lover, Nancy. Animal cruelty appears again in Great Expectations where the very unpleasant character Bentley Drummle mistreats his horse, an activity that eventually causes his death. Dickens clearly recognised the link between mistreatment of animals and cruelty to people.

For some critics, Dickens’ characters are too simple.  They compare them unfavourably with the better-fleshed out and sophisticated individuals drawn by other later authors; but my goodness he could tell a story. So, one lesson for those of us trying to achieve improved protection of animals that are suffering in a world dangerously overly-burdened by the unsustainable needs of our own expanding and self-obsessed population may be that we too need to use compelling stories. We need to engage the attention of our fellows and show them why they should care.

Fortunately, in the UK we no longer have workhouses and helpings of gruel being doled out, but we did witness terrible things in 2011, including unprecedented civil strife and growing unemployment and, elsewhere in the world, things every bit as terrible as those in the streets of Dickens’s world continue. Against this backdrop of human strife, we have to show people enough about the animals that they will care about them; understand the importance of saving the societies of cetaceans and, ultimately speak out for those beings that – despite their sophistication - cannot do so for themselves.

This is not going to be at all easy (it wasn’t easy before economies started to falter), but through our knowledge of these animals (including our adoption schemes) we have the opportunity for people to learn to know individual animals and their communities and for their very specific stories to be told. Whales and dolphins are also animals that can captivate our attention. Real encounters are rarely forgotten.

We have stories to tell, characters to bring to an eager public and we have a just cause.

Stay tuned.

I know everyone in WDCS would want to join me in wishing all our supporters and friends around the world a very Happy New Year.

 ‘…and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!’

A rocky cradle.

One of the nice things about getting out into the field is that even if you are having a difficult time finding your focal species (was there ever a species more illusive than the Risso’s dolphin), your expedition can bring you into contact with many other interesting animals and the people that study them. Our latest expedition to Bardsey Island, off the coast of North Wales, which has a Risso’s dolphin study as its primary purpose has been beset by foul weather for its first two weeks. For many days the remains of Hurricane Katia have had us bunkered down in our cottage and also cut Bardsey off from the mainland. However, this has not stopped us witnessing some spectacular wildlife, including the annual miracle of the grey seal pupping season. So whilst the seas have been too rough to effectively watch for dolphins (although they have been sighted leaping from the foaming seas by the island’s resident battalion of avid bird monitors and the WDCS team), we have taken a little time to visit the seals nurseries.

The seals can be seen all around the island but most seem to prefer the relatively sheltered bay of Henllwyn on the low lying South End. The shore in this bay ends where it meets earthen and rocky banks only a few metres high (you might call this a very low cliff) and landward to this is a grassy sward grazed by the island’s inquisitive little white sheep (which make mysterious pilgrimages around the island all through the day). The top of the banks makes a fine viewing point from which to watch the seals. Here in September, and through into October, the adults congregate. Mature females haul their fecund and bulging bodies up through the wrack-strewn rocks and boulders to give birth high on the shore. Meanwhile, waiting in the adjacent waters are the far larger males. They are up to three times the size of the females, some six and a half feet long and weighing 230 kg (or 36 stone). They are waiting for the opportunity to mate, something which the females allow after they have weaned their pups. In fact, in the near-shore waters, males and females can already be seen seemingly gently canoodling. It is all rather charming as the males and females sinuously intertwine in the water and, above the surface, whiskery faces come close together. The male with his large ‘roman’ nose snuffles gently at the female’s snout and she seems to reciprocate. 

Not all seal behaviour is so gentle, however, as the males may aggressively patrol parts of the shore and defend these territories (and the females there) from one another. A lot of the competition seems to be bluffing but the scarring on the heads and noses of the bulls seals show that matters can become more violent. The female seals are also fierce in the defence of their pups. They determinedly drive the males away from their small white-coated new-borns, presumably to stop them inadvertently squashing them as they rove amorously around the shore, and they also drive other females away. This means that there are a series of pup-rearing sites along the shore marked by the presence of one recent mother and her newly delivered little white pup. The choice of pupping site is probably a key one as the pup’s first thee weeks is spent out of the water, and is all about getting very fat very quickly. It was thought for a long time that the new-borns could not swim and hence high tides and storms threatened their survival by drowning. It is now clear that they can swim to some extent even when just a few days old (something of an essential attribute for an animal born on an unpredictable intertidal zone), but they are also clearly vulnerable to being swept away, and it is essential to their survival that they have completed their fattening process before they are weaned, which happens when they are about three weeks of age.  The mothers do not feed at all whist caring for their pups and whilst the pups get fatter, the mothers loose significant weight.

So, what we are witnessing here are the very young pups during those essential first few weeks of their lives. Every now and then, the pup and mother move close together. This may be the result of the plaintive (and rather human baby-like) crying of the pup. The mother moves into position and rolls over onto her side exposing her belly and the nipples which the pup latches onto. Her milk is amongst the richest in the animal kingdom (up to 60% fat) and the pup puts on weight remarkably fast. A newborn grey seal pup is big of head but small of body but, within a week or so, it becomes a fat little barrel of lard. Then, when about three weeks old, the pup’s coast changes from the distinctive white (that can make it shine like a beacon on a sunny shore) to assume more adult colours, and only then will it properly take to the sea. The text books would have us believe that three weeks or so is the only period of maternal care, after this the mother abandons the pup, romps with the waiting males and takes off to feed after her there weeks of fasting and pup-fattening.  From this point onwards the pup must, it seems, make its own way in the world.

Shortly after our arrival on Bardsey, we took a look around the seals’ breeding haunts on South End. We found three white-coated pups in Henllwyn, one was already significantly tubby. Its attendant mother - who has a distinctively reddish coat and a pale face - as a result is looking quite skinny. Another, by contrast, was small, no more than a few days old, the remains of its umbilical cord still clearly visible. We followed ‘McMath’s rules’ for seal watching (Mandy McMath is the local seal researcher), which means that we watched from the banks and not down on the shore. We also approached carefully so that the seals could see us coming and they were not startled by our sudden appearance and, in addition, if the mothers seemed agitated by our presence we left.

The mother of the newest-born pup watched us from the surf-line. She was sleek and spotty and very alert. Her breeding area marked the edge of the more protected bay, where high and jagged rocks seemingly protected a deep cut into the low cliff. Towards the top of this miniature ravine lay her little white pup with its huge liquid black eyes. When we first saw it the pup was restless, slowly crawling around on the shore and sometimes rolling onto its back. Its hind flippers fiddled restlessly with each other (do all babies play with their feet) and, occasionally, it yawned revealing a big pink mouth. After a while its mother, which had just seen off a large male which was threatening to come onto the shore, bounced her way over the boulders to the pup and rolled over onto her side to allow him to feed. She kept one wary eye on us and, after a little while, we left her in peace. Her reddish neighbour with the portly pup also watched us go, her area of shore was further into the bay and looked more protected. Was she an older wise mother who had won a tussle for this premium birthing ground? (Mandy’s research indicates that the mothers tend to use the same sites and that the males to some extent patrol the same stretches of shore-line, so not only are the mothers exhibiting some site-fidelity but the father of their pups may stay the same across a number of years.)

 Mother and pup.

Some time goes by before we visit the seals again and, since, our last visit, the tail-end of the hurricane has passed over bringing strong winds and a foamy sea. It was a bumpy night in our little rented cottage. The winds howled and, come the morning, a storm force ten is still forecast to follow. Down at South End the wind has churned up the sea into banks of foam which are blowing like snow from the north side (which the seals don’t seem to favour so much) across to the south. Huge rollers are coming in from the west and dramatically breaking over the rocks sending spray high into the air. There is a loud, low frequency churning noise like the working of some distant massive engine, but it is only the noise of the sea and the wind. The small local sheep are all huddled up against a wall trying to get out of the wind and reflecting no doubt on their next pilgrimage.

With some trepidation I approach the seal breeding sites. I lean heavily into the wind; my binoculars and camera are helpfully weighing me down but it is still a struggle to make progress. The first pup is still there high on the shore sleeping and oblivious to the turmoil around it. Its mother quietly watches as I pass. The pup looks a little fatter than yesterday.  

A little further along the fattest pup has moved further up the shore and is now resting amongst some bits of plastics rubbish blown into that particular nook. He seems well protected from the waves and the wind. But what of the new born and his spotty and very alert mother with their nursery under the rocks at the far end of the bay? The small ravine in the cliff where they were is now full of whirling white water. The big waves have breached the protective line of rocks and the sea has poured into this rocky cradle.

But then I look back along the shore and along the boulder-strewn base of the low cliff the sun, which is shining intermittently through the scudding clouds, illuminates a small white body and then also I take another look at the adult seals along the shore. I recognise the slim neck and spotty face of the young mother. The new born is now nestled high above the water’s edge amongst the boulders which are tinged yellow by spots of salt-resistant lichen. His coat looks like he has had a recent soaking. It seems likely that he was washed out of the narrow ravine  by the incoming tide and big waves and he must have swum, undoubtedly with his mother in close attendance, around the skinny ruddy-furred mother and the tubby pup to this new (and safer) location. The nervous mother cranes her neck to watch me watching him. She is also watching the sea and sitting at the very water’s edge as if trying to stop it coming up the shore with her body.

For the moment, the new born is safe. High amongst the boulders he is rolling about and playing with his hind flippers again, and yawning. It has perhaps been a big day for him. Hopefully his adventures are over and the winds and waves will calm and the next two weeks will allow him too to assume the tubbiness of his slightly older neighbour and finally take to the sea.

  
 A resting bull seal. 

 New born.

 And again.

‘They say’, said the reporter carefully, ‘that the age of cheap oil is over’. ‘They’ being a group of invisible and anonymous experts. The sentiment, however, seems to ring true. In order to exploit dwindling oil reserves, the industry is pushing into more extreme environments, for example deeper seas and further offshore, than it would have worked in before. This raises some difficult questions. Does the escalating cost of what may be described as the ‘oil addiction’ of modern societies, now include an increased risk embedded in the deployment of newer technologies in more difficult environments? And with such an increased risk would there not be an inevitability of increased accidents; and, arguably, the deeper a well and the further offshore it is, the more difficult it may be to cap?

The latest horrify and still expanding spill in the Gulf of Mexico points to this, but we should also not forget the recent major spill in Australia where another offshore rig started to leak and also proved very difficult to staunch.