WDCS Fieldwork Blog

After a spell of weather that allowed great spotting conditions earlier in the week, our field equipment hasn’t seen much action in the last few days. We took drastic action and went out on the water for an hour to deploy some acoustic equipment (successfully we hope, but more of this in a later blog!).

The water was a little choppy. The sun streaming through the clouds and over the imposing mountains that backdrop Gairloch made for a photogenic trip. We were treated to our first fly by - a great skua that appeared right alongside the boat, and flew back and forth between us and a fishing boat. Shortly after, a fulmar passed by and then settled on the water behind us.





I was excited by the low flying terns (memories of voyages to the Antarctic and seeing them there having just completed their incredible journeys across oceans) and then we had a low flying fast moving shag!





We had our fingers crossed for a puffin but it wasn’t to be. However we weren’t disappointed to get a close up view of small groups of both resting razorbills and guillemots. They are much easier to tell apart from the boat than they are at such a distance from our survey platform on the shore! They were all a real pleasure to see.





Following the press release on the Joint Warrior minke whale incident that went out last week (which you’ve all read of course!), we conducted an interview at the local radio station, 2 Lochs Radio, the smallest radio station in the UK, but hopefully with a large following!

On a different note we had a wildlife encounter of an unusual kind… Our top canine research assistant has a taste for big fat juicy carrots (Yes, it does seem like a bizarre favourite for a big white german shephard!). So there are a variety of orange nub ends lying around the garden. We were at first surprised to see a very small and acrobatic black rabbit in the garden of an evening. But there’s no prize for guessing what is attracting it… Watching it flip and jump around the garden is just as sweet (and a bit hilarious!) as watching Kila contentedly munching on the subject of both their happiness.

WDCS and HWDT put out this press release this morning about the incident that occurred during Joint Warrior (that finishes today):

http://www.wdcs.org.uk/story_details.php?select=166

Whilst our focus in the press release is on the UK Navy, we should point out that we are equally concerned about the activities of the other navies that exercise in UK waters (and elsewhere). As Joint Warrior occurs within the UK EEZ, the US Marine Mammal Protection Act should apply – and so we believe that the U.S. Navy, at least, has completely disregarded the regulatory review required by U.S. law. In fact, we understand that the U.S. Navy has resisted committing to apply for U.S. permits for any of its sonar activities off the UK, even though U.S. law requires it.

Wednesday 20th May
The navy has a job to do. During exercise training, part of that responsibility extends to protecting the environment (both marine and terrestrial).

Remember the common dolphin stranding that happened last summer in Cornwall? We’ve yet to get to the bottom of it, but it’s looking more likely than ever that an international naval exercise occurring locally at the time caused the stranding. Although, as with all navy related strandings to date, where the response is behavioural (rather than something physical and observable like a fishing net entanglement), this is difficult to ‘prove’.

The number of species whose behaviours are affected by navy sonar increases every year. As the list increases so do our concerns about the subtle, long term and chronic effects that the wide spread use of navy sonar is having on the marine species that live in our oceans.



Decreases in sightings of minke whales have already been reported off the west coast of Scotland during naval activities. Minke whales, and other internationally important species, come into Scotland’s rich and productive waters seasonally to feed – affecting this feeding behaviour may not have long term consequences – but we don’t know that. What if there are limited alternative options for foraging? What if a pregnant female can’t find enough food to sustain herself and her unborn calf? (And having seen two porpoises apparently giving birth in our survey area, we have additional reason to worry about this). We can’t say with confidence how the whale and dolphin populations around Scotland are faring because the required level of research has never been done.

On board mitigation measures are a starting point for protection of some animals from injury and death. However they do not protect animals from behavioural responses that may or may not lead to death. Better planning to offer wider protection is required – including avoiding important whale and dolphin habitats altogether (this is the most effective protection mechanism after all!).

Governments need the will to act to truly protect the marine environment. Marine users need to take responsibility for funding (independent) research to ensure that their activities are conducted in an environmentally responsible way. They should conduct full and transparent Environmental Impact Assessment – like those currently being conducted by the US Navy. This will enable the MoD to understand what long term impacts regular and repeated activities involved in routine exercises are potentially having on the marine environment, so that they can begin to address these in a substantial way.

A number of navies have already undertaken considerable work to protect marine wildlife, demonstrating that environmental duty of care does not need to come at the expense of navy training or a country’s security. An ongoing commitment to managing activities and investigating impacts is required by all navies to continue to understand and to minimise impacts on marine wildlife.

My humans keep talking about how important the marine eco-system is but little do they know that I’m cultivating my very own “Kila eco-system”. A variety of the Gairloch wildlife have decided to make me their home, not all of whom are welcome visitors I can tell you! I don’t mind the odd beetle, ant or even spider, it’s these darned ticks that I object to! Is their whole purpose in life just to eat me? What else do they possibly achieve? Except of course annoying and worrying my humans. They put this funny smelling stuff all over me and that’s supposed to keep them away but….doesn’t seem to be working if you ask me!

One thing I was looking forward to on my return to Gairloch was going back to our “temporary office”, such nice friendly people in there who fuss over me, feed me pork scratchings and carrots and I always got a nice walk and swim in the river on our way home! Times however are a changin’ and we no longer frequent this place, instead, for the first few weeks of being here the “office” became one of a few specific spots half way up the road from the house, where the humans would wave their lap-tops about in the air for a while, hit a few buttons and then came back to the house job-done! Not much of a walk for me but at least I still got out to stretch my legs.




And if that wasn’t bad enough, they’ve now moved office again! This time to the bottom of the garden – something to do with picking up someone else’s wireless (I am of course assured that it’s all above board so my new friends, the local constabulary, need not worry) – and the humans are delighted by this lack of travel they have to do, I however am not so keen. Then again, they can’t get away from my sticks when they’re outside!!



Today I had a bit of an adventure, we visited Gairloch Marine Wildlife Centre down in the harbour and I took the opportunity to have a bit of a look round their various displays. One exhibit was particularly appealing, there were lots of old bones and things around and I took a liking to one specific article and decided to investigate further. Apparently this was a bad move and I got quickly reprimanded – how was I to know this interesting smelly thing was something called “baleen” and not for chewing? There weren’t any signs to say don’t touch (as apparently that’s the point of the exhibit), and certainly none to say don’t eat!! You live and learn!

Good weather came rolling in, bringing with it an abundance of weird and wonderful dolphin sightings……!!

Spotting harbour porpoises can be troublesome in any and all sea states bar sea state 0 as these small cryptic species are not known to be overly acrobatic, and when surfacing their small fins can easily be lost behind a wave. Common dolphins however are usually more easily recognisable as they do tend to be a bit more gregarious and their striking colouring can give them away – saying this, distance can determine the ease of immediate identification.

Flat calm (mill-pond’esque) makes for perfect conditions as every piercing of the surface can easily be seen. The past 24 hours have seen such conditions and provided the perfect light. The eternally changing cloud cover allows the sun to peep through every now and then and with every passing minute another part of Skye lit up as another fell back into shadow. Like the changing colours in a painter’s palette, the various Hebridean Islands presented themselves in a variety of colourful hues – the Shiants themselves glorious in golds, greens and browns, like a shining beacon in the sea around.





And so....The adventure began with the sighting of a pod of between 13 – 20 common dolphins, slowly making their way across the Minch towards the mainland. Another 5 were spotted shortly after, slightly further south but moving in the same direction – possibly the stragglers of the group, in no apparent rush to get anywhere!

The plethora of porpoises kicked off with a few individual sightings here and there but before long I was to bear witness to some of the strangest behaviour I’ve ever seen when it comes to these wee chaps! The undulating (a very quick undulate) fin pierced the surface and then a mere 2 seconds later pierced it again in exactly the same position, at first leading me to believe that I was looking at two different animals, two seconds later, same place, then again and again. About four or five revolutions later the porpoise returned to the surface and there he/she remained….not moving – called “logging”, as the animal resembles (of all things) a “log” floating on the water. It stayed there for about 20 seconds before recommencing the revolutions, followed by another 20sec. log!

Shortly after, we had another five porpoises, again in the northern half of the survey area and again heading in from the islands and east towards the mainland. There must be some fish running in the area – or they know where they are running and are off to find them!

I was still bemused by the previous porpoise’s behaviour and was mulling it over in my mind when all of a sudden I spotted another two individuals in the same general vicinity as the others. And believe it or not….one of them started exhibiting the same behaviour as the previous “logger” – revolve, revolve, revolve, log/revolve, revolve, revolve, revolve, log …. and so it went on! Quite mesmerising and very intriguing!

Harbour porpoises appear to be making a bit of an appearance for us this time round as to date (in the past two weeks) we’ve had 21 individuals in 9 sightings…not bad going for one of the most elusive of cetaceans. Long may it continue!

Until the next time why not enjoy a Hebridean sunset on us?!