Entries by Sarah Dolman

Gale force winds and horizontal rain are preventing us from surveying. We briefly glimpsed our first warship this morning but it quietly slipped into the sea fog..

For those of you interested in how Joint Warrior might be having an impact on another species (human!), please check out this news story.

Exercise Joint Warrior 102 is the latest in the multi-country biannual NATO exercises which take place on the west coast of Scotland and which the UK has been leading for decades. NATO ships, submarines and aircraft will conduct Exercise Joint Warrior within the Scottish Exercise Areas from today until 14 October 2010 and it will involve the use of active sonar.

A full assessment of what environmental impacts these large, noisy, ongoing naval exercises could be having on the diverse and productive marine environment of the west coast has never been done.



For the last three years WDCS have been conducting land-based observations of the cetaceans in the Minch from our platform near Gairloch. We are hoping to encourage the Ministry of Defence to conduct a transparent Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to fully evaluate what effects they might be having on Scottish marine life during their exercises – better late than never (they’ve been operating here for about 60 years so far)!

WDCS has recently produced a UK Marine Protected Areas report. This scientific review is important to our request to the MOD as it identifies some areas around the UK which are cetacean ‘critical habitat’.

Under new Marine Acts, to meet international commitments, the UK and Scottish governments have a duty to create an ecologically coherent network of well managed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to deliver nature conservation priorities – including for cetaceans. It will be necessary to identify areas used for important life processes such as feeding, breeding and raising young.

Critical habitat was identified for harbour porpoises, bottlenose dolphins, white-beaked dolphins, Risso's dolphins, common minke whales and short-beaked common dolphins. The review determined that all six of these species, and killer whales too, would benefit from protective measures put in place in the Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland, including the Minch (right here!).



The west coast of Scotland is an amzing place as those of you who have visited (or live here!) will know and it is among the most diverse and special marine habitats in the world.

If the Ministry of Defence were to conduct the transparent EIA that they so desperately need to, this would help them to plan their exercises more effectively. Ultimately this is so that they would not impact the marine environment. Whilst the MOD spends lots of money on research every year, it does not conduct baseline or impact surveys of the areas which it operates in. During Joint Warrior the sailors can not know what species they may come across or the impacts that they may have on them.

It was sunny but too windy to watch yesterday so we took the dogs for a walk on one of the longest and most beautiful beaches on Lewis, at Traigh Mhor. Half way along the long stretch of white sand we suddenly became aware of a very sad situation. A couple we assumed were building a sand castle in the distance were actually attending to a young stranded dolphin.

It didn’t take us a second to realise that it was a young Risso’s dolphin - and that it was still alive. The couple had covered the dolphin in wet towels to keep it moist and to protect its sensitive skin from the bright sunlight and they were covering its body with sea water in an attempt to keep it cool. The dolphin was way up the sandy beach, close to the sand dunes and a long way from the receding low tide. It appears to have stranded at 7.30am on the high tide and it was now almost lunch time. It had therefore been out of the water for several hours.

Nicola stayed behind to help and comfort the dolphin whilst Simon and I headed back to the house to report the stranding and to gather some equipment that might come in handy for a rescue attempt. Shortly after we returned to the beach the vet arrived and determined that the best course of action was to euthanise the animal. We stood back and looked on with incredible sadness. Not only was this a young and seemingly healthy looking animal, this could have been one of the dolphins that we had been photographing from the boat in previous days.

In an effort to make some good of this terribly sad situation, a post mortem was undertaken today. Whilst we don’t know all of the test results straight away, Andrew Brownlow, a vet at the Scottish Agricultural College, came over from Inverness to conduct a thorough post-mortem and we now have the answers to some important questions about this animal.





This young Risso’s dolphin was a healthy juvenile male (2.76m) with a good blubber layer. He may have suffered some internal damage due to hours that he spent out of the water on the beach, but we will not know the answer to some questions about disease until more detailed histopathology has been undertaken on the samples that we collected.

As with all cetacean strandings, it was a very sad and unexpected event. But we hope to find some good in every situation and this is true of strandings also. We are lucky enough to have a great strandings network in the UK, with a dedicated team of vets and other professionals. Andrew caught an overnight ferry to get to Lewis in order to conduct the post-mortem whilst the carcass was still fresh. And as a result we have learnt something fascinating about the Risso’s dolphins off the north-east coast of Lewis. This young male had numerous squid beaks and stones in his stomach, and we also found an almost intact whole, fresh squid, as well as most of an intact langoustine, both of which were eaten in the last few hours before stranding. This demonstrates that this was a young animal that was well enough to feed only hours before it stranded and also that it was feeding here in Scottish waters. From the information we have gathered so far, it seems most likely that this stranding was brought about by a social situation. Perhaps a group of male Risso’s separated this juvenile dolphin from his mother and he became confused and ultimately stranded..?



And finally, the sad death of this young dolphin has strengthened our commitment to better understand the role of these amazing animals in Scottish waters and make sure that they receive the protection and respect that they deserve.

If you see a stranded animal in Scotland, please contact the following organisations who can help the animal and/or collect important information:

DEAD ANIMALS – 01463 243030 (Scottish Agricultural College)

ALIVE ANIMALS – 03000 999 999 (Scottish SPCA Animal Helpline)
01825 765 546 (British Divers Marine Life Rescue)

This is my kind of field work. Ok, it’s not the tropical, glamorous type of research – shorts, t-shirts, iced water and sun cream, rather it’s as many thermal layers as you can squeeze into, hasty spoonfuls of porridge and always having your thermos, ginger nuts and wet weather gear handy.

But for three days on the trot now, on arrival at our land-based watching point as well as at the harbour from which we launch Tim’s boat, RV Puffin (excellent research vessel), the Risso’s have been out there in the big blue (or the big grey might be more accurate..) to greet us.

The scene was true gun powder grey yesterday when Tim pointed out a fin from the shore, as soon as we stepped out of the car at the harbour. We jumped into the boat. The morning started off well with wandering Risso’s dolphin mum and calf pairs spread out along the rocky lush coastline, just a few miles north of Stornoway.

Despite the dark choppy sea, the endless monotone grey clouds, general air of dampness and the distant watercolour mountain vista of the mainland on the horizon (none of which are conducive to photographing largely grey animals!), I was eager to improve my very amateur photography skills. Whilst the dolphins were in no hurry, their erratic surfacing patterns meant we remained on full alert, with our cameras firmly attached to an eye to enable swift action at first sight or sound of a dolphin breaking the waters surface. With aching arms, we photographed as many animals as we could. Once satisfied we'd photographed as many as we could, we moved on towards Tiumpan Head.

The Head came into view and several nosey fulmars circled RV Puffin to check us out. After much splashing on the horizon, and more deliberation about which species were leaping clear of the water, we had more than 50 common dolphins approach at high speed and began to play flamboyantly around the boat.

We spent some time enjoying their company as they bow-rode and leapt about us. When we tried to leave them, they followed with even more enthusiasm! Chuff, chuff, chuff as they came up next to us time and time again, too fast for us to capture them with the camera. They only got bored eventually when we switched off the engine and waited. Gradually, one by one, they mostly disappeared, until only a few individuals remained. They eyed us from under the water alongside the boat, porpoised around us and soon they too were gone. As quickly as they arrived.

The wind was starting to freshen. We headed back towards the harbour and encountered more Risso’s mothers with young of varying ages. They moved in a group, mostly together and surfacing at the same time. Much more amenable than the early animals!



Today we watched from the shore. From the moment we arrived and all day long we had a steady flow of one way Risso’s traffic past Tiumpan Head. Animals were dotted about from the coastline to the horizon as far as we could see. The Risso’s travelled leisurely past us and some juveniles occasionally slapped their head or tail on the waters surface. Mum and calf pairs stayed close together, and some came so close to our shoreline that we had to peer down to see them!

Back in the 1990s WDCS provided funding for the Western Isles Risso’s Dolphin Project on Lewis and studies then took place over a period of about 5 years - and now more than a decade later the studies recommence! With the advice and assistance of Tim Atkinson, one of the project investigators of the original surveys, we hope to collect some new and updated information about the Risso’s dolphins off the Eye Peninsula. This is important for a number of reasons, not least of all because there are less than a handful of sites in the world where Risso’s dolphins calve so close to shore and because Scotland is in the process of designating a network of marine protected areas by 2012, to meet its international obligations – and we think this population of Risso’s deserves to be included!

No population-level information is available on trends in abundance, incidental mortality rates or even the distributional range of the populations of Risso’s dolphins in Scotland or the UK. Risso’s dolphins are oceanic dolphins that feed primarily on squid, octopus and cuttlefish and seem predominantly to feed in deeper waters. They are often found around interesting topographical features, where productivity is enhanced by mixing waters, such as seamounts and escarpments. They also inhabit a few coastal sites where the continental shelf is narrow and close to shore, including here! Previous studies indicate that the waters around north Lewis, along with a few other sites on the west coast of Scotland (including Tiree, Coll and Ushinish Peninsula, South Uist) are important for Risso’s dolphins.



We haven’t seen any Risso’s yet (we’ve only been here a few days!) and the reports this year so far are few and far between. Results of the surveys 10 years ago showed that Risso’s dolphins are found offshore in deeper waters and in large groups between the months of May and July. In August and September, however, the dolphins regularly moved into coastal bays or near-shore in the waters around Stornoway, foraging on their own or in small groups. Tim and his colleagues built up a large catalogue of dorsal fins to identify individual animals that we hope to update and add to (scientists in the Ligurian Sea resighted a Risso’s dolphin from 15 years ago, how cool would it be if we could do the same thing!) – if we’re fortunate enough to find the animals… And so now we watch, cross our fingers and wait for them to turn up!

Our aim is to determine the significance of the coastal waters of Lewis for the Risso’s and all other cetaceans. We will collect basic land-based observation data from the headland on the Eye Peninsula, a favourite haunt of the dolphins of old, and we’ll collect opportunistic photo-identifications from small boats whenever the weather permits - which is not as often as we would like in these parts!

Besides the Risso’s there’s a diversity of marine life here that would be hard to beat anywhere else in the British Isles. From our headland vista, we’ve encountered locally breeding arctic and great skuas flying overhead, gannets dive bombing from north to south in the minch surrounding us and porpoises, common dolphins and basking sharks all feeding in the rich and productive waters. We’ve already had a minke whale surface so close to shore in front of us that we could hear it exhale and almost smelled its breath as it rose to the surface.

We’ve experienced the famous Hebridean winds over the last couple of days but these are set to drop for the next few days so we’re off to grab supplies and prepare to head out on the survey boat…