Gairloch 2009

Posted on behalf of Kila - WDCS Canine Researcher

The bags are packed (my bed included I hope!) and I’ve been informed that it’s time for us to hit the road and say goodbye to our seaside retreat (although that does make it sound a bit “holiday’esque”, which it most certainly is not!) until next year when we’ll be back for some more Joint Warrior (and sheep) observations!

This field season has most definitely been a bit of a blustery one and I have at times feared I may have been whipped off my feet and ended up in an adjoining field – which wouldn’t have been too bad a thing as all the fields around here seem to be full of sheep. Actually, everywhere round here seems to be full of sheep; the roads, the beach, every walk I encounter another one – I’m thinking I may change my dissertation topic to sheep photo-ID, I could have a catalogue of hundreds by the end of it … although I hear they have a very short life expectancy as they pretty quickly become lamb chops … so perhaps I’ll end up eating them anyway with much less energy expended!!

We’ve seen lots this time round; otters, minke whales, seals, harbour porpoises, basking sharks, ducks (loads of ducks yet I’m still waiting for mine!), migrating swans and geese, warships, submarines, huge flying birds of the Helicopteri and Fighter-jeti species and of course those attention hogging orca – so it’s been a great success even if the weather has been against us!





A quick word on those seals though – how come all they seem to do is “bask”? Every time we’ve seen them they’ve just been hanging in the water, snout to the sky, bobbing about in the swell – must be nice to be a basking seal … are they related to those basking sharks then? And some more trivia on cetacean behaviour for you – did you know that porpoises don’t actually ‘porpoise’ but dolphins do? What’s that all about then? Who thought it would be a good idea to confuse the heck out of everyone by describing a behaviour that isn’t actually a behaviour at all? I’m sticking to sheep, much easier!

Anyway, enough of my idle chit-chat, and time for me to get my hairy behind in the car and head for southern shores!! Thanks for keeping us company during our time up here and I hope you’ve enjoyed sharing in our exploits – see you all in 2010!!

P.S. – I’d like to put a personal shout-out to my friend the local butcher (thanks for all the bones) and the lovely manageress at the Old Inn who keeps me in carrots, bacon fries and mini cheddars when my humans go to the “office”.

Slainte … !!

P.P.S – I hope you enjoy the wee montage I’ve put together below of some of the shots you didn’t get to see.

I’m reluctant to pack up our field equipment, leave the Minch behind and head back to Edinburgh. But the time, yet again, has come. This immediate battle has been won (well, maybe not won as Joint Warrior will return in April 2010, but the exercise didn’t enter the Moray Firth this time, that has to be considered a minor victory doesn’t it?!? A big, big thank you to everyone who had a role in this victory, you know who you are!)

Joint Warrior might be over for now, but there are other threats and issues that these animals have to deal with in their daily lives – new and old industries expanding, prey species being fished out, spills occurring, rubbish being dumped and marine habitats of numerous mysterious and beautiful species being destroyed. Something needs to be done now – and something is.

It’s the final countdown to a strong Marine (Scotland) Act in 2010. There has never been a more exciting time for marine wildlife and marine wildlife fans alike. Holyrood is currently considering marine legislation for Scotland’s seas – with nature conservation out to 200 nm – for the first time ever. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our government to get protection of Scottish seas right.

We are very excited about the pending legislation, but there’s a way to go yet before we can be proud and can feel confident that we are protecting our marine environment. The Marine (Scotland) Bill Stage 1 Report was recently released by the Scottish Parliament Rural Affairs Committee and it needs some work!



RECOVERY - We need a duty on Scottish Ministers to improve the health of Scotland’s seas, and targets towards recovery. Our seas were once teaming with marine species and we need to recover them to historic levels, securing their future for our children and grandchildren to enjoy.

MARINE PROTECTED AREAS – We need a duty on Scottish Ministers to create an ecologically-coherent network of Marine Protected Areas. Without such areas, and monitoring and management, we can not meet our international commitments to protect marine species efficiently and effectively.

FISHERIES – We need integration between the Marine (Scotland) Bill and fisheries legislation to help deliver restoration of Scotland’s marine environment. Whales and dolphins, as well as fisheries will all benefit from healthier seas!



SEALS - Last, but by no means least, we have been lucky enough to see seals in our study area on most survey days since we arrived and I can not believe that seals are still being shot around Scotland’s coasts. We support Advocates for Animals’ in their concern about the killing of seals during their breeding seasons. Stopping this will bring to an end the suffering of countless orphaned seal pups left to starve to death on Scotland’s beaches each year. Advocates for Animals have produced a new short film, Bonnie's Tale, narrated by Richard Briers, which you can watch at www.lookoutforseals.org. The more people that watch the film and sign Advocates online pledge, the greater the chance that the Scottish Government will better protect these beautiful and defenceless creatures, and introduce a ban on the killing of seals, or at the very least a cessation during the breeding season.

As far as we know, sonar operations as part of Joint Warrior ended on Thursday, when exercises were completed in the Minch and the outer approaches to the Moray Firth.

We have been informed that the Navy did not conduct active sonar operations within the Moray Firth (drawing a line closing Duncansby Head and Fraserburgh Head). Five of the ships involved in Joint Warrior operated within the vicinity of the Moray Firth and we understand that the pre-determined mitigation measures were enforced (see previous blog!).

A number of concerned individuals, the Cetacean Research & Rescue Unit and WDCS volunteers at our Wildlife Centre in the Moray Firth conducted land and boat based surveys during the exercise period. We are not aware of any incidences of unusual cetacean behaviour.



But of course absence of evidence is not to be confused with evidence of absence. Monitoring and recording the animals themselves is difficult enough (as many of you will know!) and recording potentially negative impacts is an incredible challenge. As an example, the worlds’ most expensive collaborative research project (costing millions of US dollars) to investigate the impacts of naval sonar took place on a navy range in the Bahamas last year. It took a whole field season to obtain response data to sonar in less than a handful of whales – and you can imagine that the weather in the Bahamas is more obliging than it is in Scotland during October! And yes, responses to the sonar were observed in some, but even with this evidence, interpreting what this response means to the animal in the short and long term is a very difficult job. As well as changes in observable behaviour, much more subtle responses - including stress - will go unrecognised.

There are many acoustic monitoring devices recording the vocalisations of the dolphins and porpoises using the Moray Firth at present, thanks to a project that is being conducted by Aberdeen University and funded by the UK government (to help decide if it is appropriate to allow a major seismic survey in the Firth in 2010). We understand that these devices will not provide details of any sonar activity, but with the assistance of the navy in determining when sonar activities took place, they may help us to determine if any animals in the vicinity of the exercise responded vocally. In addition, WDCS has its own passive acoustic receiver at our wildlife centre in Spey Bay:
http://www.wdcs.org/connect/wildlife_centre/story_details.php?select=442

Well Kila was right, the various naval vessels hadn’t all packed up and gone off to the Moray Firth! After a day or so of quiet, warship free seas (at least as far as we could see anyway!) it all kicked off in our survey area!

First to turn up was the large Turkish warship, TCG Orucreis (F245). They were followed into the Minch by our very own HMS Shoreham (M112), and within no time at all they were all “in training situation”. Two smaller ribs were deployed into the water and what followed, translated into terrestrial terms, as something similar to watching 2 lions being harassed and taunted by 2 snappy little Jack Russells … nipping at their heels, trying to get a rise out of them. Presumably, the warships were practicing their gunnery skills as international law states that it is considered “an act of aggression” to come too close to any member of a country’s naval fleet. These guys played a while until HMS Shoreham decided they’d had enough of these little ankle-biters and carried on south through the Minch leaving the Turkish to get their breath back and rest a while before being joined by HMS Bangor (M109) for some more games!

The next day, the Turkish warship was nowhere to be seen but in its place were the Brazilians in BNS Defensora (F41). Radio communications were initiated between them and an unidentified smaller vessel and we watched as in the distance the Brazilians deployed a helicopter and were undoubtedly undertaking some kind of training with aforementioned smaller vessel – perhaps “intercept and secure”, checking they weren’t a boat load of terrorists?



If we didn’t think it was already enough of an international affair, it became truly cosmopolitan when a short while later the Brazilians were joined by our Baltic neighbours the Danes in HDMS Absalon (L16). Then it was a brief hello to HMS Northumberland (F238) as she appeared out of Loch Ewe to our north and headed over to join the others. Another exercise about to begin? Unfortunately however if it was, it was taking place under cover of the sea mist that was shrouding the Minch and we soon lost sight of them as they headed further into the grey cloud hanging on the horizon, that was getting ever closer – and soon closed in completely leaving us in a rain-cloud which seemed desperate to shed her load over the land!



So a fair amount of “exercising” going on … it’s really isn’t over until the fat lady sings!! (I’m working on a tune for the coming days, so bear with me!)

Well now, I’ve been having quite a busy time of it since I last spoke to you all so best I crack on and update you folks on life up here in the far north of this glorious country!! (I would say that as I’m Scottish, well ok I’m part German but that’s just my ancestors…!)

Last week saw my humans having an apparently exceedingly exciting encounter with some killer whales, sorry, I mean orca … (or so I gathered as I was all but ignored for a few hours ?) … and as it turns out one of the individuals that they were so obsessed with during my ball-playing time is otherwise known as “John Coe” – personally I thought he played football for Arsenal, I’m guessing not! “John Coe” turns out to be an orca who has become infamous around these parts, being sighted regularly over the past 16 years around the West Coast of Scotland. Seems he’s a bit of a traveller (like myself) as he’s also been sighted off County Donegal in Ireland and as far north as the Western Isles. He has been an adult male since first being sighted making him at least 35 years old … that’s emm … WOW … 245 in dog years … no way, must be different for these orca chaps!!!

You may have heard in a previous blog that the Canadian Navy came to town to seek out my humans – actually I believe they came to seek out me but I was otherwise engaged at the time so I never got to see them! Possibly just as well as they “claimed” they were going to bring me a ham bone … idle words eh?



I must say, I’ve also been getting a wee bit confused with this “television” thing as although my human Sarah is sitting right behind me on the couch, recently she’s been appearing on the “box” at the same time!! How does she do that? BBC1 one day, STV the next … I have been advised that it’s similar to the taking of photographs and soon all will be revealed when I myself am a TV Star when I appear with my new friend Ruben on his TV programme “Great Escapes” – do you think he’s talking about the sheep that got away?!

Now I couldn’t sign off without first giving you an update on the weather, could I? My humans haven’t been too enamoured with it, as apparently it’s too rough to watch. I however have no such issues of my own and my survey work is going very well thanks … I may even write a paper “The behaviour of Gairloch sheep” – what do you think? Best get penning…….more soon…..!!



Oh and so much for my humans saying the Navy had moved on into the Moray Firth … I’ve just spotted a warship on the horizon, WOOF … maybe it’s the Americans lost again!!