A recent spate of strandings in Walvis Bay

In addition to the pygmy right whale stranding detailed in the blog post below, we have had several others recently. A quick thanks to all involved in reporting and assisting at the various events including the Walvis Bay Salt Works for access to the pump station and reporting strandings,  Naude Dreyer of Sandwich Harbour tours for coordinating and always being available to assist, Neels Dreyer and John Paterson for their role in coordinating communication within the Walvis Bay Strandings Network (WBSN), Levo Tours for reporting the 2nd pygmy right whale in the harbour, Jeanne Meintjies of Eco-Marine Kayak Tours and Jaco Louw who helped with the attempted rescue of the pygmy sperm whale.

A few pics of use working up the various animals below. Collecting standard measurements, skin samples and where possible the skulls for the museum collection.

Rescuing a pygmy right whale

Ruth has done a great story on her West African Cetaceans blog, about the recent rescue of a baby pygmy right whale which stranded at the Walvis Bay pump station - so head over there to read the full story:

http://www.westafricacetaceans.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-close-encounter-with-worlds-smallest.html

For here, just a few pics:

 EYE OF THE WHALE

STRONGLY ARCHED JAW CHARACTERISTIC OF THE SPECIES 

THE NARROW ROSTRUM IS QUITE DIFFERENT TO MOST BALEEN WHALES  

KEPT COVERED AND WET ALL AFTERNOON WHILE WE WAITED FOR THE TIDE

GETTING IT ON THE STRETCHER 

AND OUT TO SEA

Student training in Walvis Bay

By Monica Betts - University of Pretoria MSc student.

On 25^th of January 2013 I arrived in Namibia to begin the first part of my Master’s degree under the supervision of Dr Simon Elwen. The main purpose of my visit has been to get some hands on training in order to prepare me for the field work phase of my project. I will be taking over the collection of data for the long term cetacean project currently underway in Mossel Bay, South Africa as well was conducting my Master’s project.

During my Master’s project, I will be working towards establishing some baseline data needed to apply static acoustic monitoring using CPODs  (echolocation click detectors) to studying dolphin populations on the east coast of South Africa. I will be looking into measuring the detection distance of animals and also trying to acoustically differentiate my two study two species, the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin and the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin. If we can get this right, then we’ll be able to use CPODs (which are relatively cheap compared to other types of hydrophone) to improve our understanding of the distributions and behaviour of these species by using CPODs for long term 24-hour monitoring. 

When I first arrived in Walvis Bay the terms ‘CPOD’, ‘Databases’,’ Photo-ID’ and ‘Theodolite’ were completely foreign to me. However, over the last few weeks that has changed. I now know that a CPOD is a device used to detect cetacean clicks over a long period of time, photographing and identifying dolphins involves a lot more than just a good camera, databases that are organized and detailed are essential from the start of the project and theodolite work requires patience and  attention to detail.

My experience here in Walvis Bay has been incredible. I found I have learnt so much in a very short space of time. The most important lesson I have learnt that is although working with dolphins involves a lot of hard work, if it is done properly it can yield satisfying and sometime very surprising results.  I am very grateful to have the opportunity to work with these lovely creatures and look forward to learning more and more about them.

Monica.

 MONICA HAULING HER FIRST CPOD

  HANNAH (RATHER CASUALLY) ASSISTING

 SOME RATHER IMPRESSIVE DOLPHIN JUMPS SEEN AT THE POINT

SKY DOLPHIN

Mission: Hopefully Possible – recovering an (almost) lost C-Pod

By Aurora Nastasi:

In early July this year, we put a CPOD hydrophone down at Sandwich Harbour – the goal being to investigate how frequently bottlenose dolphins go into the lagoon there, compared to Walvis Bay where there are far more human impacts.  However, it’s a really challenging environment to put in a mooring for this type of instrument, as it’s very shallow, with a sandy bottom and lots of tidal movement.

Two weeks ago when we went back to recover the instrument (a mighty trip in it’s own right – taking 8 hours on the boat and >80L of fuel to cover the ~150km there and back) we discovered the buoy barely peeping above the surface. Over the 2.5 months that we left it down there, the entire mooring had become buried by the flood of sand that is moved every day by the tides. The power of Nanuuq’s 120 horsesbarely managed to pull the rope free, but couldn’t move even a centimeter of the weight or its blanket of sand, no matter what direction, no matter how tight the ropes were. Nanuuq had to surrender to the power of nature.

Mission impossible – Plan B. After much deliberation, we decided that the best way to rescue the CPOD was to drive to Sandwich Harbour along the beach as close as possible to the mooring, and to carry and small boat and diving equipment to dive it out. So last Friday, we (Simon, Nico and I) set off on our ‘mission impossible’ with the precious collaboration of Gert and Andries from Namib Diving and Marine Services.

Two 4x4 cars carrying all the proper equipment and a 4 m aluminum outboard with a 30 Hp engine left Walvis Bay towards the stunning dunes of Sandwich Harbor. Once there, surrounded by hundreds of birds and a couple of lazy seals, we quickly arranged our short sailing trip to the buoy to complete the mission as soon as possible in order to come back before the high tide would have obliterated any trace of the road we drove in on. Unfortunately, once on board we found out that the engine didn’t work properly (40km of bouncy beach driving isn’t great for engines it seems) and had to row all the way to the buoy. Simon dove and Nico snorkeled above him while Gert and Andries remained on board as support. In less than 5 minutes the rope was cut and the barnacle encrusted CPod was set free.

We were very happy to succeed in rescuing the CPod but a surprise which made our day even more special was about to come: on the way back to Walvis Bay, a group of at least 20 bottlenoses was slowly swimming (and maybe feeding) along shore, so close to the beach that we could have touched them if we had wished to. We grabbed the cameras and took as many photos as possible as there were many marked animals as well as moms and calves. The tide was arising fast and we had to go back very pleased for completing the C-Pod mission and to have had a further chance to meet dolphins from land…

Aurora :)

LETTING THE TYRES DOWN AT THE OLD SA-NAMIBIA BORDER 

BOAT LOOKS SMALLER THAT IT WAS! 

 PULL START ENGINES & DRY CARBURETTORS = TIRING

HOME AND DRY

 AURORA PHOTOGRAPHING THE DOLPHINS JUST NORTH OF SANDWICH

LUNCH BREAK ON WAY HOME - ENJOYING A RARE SUNNY DAY!

Giving a talk in Windhoek tomorrow about some of our work this year in the Namibian Islands Marine Protected Area which was funded by the Nedbank Go Green fund of Namibia. 17h30 - 8th Floor, Mutual Tower

Just say no to trash!

Nico and Aurora attend International Beach Clean up day for the Namibian Dolphin Project.

'Just say no to trash!': This is the first message coming from the Ocean Week that has started last Saturday. In fact, in spite of the cold and rainy morning, more than 100 Walvis Bay residents attended the Beach Cleaning Day, which was organised by the NACOMA project as the first event of the Ocean Week. In addition, there were representatives from the Army, press, the Ministry of Fishery, conservation projects (NDP, CETN) and lots of passionate school kids from elementary to high schools attending the event. It is particularly to the school childred that the message of 'Just say to no to Trash' is directed.

Under the banner of this message, Mrs. Sue Roux (CETN – Coastal Environment Trust of Namibia) welcomed all the participants in a crowded chamber at the Municipality and presented some of the terrible effects of pollution worldwide; yellow rivers, plastic seas and marine animals wrapped in nets or intoxicated by oil were some of the striking images shown. After the introductions, groups of children and adults spent their morning together cleaning the coastline of the town: from the pump station in the south to Langstrand in the north.

Each group was provided with gloves and recycling bags to sort glass, plastic, metal and paper. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) kilos and kilos of trash were collected: nets, clothes, cans, glass and plastic bottles, thousands of metal lids, cigarette' packs, tires, buoys, newspapers, toys, car windows, bricks, wires and much more were found along Walvis Bay beaches and lagoons. The very same areas used by jackals, flamingos and herons! Besides the amount of litter removed from the shores, one the most important goals of this event was to make as many people as possible aware that Namibian beaches are unfortunately not only made of sand and that trash has an high impact on everybody's life and on our Earth. Hopefully the kids who joined the event learnt that each one of us is responsible for his own trash, and that disposing of it in the proper way does make the difference... and in doing so, it won't be necessary to wake up early on Saturdays to clean beaches anymore!

A big thanks to the NACOMA project for organising this day as part of a global initiative.

Summary of our 2012 winter season in Walvis Bay

First off - a quick nod to Yamaha South Africa - who gave us a great deal on a set of 60HP four strokes this year making them (just) affordable to the project.  These new engines have allowed us to have more and longer sea days, use about 30% less fuel and range much further from home with great confidence. A good investment all round I'd say.

From 00:00 hours on the engines on 08 March 2012 to 309:00 hours today (06 Sept 2012)! All that with not a moments trouble (except for that time we kinked a fuel pipe, but that was entirely my fault, so lets not talk about that).  That's a lot of time on the water - so a big thanks to Yamaha SA for the help.

So - I'm not even going to summarise what we did in Luderitz this year just the 2 months here in Walvis Bay (perhaps next week).  This is the project's FIFTH winter here in Walvis and we have a great time series of data on Heaviside's and bottlenose dolphins and a growing body of data on humpback whales. Turning these thousands of photos, GPS points and pithy observations into scientific papers and hopefully some popular articles will be the focus of our next few months.

So,
July 2012 - 
Team: Simon, Tess, Ryan Reisinger, Meagan Gary, Julie Coffey, Alex Sasso, Jeremy Day and Georgios Cambanis

- 19 sea days
- 16 with Heaviside's
- 9 with bottlenose
- 9 with humpback whales (a record in my experience here)
- 109:06 hours on the water (at an average of 05:44 per day)
- 966.2 km at sea.
~8600 photos taken!
Strandings: 1 dessicated Heaviside only

August 2012:
Team: Simon, Tess, Nico Tonachella, Aurora Nastasi, Meagan Gary, Julie Coffey, Sam Warnock, Alice Affatati and Sabrina Ergun

- 18 sea days (lots of bad weather unfortunately, so some short days but some much longer ones to compensate)
- 15 with Heaviside's
- 11 with bottlenose
- 5 with humpback whales
- 83:57 hours on the water (at an average of 05:48)
- 986.8km at sea.
~8400 photos taken.
Strandings: none (strangely)

So - remarkably similar months all round!

Here is where we went in the last two months, including our trip to Sandwich Harbour:
Legend:
Each dot is recorded 1 min apart and so they represent what the boat was doing at any time
Yellow - Searching
Dark blue - Humpback whales
Bright blue - Heaviside's dolphins
Red - Bottlenose dolphins

Even at this level, habitat partitioning between the species is rather obvious.

You may notice that according to the marine navigation chart and Garmin chart plotter - our boat is in fact a hover craft.  Amazing how much the coastline changes down there as the sand dunes are eroded by the ocean.

A great big thank you for Tess and myself to Ryan, Nico and Aurora for helping keep things together! and especially a huge thank you to all the Oceans Research Interns for coming all the way to Namibia to help us out!