Of Sea Turtles and Sharks: Internship, Take 2

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Internship, Take 2

The view from the first cetacean survey site.

We began our actual work today! I worked on two different projects. In the morning, three interns, including myself, went with Bridget (a masters student, scientist in residence) to two of her survey sites for her cetacean project. She is examining what species are in the bay and what areas of they bay they use for different activities. We helped record data on the weather conditions and each half hour when we scanned the bay for any activity. We briefly saw a couple Southern Right Whales and one which we think was a Bryde's Whale. Not the most thrilling research ever but quite easy to put up with for the course of half a day.

Recording data while the other two interns scan the bay for whales.

The two Oceans Research boats. The orange one is
Lamnidae, the white one right next to it is Cheetah.

In the afternoon, I went chumming! There were five interns on the boat for this job. One was responsible for collecting data, one handled chumming the water, another was controlling the bait line, one took pictures for identification, and I was up on top of the boat acting as lookout. My job was to watch for the sharks and let Alex on the bait line know where the sharks were, especially if they were heading for the bait line. The goal is to avoid letting the sharks actually eat the bait until we have a good shot of their dorsal fin.

When we got to the site, we began chumming and pretty soon had a whole lot of little fish very, very interested in the small pieces of fish that kept coming with the blood and oils. There were also Southern Right Whales (a mom and calf!) breaching nearby and some very large, pretty jellyfish floating about. And then, FOUR GREAT WHITE SHARKS!!! Yes, I was the tiniest bit excited. The first couple were 3.2-3.7 meters in length and the second two were 3.7-4.2 meters. I'm not sure what the average size or number is for a chumming trip, but I consider this chumming trip a great success. And now pictures!