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Vincent Van Gogh may once have written: "The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore", but alas, we must stay in port until a rather nasty and lengthy low pressure system passes by. Unfortunately, this could be a number of days, yet.
The silver lining, however, is that this provides a chance to consolidate and process sighting and acoustics data from four incredibly fruitful days out in Bass Strait studying pygmy blue whales. In particular, we're wanting to know how often we can hear blue whales using sonobuoys, then track them down and sample them (i.e., photograph or biopsy). This information will contribute to estimating the amount of ship time required in the Southern Ocean to target a given number of Antarctic blue whales, with the aim of estimating their circumpolar abundance using mark-recapture methods. So, big expectations rest on these little blue whale surveys!
REGARDS: Natalie and Dave
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.