The Marine Conservation Ecology group at Duke has joined the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to study the ecology of whales and krill along the AntarcticContinue reading
Palmer Station
During the last couple of days we came into Palmer Station to drop off Doug and Ari (they are heading home early on a cruise ship) and pick up a dive team from UAB,Continue reading
Setting the Record Straight on Antarctic Birds
OK, time to set a few things straight after Matt’s blog – particularly before Josh Stoll comments on Matt’s inability to identify Antarctic birds. First of all, the bird in Matt’s picture labeled ‘SomeContinue reading
Firsts
Since this is my first trip to Antarctica I have been keeping a list of firsts. Surprisingly, it has been quite difficult. For one there are probably many things that I don’t appreciate that areContinue reading
Killer Whales
Sunday was another great day for Cetacean Research along the Antarctic Peninsula (just in case you’d forgotten the acronym). We worked in Charlotte Bay, the northernmost of the four bays along the Peninsula inContinue reading
Best in Snow
After retrieving our minke whale tag on Valentine’s Day, we dropped Nick Gales off at Port Lockeroy and headed back to Wilhelmina Bay. We had hoped to go ashore in Port Lockeroy, but itContinue reading
You never forget your first time
With all of the success we have had to date on this trip, the one remaining target on our list is to deploy a multi-sensor suction cup tag on an Antarctic minke whale. These elusiveContinue reading
All the Diamonds in the World
For the last week we have been working in pretty cloudy conditions with – as you may remember from Matt’s blog – snow, sleet, and all manner of other frozen precipitation. When we wokeContinue reading
Day in the life of a whale
After spending a week deploying satellite tags, we have moved onto deploying suction cup tags. Unlike satellite tags which beam their data back to us, suction-cup tags need to be collected to download their data. Continue reading
The Day of the Minkes
Yesterday Andy mentioned how difficult it can be to tag minke whales since they are so elusive and fast. And yet we were lucky enough to get 2 satellite tags on them! Well folks, thenContinue reading