To Find Whales, Follow Their FoodWHOI biologist employs an array of tools to reveal right whale feeding habits and habitats |
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(Third in a three-part series.)
Part 1: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Whale
Part 2: Diving into the Right Whale Gene Pool
The average adult right whale consumes about a ton of food a day,
eating billions of tiny crustaceans called copepods that are packed
with protein and calorie-rich oils.
“To whales, copepods are juicy, greasy Big Macs, in a really small
package,” said Mark Baumgartner, a biologist at Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution.
Like hungry people at a buffet, North Atlantic right whales gravitate
to places where vast, dense patches of copepods periodically appear. If
scientists know where and when copepods will show up, they can predict
where whales will be. That offers vital information for efforts to
manage fishing and shipping traffic to avoid encounters that often kill
these endangered whales.
In 2005, Baumgartner and colleagues launched a pilot study in the Great
South Channel off Cape Cod, a well-known springtime right whale
habitat, to reveal the mysteries of right whale feeding grounds. Aboard
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ship Albatross IV and the WHOI research vessel Tioga, they mustered an arsenal of scientific instruments.
Several instruments were used to measure copepod concentrations and to
map the dense copepod patches. Other instruments collected copepods and
measured the temperature and salinity of the ocean. Scientists also
temporarily tagged whales with acoustic transmitters (which the whales
can’t hear) and tracked their dives and movements with four
hydrophone-equipped buoys.
For the first time, the scientists deployed autonomous underwater
vehicles (developed by WHOI oceanographer Dave Fratantoni) with
instruments that continuously recorded whale sounds.
“We’re piecing together all the factors and conditions that come
together to create these large aggregations of copepods,” Baumgartner
said.
Understanding the complex dynamics of the ecosystem “may give us an
idea of where to look for other right whale habitats we haven’t
discovered yet,” he said. It also will help scientists understand how
those ecosystems can shift or be disrupted—especially by a changing
climate.
“Given the right whale’s low population,” Baumgartner said, “if a
change in the climate or the ocean caused the availability of copepods
to plunge, right whales could go right down the tubes.”
— Amy E. Nevala
The research was funded by the WHOI Ocean Life Institute Right Whale
Research and Conservation Initiative and the National Marine Fisheries
Service.
Posted: January 20, 2006 [top] |
