Field Team members: King Edward Point (KEP) marine biologists Katie Wells and Rhianna Nichol and project manager Stephanie Martin
Greetings from KEP.
In January 2025, we finally deployed two of the acoustic moorings in Cumberland Bay. This was after almost a year and a half in delays mainly due to large icebergs in the deployment area. It was too risky that the icebergs would damaged the moorings and ice is really noisy, so we wouldn’t be able to record whale vocalizations or ship noise.
The days before deployment were busy in Stanley, Falkland Islands, working in the BAS Stanley office warehouse, going through the Cumberland Bay mooring equipment.
There were also meetings to discuss the mooring deployment plans with GSGSSI fisheries patrol vessel (FPV) Captain Simon, GSGSSI CEO Laura, and Workboat Service managing director Adam. The two BAS Stanley office people were also very helpful in coordinating the transport of all of the cargo onto the fisheries patrol vessel.
Captain Simon worked with BAS on the RRS James Clark Ross and has extensive experience deploring moorings. He was brilliantly helpful in planning and asking the FPV crew to help with mooring setup and deployment.
We arrived at KEP on the morning of 22 January 2025 and KEP marine biologists Katie Wells and Rhianna Nicol also joined the ship to help set up the sound traps and the acoustic releases.
The following morning, 23 January 2025, Captain Simon brought the FPV to the first mooring location. The FPV crew used the crane to deploy both moorings successfully. One of the deck crew members pointed out a whale blowing between the locations. It was blowing 35 knots, so we couldn’t tell the species from the deck, but it was a fantastic way to start, and hopefully, we captured our first data point!
The ORCA teams have been sending messages about their whale sightings earlier in the season. They have been sharing real-time updates when they are in the Darwin Plus Hungry Humpbacks project working area between Stromness and St. Andrews. There was a chance to meet ORCA observers Nikki and Jayne, when they visited Grytviken and shared their sightings data.
Follow us @wildwaterwhales account on Instagram, LinkedIn, and BlueSky for more updates!