...As part of the scientific complement on the MALCOLM BALDRIGE, we are carrying two scientists from the NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service who are marine mammal (primarily whale) experts and one Canadian scientist whose expertise is seabirds. The marine mammal scientists (Bob Pitman and Lisa Ballance) graciously offerred the following contribution to MidLink. I hope you and your students like it.

This is Bob Pitman. My wife, Lisa Ballance, and I are currently working onboard the Research Vessel MALCOLM BALDRIGE as marine biologists. For the next 4 months we will be censusing the marine birds and mammals of the Indian Ocean, as the ship transits between oceanographic stations.

Lisa and I scan the ocean with high powered binoculars looking for whales and dolphins whenever the ship is underway. A colleague of ours, Mike Force, scans the ocean for 300 meters on one side of the ship looking for seabirds. Between us we record the species, numbers, and locations of all the birds and mammals we see.

The Indian Ocean is a relatively unexplored part of the world for people who study marine birds, whales and dolphins, and we are very excited about being here. In 1979 the Indian Ocean was declared a marine sanctuary to allow whale populations there to recover from years of whaling, but little has been done since then to determine which species of whales occur in the area or how many there are. And that is part of what we hope to do.

But counting whales in the ocean is not an easy task. For one thing, some whales can dive for a long time: many species can stay down for 20 minutes or more, and a sperm whale can stay down for as much as 2 hours! Some of the smaller species of whales are very shy and when they hear the ship coming they will dive before we get within a mile of them. The larger whales are easy to see at the surface because their blow is visible for many miles with our big binoculars, but the little whales don't have a visible blow and they don't usually show much more than the top of their dorsal fin as they surface briefly for a quick breath of air. And the weather is always a factor too. When it is nice and calm on the ocean we can see large whales up to 8 miles away, but when the wind is howling we can barely see them a half a mile away.

So far this trip we have seen about 50 sperm whales, 1 herd of pilot whales, 1 school of spotted dolphin, 1 school of striped dolphin and 1 killer whale. The killer whale was very interesting because it came over to our ship and rode alongside of us for several minutes before going on its way. It was an odd behavior for a killer whale, they usually just ignore vessels. But killer whales are very social animals and they usually travel around in close-knit family groups. This animal was all by itself however and maybe it just wanted some company.

Well that's it for now.If you have any bird or whale questions pass them along. And we will keep you updated on our progress out here.

All the best,

Bob and Lisa