The week leading up to last night’s ‘supermoon’ was a whale
filled delight. I’m not sure how many car accidents happen along the beach road
that I often find myself on, or whether the majority of people driving in that
area at this time of year have learned to slow down and enjoy the view, but I
too was one of the thousands of motorists who chewed up the grass on the verge
around Lennox Head to take my eyes off the road for a moment and watch the
northward migration of humpback whales as they cruised past my front yard.
The air is crisp and the ocean is smooth as silk on this
early winter morning. I’m on my way to my boat which is on the hard in a soggy
paddock being refitted for my research. The drive over there is always fraught
with the frustration that, as the crow flies, Tracker One-One is less than 500m
from my home. It’s just that it’s on the other side of the river and there is
no bridge which forces me to drive a massive loop to get
there. The only saving grace is that the loop takes me along one of the most
picturesque coastlines in Australia, often touted as ‘one of the reasons I live
here’. The road hugs the coastline around rocky headlands and long stretches of
white beach, home to some of the best surfing spots in the world. If you take
the time to stop you’ll see raptors like brahminy kites and
ospreys as well as pied cormorants, terns and gulls cruising the shoreline. Pied and sooty oystercatchers stand proud on rock-tops in the water and
flocks of gannets dive-bomb schools of fish out to sea. Pods of dolphins patrol
the area and at this time of the year, the whales are taking centre stage.
The village
at the base of Australia’s most easterly point, Byron Bay, has a dynamic
history intertwined with the magnificent marine mammals. Only 50 odd years ago a pier
stretching out into the bay serviced whaling abattoirs dotted along beaches
processing meat and oil. Much like the tragic history of the hawksbill turtle,
humans really made their mark on the depletion of the species. Now we are
excited to announce small increases bulking this year’s expected tally of
around 15,000, where once there were 30,000 or more.
Tracker One-One (formerly Pumpkin III) is a 33ft Seawind catamaran I hope to be doing a lot of research on in the Northern Rivers over
the next few years, not necessarily about whales but that is one example of the opportunities here. We found this catamaran on a riverbank looking very sad, but a survey report showed she was structurally sound so we tracked down the owner and made an offer. It was some months before we 'got the keys' but with two other investors graciously indulging my specific
modifications for research, we are currently giving her a spruce up and
preparing her for a launch before Christmas. Among the long list of jobs you would expect when you plan to spend the next ten years avoiding taking
the boat out of the water again, we’re also taking the opportunity to raise the mast
to give us walking space on the bridge deck, fit cabins with all the
gadgets a technologically savvy crew needs, and most importantly, putting in
the new dunny.
Davits are being fitted to the stern which is where the tender will hang, but when I'm sampling I hope to be using them to tow video imaging
equipment, much like the Deep Along Track Reef Imaging System (Deep ATRIS). Deep ATRIS is an auto-adjusting, towed, digital imaging system. In this set-up a camera is tied on to a long rope and pulled along behind the boat along transect lines across "areas of interest". There are all kinds of other bits on the system to help the camera stay upright but essentially as you tow the camera along it takes photos of the sea floor. Here is an excellent animation to show you how it works. As part of my research I'll look at a random sample of the images and make some observations about what I see, like the types of plants on the sea floor and how much of it there appears to be.
The "areas of interest" are being determined by a growing number of variables being considered to narrow down my study region. In this project I am specifically interested in habitat that would be suitable as a marine turtle feeding area. For example, hawksbill turtles spend most of their days between 0-27m depth and looking for some very particular types of food. Satellite tracking a few individual turtles will also reveal any patterns in their movement, or where they like to eat. With any luck the images I collect in those locations will show a turtle or two feeding, and if all the stars are aligned they'll be hawksbills. There is also huge value in the imagery as a baseline tool for comparative studies later, and in the availability of a vessel to do all of this on. I best keep working on that.
Happy wildlife watching!
