In the last few days we have had a number of our suction cup acoustic tags slide around and ultimately off blue whales that we have tagged. This isn't new or entirely unexpected, given that these animals, like all cetaceans, shed layers of skin quite rapidly. Attaching anything to animals that have had tens of millions of years to become streamlined to live and move in water is no trivial feat, especially with suction cups on animals shedding skin. We have managed to overcome this in many instances and have gotten a large amount of data already in the first full week of SOCAL-11, but we have lost a few tag attachments with tags sliding off.
Below is a picture we actually took last year of the volume of sloughed skin that can accumualte in these suction cups.
We actually had the opposite problem last year of tags staying on longer because the skin jammed up the release mechanism, but the blues this year seem to be more slippery for whatever reason, whether differences in temperature, diatoms on their skin, or some other factor.
FYI - we will occasionally be posting some photos and short videos of our work on the SOCAL-11 Facebook page, which you can check out at:
Finally, as I am posting this we are tracking a tag we attached earlier today to a Risso's dolphin. This was the first long deployment (over 8 hours) of a new generation DTag and only our second deployment of any acoustic tag and CEE on this interesting species. Right now it is beeping out in the dark ocean nearby occasioanlly as our dolphin comes up to breathe and a short signal is transmitted from the tag. Stay tuned to see if we manage to find it....
What did you do with these whales? I believe that one should not interfere with nature =)
Posted by: essay service | 09/30/2011 at 02:58 AM
Looks like a little troubleshooting you did there.
Posted by: obgyn mesa az | 12/21/2011 at 06:14 AM