[Research & Fieldwork]

Whale Research - Arabian Style

Throughout the months of March and April, OWDRG members will be conducting opportunistic research on board the Sanjeeda, a traditional Dhow that would not have been out of place in a film about Sinbad the Sailor (www.sanjeeda.co.uk).

The dhow is running Ecotours through a company called Omantravel (www.omantravel.uk.com). OWDRG members Fergus Kennedy and Anna McKibben are acting as guides on the tour, and Omantravel has been generous in offering two free berths to additional OWDRG members to facilitate the collection of data on cetaceans and other marine life throughout the cruise. For the first six weeks the dhow will be making weekly trips between Mirbat and the Hallaniyat Islands, an area that has proven to be rich in cetacean life on past OWDRG surveys. The last two weeks will be spent in transit from Mirbat to Sur, covering remote areas of Oman's coastline that have not been accessible during past surveys.

Among other things, the researchers will be conducting photo-identification studies of humpback whales. The unique black and white patterns on the underside of their tail flukes, as well as the shape and scarring on their dorsal fins, allows researchers to recognize individual whales and track their movements over time. Roughly 54 individual whales have been identified and catalogued in Oman to date, and some of them have been observed as many as 4 times over a period of three years. On the Sanjeeda's first week in the Hallaniyats the OWDRG crew met up with an old friend, a whale affectionately named "Smooch" for the kiss-shaped scar at the base of his dorsal fin. This was the fourth year in a row that this whale had been observed in the Dhofar region (it was observed once before in the Hallaniyats and twice off of Hasik), and the fourth time that the whale has been confirmed to be singing, an activity conducted only by males during the breeding season. Smooch has also been photographed in the Gulf of Masirah (near Duqm) in October 2002.

In their first weeks the crew have also had some spectacular sightings of sperm whales, Risso's dolphins and common dolphins. Weekly reports of their progress can be found in Oman's free weekly newspaper, which is available online: www.freetheweek.com (look in the "News" section).

An end of tour report will be made available on this website.