NEWS
Nova Atlantis Foundation
Nova Atlantis Foundation (www.nova-atlantis.org) is a research institute, based on Pico island, at the Azores. By conducting scientific research, the foundation aims to contribute to the conservation of the cetaceans of the Azores and their habitat.
The week of the "Blackfish" baby boom!
(false killer whales and short-finned pilot whales)
#marinelife
#marinebiology
#marinemammals
#Blackfish
#falsekillerwhales
#pilotwhales
#novaatlantisfoundation
#research
3 ReactiesComment on Facebook
Wat ontroerend 😍
Lovely
Wow!!!
Adult male Risso’s dolphins off Pico island form stable groups with non-related males of the same age class. The bigger the group, the more challenging it is to ‘keep the peace’, since they are also each other’s competitors for reproduction. Thus, we have seen groups break up into smaller units. Last week we saw the group called ’Sao Joao males’ in full force (13 males), after having split up into two groups some years ago. The “A section” and the “B section” came together, but not before fighting, headbutting and tailslapping at each other. A lot of displays of strength! Let’s see if they continue together, or split up again..
#malemammal
#socialstructure
#socialbehaviour
#grampus
#grampusgriseus
#rissosdolphin
#longtermrelationship
#LongTermResearch
#rissoproject
#novaatlantisfoundation
#azores
#picoisland
#picoislandazores
#saojoaomales
#cluster
#ClusterAnalysis
#dominance
#friendship
6 ReactiesComment on Facebook
Now something different!
Since 2018 we have seen a strong increase in the presence of pilot whales off Pico, while the Risso’s dolphins showed a steady decline. This may be related to climate change. To find out more about the distribution patterns of pilot whales we have teamed up with fellow scientists from MARE, Madeira, who are modelling their movement patterns using satellite tags. Together, we managed to deploy four tags on pilot whales off Pico in the 3rd week of June. Combined with the 15 tags already deployed on pilot whales off Madeira, this gives us a good basis to analyze this species’ movements across Macaronesia. We hope to also find clues as to the likelihood of pilot whales displacing our focal species, the Risso’s dolphin, around Pico. Have a look at the animation showing the paths of the four short-finned pilot whales Debby, Anna, Marley and Marthino in the first 17 days.
Thanks to our June team who spotted and searched for hours to find and track pilot whales from land (Debby, Martijn, Tom, Tessa and Laura), local viziers (Luís, João and Adrien) and funding from WWF Netherlands, Fact Finding Foundation, Globe Guards and individual sponsors and to ARDITI / MARE (Filipe and Marc) for their overall cooperation and deploying the tags!
You can follow pilot whales day to day using this link:
www.movebank.org/cms/webapp?gwt_fragment=page%3Dsearch_map_linked%2CsensorTypeId%3D82798%2CstudyI...
3 ReactiesComment on Facebook
Great work! We have seen some pilots on June 7 off of Terceira island.
Amazing work!
Super interesting!