Update from our snow leopard conservation expedition to the high mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/altai)
Expedition scientist Jenny Kraushaar leaving for the snow leopard expedition to the Altai.
Update from our snow leopard conservation expedition to the high mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/altai)
It’s a hot, sunny day here in Novosibirsk today. Oleg and I are still in shopping and preparation mode and we are already looking forward to leaving this urban jungle (see picture) for the golden mountains of Altai! Anectodal news from the field is that snow leopards have been spotted on both Chikacheva and Talduair ridges earlier this year. Since Chikacheva is one of our traget areas, this is great news. Chikacheva is inaccessible and hard work for everyone (including us and poachers), which I guess is why snow leopards still cling on there!
Whilst I was fiddling with equipment in the hotel car park the day before yesterday, I was approached by two men in suits, asking me what I was doing. I don’t think they liked what they saw. Maps, binoculars, laptop, GPS units, short wave radios. I must admit it did look a little suspicious. They then radioed someone and before I knew what was happening, I had two large German shepards sniffing around. I had to open up the Land Rovers and storage boxes for them and when they were done, I was rudely told to pack up and produce all my documents. Luckily the hotel manager showed up and explained to me that the Russian PM is coming shortly to have a lunch in the hotel, hence the increased security. Dmitriy Medvedev then arrived ten minutes later and his entourage stayed for most of the day, preventing me doing anything at all. Russia 1 : Biosphere 0.
On that theme, all of Russia went nuts yesterday after beating the Czech Republich in their first EURO 2012 match. Celebrations lasted for most of the night. Being Czech originally myself, I kept a very low profile telling everyone I am from Australia, which is where I live now 😉
Oleg and I have done a lot of shopping and I have discovered completely new parts of Novosibirsk, further to East, city fringes dotted with megastores and supermarkets. Oleg insisted we had lunch in IKEA, which was a bit odd, but it seemed that’s what everyone else was doing. The store itself was empty, but the restaurant was literally besieged by hungry locals.
Jenny is boarding a plane later today and has uploaded two presentations that she will give at base camp for you to swat up on before you arrive (see www.slideshare.net/BiosphereExpeditions/snow-leopard-background and www.slideshare.net/BiosphereExpeditions/snow-leopard-datasheets). There’s also a slideshow with pictures of past Altai expeditions on https://biosphereexpeditions.wordpress.com/ to get you in the mood.
Update from our snow leopard conservation expedition to the high mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia
Update from our snow leopard volunteering expedition in the high mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/altai)
The blog for this expedition will start soon. In the meantime, have a look at the expedition website or the slideshow from previous expeditions below.
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/azores)
Slot 3 participants proved to be a terrific team in the last two days. Despite the rough seas and strong winds on the Atlantic, and an ever-bouncing Physeter, we recorded data and captured ID pictures on several loggerhead turtles, fin and blue whales. It was quite gratifying to see team members helping each other, particularly when Friday’s photographer Olga began bounding around the front deck and Yvonne helped by holding her in place on the railing during the animal encounters.
Thursday we were treated to two schools of striped dolphins North of Faial, and numerous sperm whale sightings. Again we were treated to calves suckling on the female whales. Friday brought us two large blue whales swimming together, and then the unusual (yet not unheard of) experience of a fin whale and blue whale swimming together. And to complete the blue whale experience for slot 3, we were able to make quality ID pictures on a blue whale swimming with an adolescent, most likely a calf from last year.
Sightings for team 3: sperm whale – 27 encounters, 55 animals | minke whale – 1 encounters, 1 animal | blue whale – 4 encounters, 6 animals | fin whale – 1 encounter, 1 animal | common dolphin – 10 encounters, 158 animals | bottlenose dolphin – 1 encounters, 4 animals | Risso’s dolphin – 5 encounters, 25 animals | striped dolphins – 2 encounters, 55 animals.
Thanks to all the team members who made this research possible by donating their time, energy and money. Thanks to you all, we were able to make several sperm whale matches to whales seen here in the Azores in previous years. Slot one identified a whale also seen here in 2010. In slot 2 we matched two: one to a whale seen in 2004 and another in 2010. Slot 3 matched whales to 2005, 2007 and 2008.
We also were able to match two blue whales – Slot 1 matched a whale to 2006 and slot 2 matched one to 2010. We don’t have any information as yet on the blue whale matches from slot 3 because the registrar is currently out of the lab.
Lisa also sent off the Rissos dolphins photos, and from slot 3 the mother and calf from the North are recognised animals. And another group of 4 known animals and had been seen further down the coast of Pico the day before.
Thanks as well to Lisa and our skipper Nuno for helping us take part in this important research. They are some of the best cetaceans spotters in the North Atlantic and their expertise led us to seeing more animals than anyone else in the harbour – including other research vessels!
Thank you and I hope to see you again on expedition.
Alisa Clickenger
Expedition leader
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago.
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago
The weather remains challenging as is the visibility and wind, and the team members have had to remain flexible. We had an unusual – and sad – sighting on Sunday when we saw a dead common dolphin. It was missing its tail, and we assume it got caught in a fishing net even though the tuna fisherman here in the Azores use hooks and not nets. Monday was the best day on the water for this slot so far – we saw Risso’s dolphins breaching, a giant sun fish, a loggerhead turtle, and a group of fourteen sperm whales with calves!
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/azores)
Team three has arrived, and with them has come the stormy weather. The seas are too choppy to go out, so today was a slide show and data entry day at base camp. We did do the on-board briefing and familiarized ourselves with the boat and the equipment, and now we wait for the wind to die down.
PS: I forgot to publish the slot 1 sightings, so here they are: sperm whale 12 encounters – 21 animals – 6 calves | common dolphin 22 enc – 603 animals | bottlenose dolphin 1 enc – 2 animals | false killer whale 1 enc – 4 animals | sei whale 6 enc – 20 animals | fin whale 15 enc – 17 animals | blue whale 2 enc – 2 animals.
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago
Update from our SCUBA volunteer vacation / diving conservation holiday protecting the coral reefs of Tioman, Malaysia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/malaysia)
The third and final slot of the Biosphere Expeditions Malaysian Reef Check expedition has drawn to an exciting close this morning. We were anchored at Nipah, on the southern end of Tioman. This is the place referred to in a previous entry as the site of the amazing nocturnal racing worms. We pulled in at Nipah to discover the sandy sea floor peppered with large urchins, which each had a population of small black fish living between its spines. The really remarkable thing though, was the speed with which the urchins were chasing each other around. They were in twos and threes and moving at an unbelievable pace with one of the racers emitting a cloud of what I assume to be sperm. Incredible sight! What’s with Nipah and high speed invertebrates?
At around 03:00 in the night, a powerful squall woke us and intensified until Hylton, the skipper decided that the best course of action was to lift the anchor and head back to Tekek, rather than be slapped around at anchor for the rest of the night. What ensued was an exciting night run to Tekek and a very welcome calm in the duck pond at the marina. A very exciting end to a very interesting expedition!
Thanks to all the team members who made this research possible by donating their time, energy and money to this very worthy alternative to sitting on a beach with a book for their holiday. Thanks as well to Katie Yewdall the scientist whose project we helped to crew and Hylton Hines the skipper of the Araliya.
See you again on expedition some day, somewhere.
Paul O’Dowd
Expedition leader
Tioman reefs courtesy of akroaster
Update from our SCUBA volunteer vacation / diving conservation holiday protecting the coral reefs of Tioman, Malaysia
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/azores):
Slot two has completed their last “turtle time”, and yes, we finally spotted a turtle within the designated turtle time thanks to Sylvia. Lisa bought us a round of drinks and Nigel bought us a round of desserts and it was quite sweet, on all accounts. Just as we finished that celebration, yesterday we finally caught and tagged a loggerhead turtle, so we are quite happy with the turtle sightings this slot.
The second team had a week of terrific weather (Beaufort=1-2, wind=1-2) and once again we had a great variety of animal sightings and made quite a few matches to animals Lisa has previously matched up here in the Azores.
Thank you team 2 – roll on team 3!
Sightings for team 2: sperm whale – 28 encounters, 51 animals, 7 calves | minke whale – 3 encounters, 3 animals | sei whale – 1 encounter, 3 animals | blue whale – 2 encounters, 2 animals | fin whale – 5 encounters, 6 animals | common dolphin – 21 encounters, 800 animals | bottlenose dolphin – 4 encounters, 238 animals | Risso’s dolphin – 5 encounters, 31 animals | striped dolphins – 2 encounters, 230 animals.
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/azores)
Our second group of volunteers has brought very nice weather and some incredible luck for us in our sightings. We continue to have the excellent problem of data coming in so quickly that at times it is difficult to keep up with recording them. A new species for us was sighted on Tuesday when we saw a minke whale. We also had the opportunity to see eleven sperm whales swimming abreast on the surface. Tuesday we also had eight random sightings, which kept Cornelia and Sylvia quite busy on the POPA paperwork.
After a well-deserved shore day on Wednesday, we continued to be lucky in our animal sightings on Thursday and saw striped dolphins swimming in their carousel fashion and a leatherback turtle. We also saw sperm whales exhibiting unusual behavior by sticking their noses out of the water to take a look at neighboring whale watching boats. Both days we sighted the strange and wonderful sun fish. Also on Thursday, several of us on the Physeter had the remarkable good fortune to see a sperm whale breach. We’ll see if we can top that in our last two days.
Update from our whale and dolphin volunteer vacation / conservation holiday around the Azores archipelago
Update from our SCUBA volunteer vacation / diving conservation holiday protecting the coral reefs of Tioman, Malaysia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/malaysia):
The team from slot three of the Tioman Island Reef Check expedition have, despite some nervous apprehension, passed their full set of identification examinations with flying colours and are now ready to hit the high seas and begin surveys. We board the Araliya tomorrow for the final leg of this, the inaugural Malaysian expedition. The data these teams have gathered, will join a growing body of such data that the Reef Check organisation collects from coral reef locations around the world. The hard work of the team members from this and similar expeditions will be used by scientists, conservation organisations and policy makers to plot their course into the future as they develop their approaches to the management of these precious but poorly understood ecosystems. The people on this expedition could have had an easy holiday under an umbrella with a good book, but they have instead dedicated their time off work to a cause, which desperately needs their boots on the ground (or in this case fins). My hat off to all of you.
Update from our SCUBA volunteer vacation / diving conservation holiday protecting the coral reefs of Tioman, Malaysia.
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