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Humpback whales and Orcas still close

Heike — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:59:11 +0000

…you can even see them from the road, they are still in the Andfjord and close to the coast of Vesteraalen and Senja, and even Tromsoe!

here a couple of articles:

NRK Nordland

Fredrik Broms

the herring is still here in the north but will soon start it’s migration to the southern fjords of Norway to spawn. At least the orcas are known to follow the herring south, but the humpbacks should be heading to their wintering grounds far away (Africa or Caribbean). Unfortunately there is no herring and therefore no whales in the Vestfjord and since we have financial problems we are not able to go in the field to search for whales here or study the orcas further north!
I really hope we will be able to find a solution to our lacking research money soon…the situation now is not very good……

We need 27 000 Euro to safe our boat!

Heike — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:43:24 +0000

Good new year!

we could already collect 3 000 Euro for our boat and we only miss 27 000 Euro to finally call it ours and be free of paying money to the loan!
Once we reach 5 000 Euro donation we will core a winner for a hand signed printed photo of Orcas by H.Vester for the people that donated more than 100 Euro!

but more to that later (hopefully SOON , please spread the word and help us to reach our goal, thank you, you are wonderful!!!

Spring 2012 University Nordland courses!

Heike — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:38:32 +0000

New University Courses:

Spring 2012 Heike Vester/Ocean Sounds will start teaching animal behaviour (BI216F 000 Evolutionary Behavioural Ecology ( Spring 2012 )) at the University of Nordland in Bodoe and supervise a bachelor student.

We recommend all students that are interested in volunteering for Ocean Sounds to enroll at the University of Nordland and consider the bachelor or master courses for Biology. The selected students will then be able to do a project with us!

We recorded seismic signals in Vestfjord from 170km away!

Heike — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:05:36 +0000

In 2010 I recorded strange signals outside Nappstraumen in the inside of the Vestfjord and thought immediately it could be signals from a ship using seismic activity to search for oil and gas outside Lofoten. I sent it to the WWF for further investigation. A couple of weeks ago, Dag Erland from the Norwegian newspaper “Kyst og Fjord“ investigated the sounds and found out that there were no activities outside Lofoten, but 170km more to the south west of Lofoten and the siganls most probably came from there! it is incredible how far these signals travel in the sea and it therefore astonishes me that there are hardly any regulations regarding sound control in the sea. It shows clearly that much more research needs to be done!
A new research article could show that humpback whale songs change in presence of noise 200km away: Risch D, Corkeron PJ, Ellison WT, Van Parijs SM (2012) Changes in Humpback Whale Song Occurrence in Response to an Acoustic Source 200 km Away. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29741. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029741

you can find the newspaper article here and listen to the sound by clicking the link below:

manmade-sounds-Vestfjord-2010-07-02_heike_vester

We need your donation!

Heike — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:04:36 +0000

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Our boat is in danger and we need 30 000 Euros to keep it!
We had our zodiac boat now for 5 years and it served us wonderfully. Some of you may have had the pleasure to join a trip out at sea and know how important it is for our work, without the boat Ocean Sounds will not be able to continue…
We bought the boat in 2006 and financed it mostly through tourism, but this year the regulations have changed and we were not allowed to take tourists with us any longer. That means no direct income for our boat and 30 000 Euros are still open to pay it off from the bank.
We hoped to survive this year without our tourist tours by focusing more towards research and art projects, but unfortunately it hasn’t been enough and we need your help.

Please help us and search for any Euro you can find (check your old sofa for coins!) and put it on our donation bank account

However, since the boat is owned by Ocean Sounds you will not be able to get tax refunded from the donations. But we do work on starting a charity where donations can be tax refunded. There will be more projects coming up that will need your help, for example the next field work in summer 2012 to study and protect orcas and other whales in the Vestfjord.

BUT NOW THE BOAT NEEDS YOUR HELP!

Thank you for your support and help!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

Heike Vester

Winter on Lofoten

Heike — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:48:35 +0000

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7.12.2011 as of today the sun will disappear and not be able to peak over the horison until 7 th of January. the frost came and everything looks magical white with icy colours of blue and pink..only northern lights show the powerful light of green and red.
However, since this summer was the best season I ever had, I have a lot of data to go through (more than 600 GB of photos and sounds of whales) during the next 2 months. but whales are here, a bit further north both humpback whales and orcas have been observed feeding on herring, just outisde the Andenes harbour. I will go out on a friend’s sailboat and hopefully gather more data during the next weeks. it is a newly observed behaviour that these species hunt side by side for herring so close to the Norwegian shoreline. we never cease to learn about the whales behaviour!

once i have some time, I will write a summary with lots of pictures of the summer of 2011, until then enjoy the holidays!

heike

Morgan was sent to Tenerife..

Heike — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:57:13 +0000

Morga was sent to the amusement park “Loro Parque” in Tenerife. even after delivering every evidence there was to proof that she can be released in the wild in northern Norway, with having found a suitable place in Stø, supported by the local people and the major and with the support of Arctic Whale Tours, still the judge in Holland ruled this chance for Morgan out. it seems to “risky” and her chances of survival too low. well now she will face a certain shortening of her life, instead of having natural 80 years of life, it may be no more than nine years. Orcas, or any other dolphin should never be kept in captivity, they are highly social and acoustical animals that use a huge range in their natural habitat. kept in a concrete tank with other unrelated dolphins, none of this is given, the echoes from the walls are loud and the range is tiny, eventually they suffer.

I ask all of you, please do not support aquariums that keep dolphins (this includes orcas, belugas or pilot whales) in captivity, please do not support this inhumane business.

you can read more on the FreeMorgan website

in Norwegian on the Norsk dyrebeskyttelsen website

you can find a nice letter with a picture of the sea pen place in Stø and the comparison picture of Loro Parque…

Morgan will be sent to Tenerife and not to her home in Norway!

Heike — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:45:25 +0000

Today we heard the sad news from the dutch minsitry that they have decided to send the captive orca Morgan to Loro parque in Tenerife. despite all the evidence and professional planning to release her in the wild in northern Norway, where she blongs to, the Minister decided it to be too risky and instead will never give her a chance to find her family or relatives again.
Filipa and I worked hard to match more calls to Morgan’s vocal repertorie and we found a group that shared 7 out of 9 call times, which means this group may be here family group, or at least close relatives. we compiled our report and made it available to the ministry to show that when given more effort and time, we will be able to find her relatives and her chances of a successful release is feasable.

However, this and the professional release plan has not convinced the dutch minister to give that little orca a chance to live a life in the wild again, instead she will be sent to an aquarium in Tenerife, where she will have to entertain humans that pay money for it.

our report can be Report_on_further_comparisons_of_Morgan_acoustic_repertoire_Vester_Samarra_2011

Morgan the captive orca in Holland

Heike — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:40:46 +0000

For over a year a young female killer whale has been raised and hold in a small tank at the Dolphinarium Harderwijk. She is now back to health and a controversal debate and court case started about her future. We believe that she has a fair chance to find a family group of wild killer whales up here in Northern Norway that will adopt her. She belongs to the Norwegian herring feeding killer whales population We therefore support the Free Morgan Foundation in their efforts to win the court case, please go to their website to find more information: Free Morgan Foundation.

The place that wants to keep her in captivity is known for their bad husbandry, have a look at this article:

Together with other scientists we are still looking for her natal family group and hope we wil be able to match her calls to those recorded from Killer Whales in the wild soon. All summer there were killer whales in the Vestfjord and outside Vesteralen, which we studied closely.

Help us by making a donation and stay informed on petitions etc, you find more information on that on the FMF website!

We will update you on our progress as good sa we can…stay tuned

Thank you!

Pictures from the festival!

Heike — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:02:05 +0000

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Hello,

here are some of the pictures we took from the whale festival in Henningsvaer from 29.7-6.8.2011, enjoy! The festival was a success, we managed to find killer whales and Atlantic white sided dolphins, did playbacks with the killer whales, we had a great opening concert on Wednesday night in the harbour of Henningsvaer, when we let the humpback whale and David and Agnes roar the village! …and we even improvised with a power cut the next day!
Unfortunately not many people from the village came, many were on vacation, especially the kids. For next year we plan to set it for the second week in July, so we can arrange some fun activities for the children as well.
We will make more presentations during the following weeks, so check again…

Check the dance video!

I would like to thank everybody that participated and visited us during this event, it was a pleasure to have you here and I hope I will meet you again next year!

Heike