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June 16, 2017 by adwhitt

LADC-GEMM 2017 Survey: #7 Pilot Whales!

June 13, 2017

Written by: Alexandria Hahn

Edited by: Amy Whitt

Male pilot whales have really wide dorsal fins. Photo by Chris Pierpoint

On Tuesday, I had a personal sighting…and it also happened to be our first pilot whale sighting of the cruise! At first glance, what I thought I saw was a group of dolphins, and Amy said that the female pilot whale dorsal fins can be confused for dolphins when they are far from the ship. It wasn’t until I saw the male pilot whale dorsal fin that I KNEW it was them. The males have such wide and distinctive dorsal fins that I don’t think I’ll ever forget them!

Male pilot whales like this one can be around 24 feet long, while females are much smaller at around 18 feet long. Both males and females have really round heads. Photo by Chris Pierpoint

It was overwhelming to see so many pilot whales in the same place that tears literally began to stream down my face and I gazed at them through the big eye binoculars. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced, and I hope that it won’t be the last time I get to see them.

The pilot whales stayed in our study area for a little bit longer before they all completely left. I wish I could say that we’ve seen more pilot whales since then, but stay tuned for more sighting blogs…

***This blog article is part of our LADC-GEMM 2017 Survey blog series. Check out more articles in this series here, on the LADC-GEMM website, and on Alexandria Hahn’s blog. Also, be sure to “Like” the new LADC-GEMM Facebook page!***

Filed Under: Category #4 Tagged With: acoustics, Gulf of Mexico, marine mammals, passive acoustic monitoring, shipboard surveys, whales

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