Basking Shark Photo-id Catalogue and Sighting Database

Globally, sharks are becoming increasingly recognized as species of conservation concern. Threats to sharks in Atlantic Canada include: bycatch and entanglement in fisheries and, in the case of Basking sharks, vessel strikes. The Government of Canada Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk have funded a GMWSRS project to expand both our photo-identification catalogue of basking sharks for the Bay of Fundy and a shark sighting database.

At least six species of shark inhabit the Bay of Fundy, but little is known about their distribution, movements or occurrence in the Bay and even less so about the threats they face.

Video of a basking shark taken from a whale watching vessel July 21, 2012 south of Grand Manan Island

To learn more about sharks in the Bay of Fundy, the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station needs your help and contribution to:

1. Basking Shark Photo ID Catalogue. Photos of individual sharks can tell us whether the same sharks return to the Bay of Fundy year after year and how individuals use the Bay within the same season.

Basking shark dorsal fin photographed July 8, 2012 off Grand Manan Island

2. Shark Sighting Database. Sightings of all shark species will provide a better understanding of shark distribution and occurrence in the Bay of Fundy.

Individual Basking Sharks can be identified based on the shape of their dorsal fins and location of nicks and notches. Submit your sighting and photographs online:

• sharksightings.atlanticsharks.org
• Email: sharksightings@gmwsrs.info
• Phone (toll-free): Via Marine Animal Response Society (MARS) Hotline 1-866-567-6277

Sperm Whales Return to the Bay for Third Year

Tail of a sperm whale seen in the Bay of Fundy July 21, Laurie Murison photographer

July 21 marked the beginning of the third summer sperm whales have been seen in the Bay of Fundy.  At least two males were seen in the upper Grand Manan Basin during a whale watch.  There have been squid at the wharf in North Head on Grand Manan Island since early June.  A sperm whale had been seen on an aerial survey for right whales in the lower Gulf of Maine in June and these combined made it likely that sperm whales would again be seen here.

In late August a dead sperm whale was found near Bar Harbor and was towed in to be necropsied.  A cause of death was not determined.  Sperm whales were not seen off Grand Manan after this time and the squid that had been at the wharves also disappeared.

Continued Work on Leach's Storm Petrels

Sandy Camilleri is a graduate student of Dr. Heather Koopman at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.  She has been studying Leach's Storm Petrels for her Masters thesis on Kent Island, part of the Bowdoin Scientific Station, in the Grand Manan archipelago.  Sandy hopes to defend her thesis this spring.



Most seabirds provision their chicks with whole or partially digested prey items whereas tube-nosed seabirds (albatrosses, shearwaters, fulmars and petrels) concentrate their prey into a lipid rich oil, called stomach oil. For her master’s thesis research she is investigating this unique strategy used by tube-nosed seabirds by comparing the lipid composition, energy content, and the contaminant levels of the stomach oil to prey items that would be fed to other species.

Leach's Storm Petrel chick.  Note the tube-nose on the bill.

The tube-nosed species chosen for this study was the Leach’s storm-petrel, which has a large population that nests on Kent Island and has been studied since the 1930s by Bowdoin College. I spent a couple of weeks learning how to properly handle petrels and how to collect stomach oil in 2009, then developing the laboratory analyses of the stomach oil. In the summer of 2010, I spent a total of 8 weeks on Kent Island monitoring and collecting stomach oil samples from petrels. A total of 83 samples were collected in 2010, 49 from adults and 34 from chicks.

Sandy Camilleri with a Leach's Storm Petrel adult on Kent Island.

In the summer of 2011, Ispent a total of 8 weeks on Kent Island, again monitoring and collecting stomach oil samples from petrels. The field season was split into two parts, the first was 2 weeks in June which was used to set up the field site, called the Ditch, monitor the burrows and collect adult stomach oil samples. The second part started in mid-July and lasted for 6 weeks. During this time, I finished sampling adults and monitored the nests daily waiting for chicks to hatch. The first chick to hatch for the summer was found in the Ditch on July 14! Once the chicks hatched, they were weighed daily and measurements of wing length and tarsus (foot bone) length were recorded as growth indicators. Once chicks were 2 weeks old, those that gained more than 10g overnight were sampled, indicating that mom and/or dad had fed it that night. A second sample from the chicks was collected at least one week after the first.

Some of the buildings on Kent Island, part of the Bowdoin Scientific Station

A total of 147 samples were collected in 2011, 72 from adults, 45 from chicks sampled once, and 30 from chicks sampled twice. All samples were brought back to UNCW where lipid analysis and energy content will take place in Dr. Heather Koopman’s lab. Contaminant analysis will be completed in Dr. John Kucklick’s lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Charleston, SC.

This project will provide insights to the costs and benefits to the unique provisioning strategy used by tube-nosed seabirds. Leach’s storm-petrels are ideal for monitoring environmental health and can be used as a model for other tube-nosed seabirds that have more remote nesting locations, those that are experiencing population declines, and those that live in known contaminated areas.
 

Master Student First Impressions

The following are impressions and accomplishments of Masters Student, Zachary Siders, who spent his first field season in the Bay of Fundy off Grand Manan Island in August, 2011.  Zach is a Masters Student at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

As my first summer at the GMWSRS, I was unprepared for the extreme variation in the environment. Between tidal swings, fog banks, rolling swell, and varying chop the Bay of Fundy is always fluctuating.  Despite many days of rain, fog, swell, and chop we were able to survey for sharks, assist in whale poop collection, and help colleagues from Duke University deploy dive tags on fin whales. As part of the basking shark research group, my primary role was to help deploy seven satellite pop-up tags on adult sharks. With a cumulative of 255 hours of basking shark sightings we were fortunate to deploy six out of the seven pop-up satellite tags. These deployments are to provide information on migration out of the Bay of Fundy during the winter months. This effort was part of the station’s investigation of spatial and temporal patterns in basking shark movements.

Basking Shark, second largest shark and a filter feeder on zooplankton

As an active part of this investigation, I have been begun analyzing archival sighting data acquired by Laurie Murison, through Whales 'n Sails whale watching company. Fortunately, this dataset dates back 23 years and allows me to analyze how basking sharks spatial distribution has changed over time. Additionally, this dataset will be supplemented by a data request to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. Together, this data will be used in habitat modeling the spatial distribution of basking sharks across the Bay of Fundy. Modeling this information will determine how basking shark critical habitat within the Bay of Fundy has changed across time. With the increasing prevalence of remote sensing data and detailed oceanographic information, the environment features defining this critical habitat can be elucidated. All of this information greatly increases our understanding where basking sharks occur in the Bay of Fundy, a critical habitat for these giant sharks.

Another aspect, I have begun analyzing is the dive profiling movements of basking sharks acquired through our Temperature-Depth Recording tagging efforts. These efforts have been ongoing since 2008 and have acquired 22 days of dive profiling data. This fine-scale diving information can help us understand how basking sharks utilize the extreme variations in the Bay of Fundy especially tidal fronts, temperature contours, and depth profiles. Unlike other basking shark habitats, the Bay of Fundy is extremely tidally driven as well as a protected body of water. Understanding how basking sharks utilized the unique dynamic oceanographic features can greatly enhance our understanding the ecological flexibility of these cosmopolitan creatures.

Basking shark just under the surface with only the large dorsal fin above the water surface.  Basking sharks received their name from this behaviour of coming to the surface.

Most importantly, understanding how basking sharks utilize critical habitat and where these habitats are in the Bay of Fundy can be used to further the conservation of this vulnerable species. In particular, I hope to spatial modeling and diving behavior analysis to determine the ship-strike risk to basking sharks in the bay. As these sharks spend up to 80% of their time within the 12 meter draft of cargo vessels, they are extremely vulnerable to cargo traffic travelling through the Bay of Fundy. Determining these ship-strike risks is essential for conserving basking sharks within the bay and more so, globally.

The field work this summer could not have been accomplished without the advisement of Dr. Andrew Westgate and the help of the rest of the GMWSRS senior scientists. Additionally, the help of Jared Juckiewicz, a summer research assistant, was considerable throughout the field season. The continued analysis could not be possible without Dr. Westgate, Dr. Heather Koopman, and Dr. David Johnston, and I would like to thank them for their ongoing support.

Tracking Greater Black-backed Gulls from Sable Island

Here is an open letter from one of our researchers who has been working on a Post-Doctoral study on Sable Island, requesting your help:

Dear gull enthusiasts,


On an icy, wintery trip to Sable Island this month, I was able to capture and deploy wing-tags on a dozen Great Black-backed Gulls that were happily gorging themselves on the carcasses of seal pups that didn't make it. There are far too many Black-backs on the island in the winter for them to be loafers sticking around from the summer breeding season. So...they are likely traveling here from other colonies (Maine? New Brunswick? Newfoundland?) to indulge on the ill fated seals.

Greater Black-backed Gull

This summer while you're in the field, keep your eyes open for these birds so that we might document their movements (tracking the old fashioned way). Please forward this email to colleagues, students, and volunteers that might be working around or in Great Black-backed colonies this summer.

Check out my latest blog entry for details and pictures of these blue/turquoise wing-tags on the birds.
http://sableislandgulls.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/black-backed-blizzard/

Thanks.

Rob Ronconi
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dept. of Biology, Acadia University
rronconi@yahoo.com

Death of a colleague and a friend

It is with great sadness that we heard of the unexpected death of Brian Dalzell.  The GMWSRS helped Brian with several projects including bird banding through the Fundy Bird Observatory, the common tern restoration project on Sheep Island and publishing his Birds of Grand Manan, A checklist.

Brian initially approached me to sit on the board of the Grand Manan Bird Observatory.  When that dissolved, the GMWSRS was able to apply for funding from the New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund and the New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund for the banding and nesting restoration projects.

Decoys, rain barrel and outhouse on Sheep Island where Brian coordinated a common tern nesting restoration project.  His concern for restoring bird habitat was paramount.

Brian began birding at an early age and attended his first Moncton Naturalist meeting at age 14.  Mary Majka encouraged him to learn as much as he could.  He was one of the pre-eminent birders in the Maritimes.  One of his greatest fears was loosing his hearing and he was always trying new gadgets to enhance the bird calls so important to identifying birds.

An insatiable birder, he was also very keen on details and kept copious notes of bird sightings, not just his own but any others he heard about, often contacting the observer for additional details.  His training as a journalist no doubt helped him record the details.  He was also a keen historian and had researched John Audubon's visit to the Grand Manan Archipelago in May of 1833.  He also helped the Grand Manan Historical Society and any other organization that could use his skills.  He maintained a swallow colony on the family property on Bancroft Point which remains one of the last colonies on the island. He participated and organized Christmas bird counts on Grand Manan for many years and often joined several counts each year.  His nature columns in local newspapers that he wrote for a number of years had many devoted followers.

Brian showing a school class on of the birds he had banded.

While he often found it difficult to finance living life as a birder, he persevered. He was disappointed when he didn't get chosen to coordinate the current breeding bird atlas for the Maritimes as he had done for the first atlas but he still volunteered to do breeding bird surveys.   The unexpected death of his brother, caused him to re-evaluate his life and he moved back to Moncton after living on Grand Manan Island for many years.  He was able to find work as an independent contractor conducting various bird/environmental surveys throughout the Maritimes and developed that into a successful business.  This allowed him to travel to such places as Labrador, Newfoundland and the Magdalene Islands for birding.  His trips to Labrador often occurred in the winter because he loved lots of snow and cold temperatures! 

Brian was an independent spirit and people didn't always know how to take him. He was known to ruffle some feathers now and then but he was also known to volunteer his time and energy to anyone who needed assistance.  He loved demonstrating bird banding to children who were always thrilled to be able to hold a wild bird.  His humour was one of his greatest assets and humour followed him through life.  The countless stories of his adventures will no doubt be what most will remember, along with his amazing birding skills.

Whale Pump Research

Discussions have been going on for a couple of years to begin a collaboration with Dr. Joe Roman.  Joe Roman is a researcher at the University of Vermont and the author of “Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act” (Harvard) and “Whale” (Reaktion). This summer saw all of that work come to fruition.  Joe has provided the background information about the project:

A few years ago, I was writing an article about the work that Scott Baker and his colleagues were doing in Japan, uncovering the sale of illegal whale meat in the marketplace using DNA. At the time, Japan was arguing for whaling, largely for two reasons. One, whales eat “our” fish, so they should be culled. And, two, certain whales, such as minkes, are so numerous that they are inhibiting the ability of rare species, such as fins and blues, to recover.

Dr. Joe Roman, University of Vermont

This argument might have been in the back of my mind while I was taking marine ecology one spring at the University of Florida. I was learning about one of the basic process in the oceans, known as the biological pump, which causes the downward flow of carbon and nitrogen and can reduce marine productivity. Zooplankton feed on phytoplankton at the surface at night and then migrate deep in the water column by day, presumably to escape predators. This movement, and the downward flux of zooplankton fecal matter, takes nutrients away from the surface, where photosynthesis can occur, to the bottom of the ocean.


As I sat in the back of the class, I drew a diagram based on what I had seen the previous summer in the Bay of Fundy. In contrast to the biological pump, right whales were diving deep to feed--they are sometimes observed with mud on their heads--and quite often defecating at the surface.

A few years later, Jim McCarthy, at Harvard, and I put together a model that showed that whales could have an impact on primary productivity in coastal waters. They increase nutrients at the surface and enhance the growth of algae. This summer, I finally got back to the Bay of Fundy to study the right whale, which forms feeding aggregations just to the east of Grand Manan in an area called the Basin. Of all the ways to collect poop--we typically used a plankton net, patiently following whales until they defecated--perhaps the most dramatic is skirting the edge of a right whale courtship group: one female and several males actively swimming and roiling in the waters. It seemed almost inevitable, the female while swimming on her back would release a thick brown or red fecal plume. We’d wait for the group to swim off--the whales were much larger than our boat--and move in with our net.

Patch of reddish-brown defaecation from a fin whale. 
The colour indicates the whale was probably eating krill. 
Greenish defaecation is most likely from fish consumption.

Two colleagues from Harvard helped analyze the data. John Nevins, a researcher at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, examined the nitrogen levels, and Annabel Beichman, an undergrad, prepped samples to later uncover the microbes that live in whale gastrointestinal tracts. Heather Koopman, of University of North Carolina, lead the search for whales at the wheel of the research vessel Phocoena.

Annabel Beichman, Harvard University

What we have found is that whales, along with seals and seabirds, play an important role in recycling nitrogen in the Gulf of Maine. They release more of this nutrient into the gulf than all rivers combined and even more than point source pollution from sewage effluent. By excreting nitrogen at the surface of their traditional feeding grounds, whales play an important role in maintaining prey aggregations, such as copepods, krill, or herring, which, in a positive feedback loop, supports their tendency to aggregate in feeding areas. They are not eating our fish, as whaling nations claim, but helping increase productivity in areas where they are found. We can have more whales, and more fish, copepods, and krill.