It's the third and last week of the intensive biopsy program for St. Lawrence belugas. Our goal is to obtain 50 biopsies in each of the three years of the project. We begin the week with 28 biopsies in hand! It's a tall order!
In this second week of the intensive beluga biopsy program, we have spent 16 hours with these animals. Autumn can be felt in the air: daylight hours are shorter and it is biting cold on the water! Strong southwest winds prevent us from working in the Estuary much of the week and force us to take refuge in the Saguenay Fjord, but on the morning of September 18, conditions are better. Here is a summary of this day.
This week, we take a closer look at the intensive beluga biopsy program. On September 11, strong winds from the northeast force us to head up the Saguenay Fjord to Baie Sainte-Marguerite, an enigmatic place where the belugas give us a run for our money.
In 18 hours with belugas this week, we conducted four censuses and encountered several herds of females with young and newborns. Here's one of the highlights!
This week, the team had 11 encounters in 22 hours with belugas. Two boats were on the water to continue the photo-identification. On board one of them were Robert Michaud and Valeria Vergara, who were undertaking a passive acoustic protocol on the sounds of newborn belugas. GREMM founder Robert Michaud speaks about this new project.
Good news for calves! In 14 hours with belugas, we conducted four censuses and a total of 10 calves were observed. Here is one impressive series of events for the week.
This week, fog is prevalent. Our observations had to be cut short. Nevertheless, we managed to conduct three censuses and spent 12 hours with belugas. Here is one noteworthy story for the week.
Several hours at sea for Week 6 in the field! In total: 20 hours with belugas and 5 censuses. We encountered a number of herds, each of which numbered about fifty individuals. The following is an encounter with an individual exhibiting remarkable behaviour!
We are in the 4th week of field work for the St. Lawrence beluga behavioural study. We have gone out on the water on two days during which we logged 9 hours of observations for 15 hours at sea.
In the course of three days at sea, as part of our behavioural study project on St. Lawrence belugas, we logged 13 hours of observation. We began by exploring the mouth of the Saguenay Fjord as far upstream as Baie Sainte-Marguerite, followed by the Charlevoix sector between Cap du Basque (Baie-Sainte-Catherine) and Cap de la Tête au Chien (Saint-Siméon).
