The Findings

 Whale painting in Silurian

This was the closest we came to seeing a whale, or dolphin. We did see a few harbour porpoises and common seals, and lots of sea birds, including puffins. Disappointing? Yes and No.  Our mission was not necessarily to see whales and dolphins, but to monitor them doing the NATO Joint Warrior exercises.  We were in an area with several resident populations of cetaceans; where were they? We  heard a few more harbour porpoises with our hydrophone than what we could spot in the choppy conditions, however, a lot less than the usual numbers that are resident in the area.  Where had they gone? We saw or heard no larger cetaceans.

We did hear sonar everyday, sometimes very loud. And we saw at least 7 military vessels of a possible 40-50 in the area.  For the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust the lack of cetaceans in the presence of so much sonar is indicative that the noise is driving the resident populations elsewhere,  This may not be such a problem for the larger whales and dolphins, however for the smaller harbour porpoises they are being driven from their foraging grounds, possibly for 2 weeks.  This could be serious.

It is unknown whether sonar affects resident fish, however if it does, it could therefore be affecting the local bird colonies who  depend on the fish stocks.

There will be many more expeditions over the coming months to monitor the local cetaceans, without the presence of NATO, hopefully the whales and dolphins will return.