Tag on!
We’ve been up here off the northern tip of Vancouver Island for about a week now. After a few days of setting up, we were ready to find the killer whales. But there were no residents (that is, the fish-eating ones) to be found. We looked and we waited. And then yesterday we heard blows in the thick fog. And we heard underwater calls when we listened with a hydrophone. After finding them, we managed to get a tag on at noon! It stayed on for 7.5 hours and it was our first successful deployment. The animal is G52 by the local Canadian researcher vernacular, though in our books this 16-year-old female is oo09_231a.
Tomorrow we leave God’s Pocket where we’ve been staying and transfer aboard a boat called the Achiever. And if all goes well we’ll continue to find resident killer whales and — hopefully — tag them!
ari daniel 
awesome! What specific aspect of the residents’ behavior is your friend studying?
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Deirdre said this on August 21, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Sounds great! It must be so lovely there! I am envious. Best of luck!
AT
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Anne said this on August 23, 2009 at 11:11 am
We’re interested in how they share prey (the fish they’re eating), looking at how they actually go about eating the fish, and their social interactions. Thanks for the great question!
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aridanielshapiro said this on August 25, 2009 at 12:40 am