13th firmm-convention in the house of culture- and congress Aarau of 19th February 2011

by firmm Team

”Welcome to firmm´s 13th convention !” All eyes focused on the graceful woman standing on the stage. About 350 guests came to meet Katharina Heyer and to take part in the proceedings at firmm. They came from Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and even from Tarifa this year: “Bienvenidos, Diego y Eduardo!” For the first time Katharina’s hombres had the chance to take part in the annual convention of the growing firmm-family in person. The warm welcoming showed how many personal friendships evolved over the years.

Diego und Eduardo

The guests looked forward to an exciting schedule consisting of interesting presentations. During the pauses Bernd Nies, Monika Wittwer and Katharina provided the guests with their most beautiful photographs of whales and dolphins.

Review on season 201

The whale-watching-boom persists: Around 21,000 visitors daily came to experience free whales and dolphins in 2010. On 34 evenings Katharina gave lectures to the guests of the Aldiana hotels, while 14 volunteers presented over 1500 charlas in four languages. Jörn’s statistics of all whale observations amount to 1212 sightings during 382 tours. It is not surprising that most of the sightings, namely 691, were Pilot Whales. Not many Sperm Whales have been observed. But many spectacular Fin Whale sightings caused a stir. The Orcas arrived distributed between mid-July and mid-August and surprisingly again in October in the Strait of Gibraltar.&60; Many calves were sighted with the Pilot Whales as well as with the Bottlenose Dolphins. It was also pleasing that there have been encounters with big pods of Striped and Common Dolphins. Something extraordinary happened on May 6th when the female Pilot Whale ‘Mondrino’ appeared again after a very long time. After her first vertical submerging she again appeared at the surface. Then, after a few minutes, she submerged again in a majestic way as though in confirmation. On August 5th a female Humpback Whale and her calf lost their way in the embayment of Algeciras. It took&60; three days until they found their way back into the open seas.

Last year the media showed large interest in the proceedings at firmm. Among Television Española in April, the DOK-team with Michèle Sauvain shot a segment for “SF1 Reporter” about Prof David Senn, Prof Dr Patricia Holm and their students during their annual stay. Those who missed it enjoyed the segment later that evening. Filmmaker Paul Bieri and his cinematographer Viktor Schwab shot an individual portrait as a part of the series “extraordinary people and stories” about Katharina. This movie was premiered at the firmm-convention.

After severe countermovements the proposed gigantic construction of Tarifa’s harbor seems to be reconsidered. Recently a second ferry, Comarit, began passing the strait between Tarifa and Tanger. Firmm tries to approach the captains to sensitise them for the whales and dolphins, whose living environment is disturbed severely by the heavy maritime traffic. Currently Jörn analyses the regional relationship between fishermen and Orcas for the European Cetacean Society. Poor fishing quotas of tunas make them unprofitable now. Neither for the resident fishermen nor for the Orcas.

In the 13th season Katharina was again able to reckon with her well established team: Nina, Jörn, Diego, Eduardo, Fernando and the temporary workers Flor, Audrey, Poppy, Juan and Cristina who guaranteed a fluent organization. Since summer 2010 Dominique Geysen has also became part of the permanent team. A few years ago he already took an active part in the proceedings of firmm with presentations in front of about 25,000 listeners

14 volunteers were on hand last summer. Also firmm is able to count on its trusty volunteers Caroline Burger, Sebastian Kanzler (all graphical functions and facebook-support) Jürg Brack (dolphinsanctuary.org), Heike and Mario (firmm.org), Pia Ackermann (press release and blogs) and various other volunteers in Switzerland and Germany.

Something changed in the foundation council in 2010: Prof Dr Patricia Holm succeeded member Prof David Senn for the foundation. As a deeply commited scientist she supervises the research area of firmm.

One significant event must not be forgotten while reviewing the tumultuous season of 2010: The firmm- fleet increased with the “firmm Fly Blue”! It has the same size as the “Spirit”, is top-equipped and already proved itself during the high season.

Small families - The next big thing with the Pilot Whales

Angela Solothurnmann is a student in sustainable developments at the University of Basel and is giving lecture on her master thesis “anthropogenic effects on the population of Pilot Whales in the Strait of Gibraltar”.

Angela

The thesis was based on the sighting recordings of firmm, which have been prepared since 1999 during 4’450 boat trips including 14’000 whale sightings. Therefore this is the largest existing data base for the Strait of Gibraltar. On every single trip, time, date, GPS-position, atmospheric and tide condition, animal species, calves and newborns, behaviour and swimming directions have been recorded. About half of the sightings contain Pilot Whales, which are therefore researched the most.

The results show that the number of sighted single Pilot Whales per hour and trip keeps constant with a slight upward tendency. Meanwhile, pods of Pilot Whales have been sighted with increasing frequency. Thus, the size of the pods decreases. While pods of around 20 Pilot Whales were still most common in 2000, they now decrease to pods of just 6 to 10 animals. The reason for this development has not been figured out yet. The results also reveal the following age distribution: 85% adults, 14% calves and 1% newborns.

Entwicklung der Gruppengröße

Climatic change

Climatic change – which consequences are expected for the dolphins and whales in the Strait of Gibraltar?

Prof. Dr. Patricia Holm

Mrs. Prof Dr Patricia Holm, lecturer at the University of Basel and member of the firmm-foundation council just returned from Namibia. She presents the effects of the climatic change on the biodiversity of the oceans

Folie

A temperature increase of about 1.8 to 4°C is expected until 2100. Due to the raised CO2 content oceans become more and more sour. The pH-value decreases stronger than during the last 200-300 million years. It is expected that the number of diatoms, copepods, krill and squids is going to decrease. Warmer water in the upper layers of the ocean absorb less oxygen. This causes harmful algae growth and more harmful bacteria. Therefore, nutrient contents decline. Since whales are at the top of the food chain, they will be worst affected

  • Fin Whale: His principal food, northern krill, will be affected by the temperature increase, lower salinity and changed in flow conditions. In the Mediterranean Fin Whales are at their northern boundary of distribution.
  • Sperm Whale: With higher water temperatures female Sperm Whales have lower conception rates. Squids are affected negatively in their swimming capacity.
  • Striped Dolphin: Caused by warmer water temperature it contains less nutrient contents. Furthermore this causes a decrease of prey. Thus the dolphins are weakened in their fitness. An increase of morbillivirus-epidemics like from 1990 to 1992 is expected.
  • Common Dolphin: The warming of the oceans causes a decline of the sardine- and sardelle-population. Additionally, rivalry between fisheries will occur more often.
  • Low nutrient contents also do not make life easy for Bottle-nosed Dolphins and Pilot Whales.

„Die Walfrau von Gibraltar“ – A segment by SF1-Reporter

Even for those attendants who already have seen the DOK-segment at its first run on September 29th 2010 or its rerun on December 26th 2010, this movie continues to be a pleasure. Michèle Sauvain and her team factually document with professional objectivity and at the same time with flair

During the break Katharina recommended her guests to read the new professional literature “Faszinierende Fische” by Prof Dr Patricia Holm. During uncountable hours, Niko Bünte, volunteer in season 2009, enlarged his flyer about threatened fish to a lexicon of fish. This document can be requested via laeuftnachplan@hotmail.com from Niko Buente

Dolphin Sanctuary Morocco – maturity reached

The new name already indicates: this project has been consistently structured and examined. With active support by Malcom Hayday, chairman of the Charity Bank of England (a bank which exclusively supports non-profit projects) and his partner Eva Varga, t a convenient business plan has been created which was designed by Sebastian. He showed a new concept containing profit centres, a dolphin- rescue station, a medical attendance area, a rescue and marine centre and living area. It provides funded target figures and serves as an essential basis for interested investors

For new members of the firmm-family, Katharina summarised the back story of the project started in 2002. She told about her motivation to build&60; a sanctuary for dolphins in their natural living environment and for those animals which have served their time in zoos and dolphinariums. She told about how she found a suitable bay in Ras Laflouka, just being 20 minutes drive away from Tanger, about the development of the project, throwbacks and barriers. But again and again there is always new hope. The Dolphin Sanctuary Ras Laflouka had to mature and is now being established and realized with rational methods. It has to fit into the current spirit of the times as well as into the political situation in Morocco. On our newly designed website www.dolphinsanctuary.org there are detailed explanations, latest pictures and scheme records designed by architect Hanae Bekkari.

Ein Leben für Wale und Delfine“ – a premiere with surprise

Schweizer Tenor Patrick von Castelberg

It was a premiere in several aspects: With a performance by swiss tenor Patrick von Castelberg, TV- and movie producer Paul Bieri did not only surprise Katharina and the audience but also provided&60; novelty to the program of the traditional firmm-convention. Obviously touched, Katharina remarked: Part of a premiere should be a glamoros act. And the interpretation of Andrea Bocelli’s „Con te partirò“ by the popular tenor absolutely was one

In April Paul Bieri and cinematographer Viktor Schwab came to Tarifa to shoot a documentation about the activities of firmm. The duo was not discouraged by the unfavourable weather and created an expressive collage about the marine mammals in front of Tarifa as well as about Katharina’s lifework.

Announcements and acknowledgements

On our own account: firmm is searching for hosts for XING and Twitter – please let Katharina know if you are interested, thank you!

After this appeal Katharina concludes this evening with a warm thank you to her loyal assistants, who supported her energetically for years. Whilst Katharina appreciates all of them particularly, we in this summarise confine ourselves to the more unusual sponsoring campaigns like the wedding-collection by Nicole and Stefan Gabathuler, the disposal of plush dolphins and player jerseys of the “EHC Biel” (ice hockey team), the New Year's Eve collection by the Horwer pupils, the proceedings of music-downloads via www.artistsforanimals.ch and last but not least the benefit film show of “The Last Giants” in Hamburg. Next to all kind souls in the background Katharina wants to thank Caroline Burger and the team of the foundation “Gärtnerhaus”, Daniel König and Jürg Brack for organising this evening above all

Good bye and see you again next year, on February 25th 2012!

Essen ;-)

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