14. firmm-meeting in the culture and congress house Aarau

Anita Baechli – Minutes 14. firmm meeting, Aarau – February 2012
Text: Anita Baechli, Pictures: Geri Krischker

The song “Dolphins Paradise” accompanies the Best of the Best pictures of dolphins and whales swimming in the Ocean that are projected onto the projection screen, while the congress house’s hall fills with arriving guests. Music that - as Katharina Heyer admits - always “gets her into the presenting mood”, cordially greets attendees from Switzerland, Germany, Austria and their „tripulación del firmm Spirit y firmm Fly blue“ from Spain: Diego, Eduardo and Fernando with a “Muy buenas noches”.

And with an overview about the various contents of the program which also leaves free time for discussion, Katharina begins with the review of the past year.

Retrospect on the season 2011

With 23,700 tourists in a year of extreme temperatures, record numbers were reached with all those who went on individual tours with us. Among these were school classes from Spain, Germany and Switzerland, or groups of ornithologists, travel organisers (Aldiana, Bambino, Studiosus), cruise ship (TUI) or travel-car passengers. 274 students and families with children took part in week-long courses. Our committed volunteers have once again done a great job with about 1,600 ‘Charlas’ (introductory talks). Even the growing family of cats in front of our office in the city like it better and better; thanks to our care and feeding…

On April 1. the newly painted firmm business office in Tarifa could start work again. A few days earlier an Andalusian delegation of the government laid the cornerstone for a new whale and dolphin information centre (Centro de Interpretación de Cetáceos del Campo de Gibraltar), close to the old fish market in Tarifa. The visitor’s centre “La Ballenera” will consist partially of a reconstructed, local underwater world and an expositional area.

Over the season from April to October we were visited several times by film crews who followed us during our work.
MareTV for outdoor recording, Arte for filming for the twelve-part “Sonne, Siesta und Saudade” which, starting March 12. has been broadcasted daily from 19.30 to 20.15 on the “Kulturkanal”, where firmm could be seen on March 19. (in part 6).

Link: videos.arte.tv/de/videos/sonne_siesta_und_saudade

Nicole Birri and Andrea Brun of Tele1 were at the location for the broadcast “tierisch”

Click to watch Video

Paul Bieri and cameraman Viktor Schwab came to Tarifa for new shots of the Orcas. For two weeks, In the shopping centre „El Corte Inglés” in Algeciras, we held informative lectures for over 2000 pupils, together with a drawing contest. We were able to give ten little winners each a nice prize, as we invited them on to our boat about which the local media reported.

 

It’s never boring on the sea

 

One person who can confirm the above statement with heart and soul is the marine biologist Jörn Selling, active in the firmm-team since 10 years. His observations in the Strait of Gibraltar from the last season:

The statistic of a total of 1424 sightings over the course of 457 trips between March 27. and November 2. 2011 show that the number of sightings of common dolphins in the Strait of Gibraltar was at it’s average minimum at 2-3% of all encounters. More often could they be met in the Bay of Gibraltar. Sperm whales, however, barely showed themselves over the summer. The reason for this could be the new harbor in Morocco and the change in food supply. The orca sightings made up 3% of all our encounters with whales, just like in the years 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

This season (2011) the pilot whales did not react to the presence of the Orcas. The size of pilot whale groups and the present number of calves changed independently of the presence of killer whales, namely so that the mating and birthing cycles showed to have taken place at the seasonal times we have come to expect. To detect possible conflicts between pilot and killer whales, we had to calculate data from several other years, as orcas only stay in the Strait of Gibraltar for a short period of time. The bottlenose dolphins were a lot more curious during the spring, and they performed many shows for us. Around the end of the season these kinds of activities become less frequent, possibly because the mating time is over by then. Or they might just have had enough of whale watching boats?

A rhetoric question that Katharina Heyer can counter with is that, even though due to weather conditions many of the trips had to take place in the wind-protected bay of Algeciras. the post-seasonal months September and October were both surprisingly filled with frequent sightings. Among the high points she mentioned was the  spectacle of flying fish which are able to cover several meters of distance just above the water surface, while being chased by both dolphins and shearwater birds. Unique were sightings of a group of 50 bottlenose dolphins in the bay of Algeciras which are seldom ever seen in such huge gatherings. Unforgettable for Katharia was also October 4., when orcas were sighted in the bay of Algeciras. Since the 14-year long existence of firmm, this was the first time this happened. Overall, the orca-season this year has been as long as never before. Continually, from July to October, we were able to observe orcas. Among these were four calfs, one of which was newborn. On October 23. an orca lady came extremely close to the boat and very confidently frolicked around for a long while.

There were amazingly many sightings of large schools of ordinary dolphins. In the second half of the season, there were even striped dolphins that played with the pilot whales. In this year the particularly playful and curious bottlenose dolphins charmed observers with jumps, saltos and spyhopping.

Curiously, the trusting pilot whales presented us with many beautiful sightings. Even our problem child, a pilot whale named Curro, put up a good fight, Katharina reported with enthusiasm. His fairly well-healed wound opened up again, and large tatters of flesh hung down the sides until one day his companion and „helper“ Edu gave his wound a precise blow which removed the injured part. With this damaged flesh removed, the injury could safely heal. The large decrease in sperm whale sightings in the Strait of Gibraltar is probably due to the harbor Tanger Med in Africa. Increasingly strong shipping traffic, followed by submarine noise in the region have for the most part scared away the sperm whales. This time we could only register 9 sperm whale sightings. However, the sighting of Mondrino/Pigmento with both of her calves was a very enjoyable sight.

Probably the most special sighting was during the high season: in the middle of the fishermen and just next to the orcas, a particularly large individual found its way through the fishing lines. For the end of the season, on November 1., we could see three finbacks over the period of an hour.

During Katharina Heyer’s exciting report about the past season, pictures of the gentle giants in their element were shown playing, jumping or even closing in on Moroccan fishing boats to steal some delicacy, which could all be observed from the whale watching boats.

The president of the foundation further informed us about the current state of the emerging Dolphin Sanctuary Ras Laflouka, with an animal shelter and rehabilitation center for stranded whales and dolphins in the protected bay on the Moroccan side of the narrowing straights. The radio tower of Tanger „points“ in the direction, well visiblerom a great distance. In the meantime, the leasing contract for the harbor area is waiting to be signed in Tanger. The dolphin sanctuary project-team – president of firmm, the general manager, the architect, the oceanographers, Charity Bank – is full of confidence and excitement to get started.

The current state of the building with the fish-rich harbor facilities isn’t very pretty, but is constructed from good building material, and will be the „Centre Océanographique“. A resort with some 80 hotel beds is planned as well, and it is certain that something attractive will be constructed for children. As much integration as possible with the local population is also foreseen. firmm donation money, however, is only being used for the dolphin facility. The biologist Eligius Everaarts, a very special expert in his field, came to visit Katharina. The 35-year old Dutchman has been involved with stranded marine mammals in the „Rehabilitation and Research Centre for stranded porpoises and dolphins“ in Harderwijk for years. Katharina received a long list of useful and necessary resources and equipment. Markus Mayer, previous representative director of various hotels and currently freelancer who´s involved in several hotel projects, has shown interest in leading the dolphin sanctuary as its CEO. During the construction of the dolphin sanctuary starting in April, the veterinarian and researcher Eleonore C. Op de Beeck Roosens will give a helping hand. She brings along several years of job experience from Spanish animal shelters.

 

Matura work for the marine mammals

The up to now youngest speaker at firmm meetings, Manuel Bucher, requested Katharina onto the stage of the congress house to present the matura work about „Dolphins and whales in the Strait of Gibraltar“ which he completed three months ago. Professionally and eloquently the 17-year old explained the geographical position, source and evolution of the well-known Strait and its native dolphin and whale species. A dolphin fanatic , the young man explained the sea currents and eating habits that exist there and showed his self-built seafloor model. Hand-made depictions of animals finished off his accurately prepared, picture-adorned presentation. To end his lecture, he read out loud a few rather moving lines from the diary that he held over his three-week long stay in Tarifa.

 

Automatic photographic identification of whales – advantages and problems

Not only Katharina, who herself has made hundreds of pictures of pilot whale fins over the last 14 years, was excited about the report of professor Roger Cattin, professor for image processing at the advanced technical college for informatics and technics in Biel, Bern. He worked on two programs together with some of his BA students: „Sliver“ for the identification of minke whales and „Orca“ with which killer whales can be identified. In both programs the biometric characteristics are used, since if a human can be distinguished from another by features like  face, fingers or iris, the same can be done for whales’ characteristic back fins shapes, the patterns and markings on the tailfin, spots on the eyes or even scars from previous wounds, that can all be used to differentiate them from the others. Using existing pictures, very accurate detection results were achieved and dorsal markings could be recognized. With support from partners like ORES (Ocean Research and Education Society) or PNOR (Punte Norte Orca Research) and of course the help of the observed minke whales and orcas, developed Photo-Identification programs sort the pictures in before, so that one only has to do la ittle work on the images. It is, however, important that all of the pictures are taken from the same viewing angle. The records made over the excursions and the through Photo-Identification calculated data on the whale population and their migrations can all be used for research purposes and for the protection of marine mammals.

Curro, Zackzack and Mondrino – why is it important to be able to identify whales individually?

firmm foundation council professor Patricia Holm of the Basel University dedicated her report to the theme of Photo-Identification, especially to the question of individual markings and why it is so important to be able to personally differentiate dolphins and whales from each other. The marine biologist and Swiss delegate of the International Whaling Commission IWC is very dedicated with work in foreign countries. Her appearance at the firmm meeting of this year in Aarau was therefore a special pleasure.

Whales are individual creatures just as we are. We know that too much proximity can change their feeding behavior or make them lose their natural precautional behavior, which can be a great disadvantage to them. These are general problems with which researchers have to deal. Patricia Holm gave a short discription of the different methods of identification such as individual markings (naturally, randomly or on purpose), land-based observation, from aircrafts, from boats or research ships or the satellite-based tracing, comparing the possibilities of Photo-Identification which can also be land- or ship-based, wherefore only picture and video equipment is needed. This disturbs the animals only minimally and can identify practically every kind of dolphin or whale individually.

Photo-identification can be helpful in picking up the demographic data of the whales, their migratory behavior (short or long distances), their geographic distribution, their social structure, their behavior during diving, hunting, traveling, playing etc. Distinctive wounds or scars like those on pilot whale Curro, with his large, open back wound as an example, can be noticed without photographic techniques by the trained eye.

Information like feeding preferences or diving depths can also be found through skin samples. In Californian Sausalito seals suddenly had reddisfur and showed a hairloss. Of course it was necessary to find the reason for this phenomenon. Five seals had samples taken from them, and were equipped with a sending unit which they wore for a time period until they fell off by themselves. Everything is completely painless Holm assures us. This kind of research has no ill-effects on the health of the animals. Silicon in women’s breasts are a much greater issue according to the speaker.

The reports were followed by a short film by MareTV in Tarifa and the documentary filmed with firmm, „Andalusia – at the coast of the light“. It was broadcasted on TV on September 15. 2011 on the German channel NDR.

Klick to watch Video

During the following about an hour long (dinner) break, a Slideshow with several very memorable whale and bird pictures was projected, put together by the married couple Daniel and Anita Schneeberger. The two were in Tarifa in April and are both very enthusiastic ornithologists.

Thanks and notices

Time came to greatly thank all of the tireless co-workers of the 2011 season, the firmm-team, the ship’s reliable crew and of course all of the volunteers who were, all together, on duty for firmm in Tarifa. Katharina did this visibly very emotionally touched, and from the bottom of her heart. Subsequent to this Ursina Burkhard and Luisa Listmann delighted their voluntary colleagues of last year with a photo-presentation. During the slideshow they added an amusing or sarcastic, but always well-meant comment on the background information of life in the voluteers’ shared flat. Yes, life in the most southern city of the European mainland also has its nice sides during leisure time.

 

What would this event be if it weren´t for the immensely diligent helpers in the background of every firmm-meeting!
Once again the foundation´s team, „Gärtnerhaus“, makes sure that all culinary requests are filled, under the instruction of chef Frans Rinkens and Rosa Schiefferle, who created a delicious vegetable curry this time around. Those who preferred to take a cold „Plättli“ were accommodated by Caroline Burger and a large, thoughtful team of voluntary helpers who made sure that salads and the cold or warm drinks were served. Next to all of this, there was no lack in generous cake donors, so that even the wish for a variety of different sweets was satiated.

A further thanks was given to the organizers of the evening: Daniel König and Jürg Brack, for the perfect technical coordination.

 

Because everything nice had to end, this year´s meeting, filled with informative lectures, interesting presentations and many exciting encounters, we thank, from the bottom of our heart, all of our loyal and new donors, sponsors, VIP members, the media… Basically, everyone who generously supported us again in 2011. To name all of them individually would use more space than we have to offer.

The „Suisse Caravan Salon“ in Bern from October 25. to October 29. 2012 is being organized by Doris and Kurt Farner who are still looking for volunteers for their stands. Franz Dähler Reisen (www.daehler-reisen.ch) offers, from May to September, round trips in Andalusia including a 3-day long stay with firmm in Tarifa.

Before Katharina Heyer as the moderator finally bade farewell of the official part of the event, she announced one last theatrical taster and showed a short cut from of the movie by M.D.R. that was partially filmed on the firmm-boat in April 2008. The movie is about a round trip through Andalusia made by Ilse Bähnert, „Das kommt mir spanisch vor“. The filming team had incredible luck with the dolphins. As if they knew what was going on, they arrived in large groups and enchanted all involved.

Kick to watch Video

And last but not least:

• visitors to our website can send their own texts and pictures about their impressive encounters with the marine mammals Walbeobachtung/Eindrücke .
• Starting this summer an online sponsorship of pilot whales and dolphins in the sea narrow will be possible.
• Our calendar for 2013 with current photos of whales and dolphins in Tarifa will be available for shipping to Switzerland and Germany starting August, and in Austria starting November.
• We are looking for twitter moderators and 2-3 working laptops.
• The next firmm-meeting is already set: February 23. 2013!