"Call Me Katie" - My Adventures with Humpback Whales in Panama

Hey guys, So sorry it's been several weeks since my last post. Thank you to everyone who has followed along and taken time out of their busy days to read my strange ramblings.... I can't believe that we're closing in on less than three weeks till I head back home. The time has simultaneously flown and also crawled. We have not made as much tangible progress as we hoped, but we also have learned an incredible amount, and I can definitely say I have a much better sense (and appreciation) for this field site and what lies in store for potential future endeavors. I guess I'll back up and explain the most recent excursions: Last Friday : A.A and I took the ferry out to the island of Contadora in the early AM again, and when we arrived we ran into the fisherman (Tito) who had taken us out on his boat to look for whales the previous visit. We went out again for an hour with him (only saw 1 whale this time 😥), but afterwards we sat with him for 15 or so minutes and atte

Greetings fellow whale-enthusiasts! I had the chance to go on my first official whale watching tour this past Saturday, where I was mainly doing reconnaissance work to evaluate the tour operations. If possible, I was also charged with determining potential opportunities to interview tourists and to secure an interview/survey from a tour guide. As I have previously mentioned, there are only a few prominent whale watching companies that operate in the local area. One of them, Sea Las Perlas, appears to dominate much of the vessel activities, offering daily transport to some of the major islands in the Perlas as well as all day beach trips that include whale watching. My advisor had secured a conversation with the manager of the company, and she was very receptive to our project mission and had graciously proposed to allow one member of our team to go along for a whale watch tour for free. As both A.A and my advisor are out of town this week and last weekend, that job fell to me.

Whales! Finally after weeks of waiting we finally got our first whale sightings! Before you all get too excited we only got to watch them for about 5 minutes each as they all disappeared shortly we located them. My advisor said that the season seems to have not picked up and that in a few weeks (hopefully) we'll see many more and maybe get to actually observe behaviors. Below are the only shots I was able to get, but hey, it's still whales 🐋 Maybe I should back up and provide some context and details. Early Wednesday morning (7:30AM to be specific, which required a 5:30AM wake up call), A.A and I headed to catch the ferry to the island of Contadora. We visited this island a couple of weeks ago to evaluate its potential for a spot to intercept tourists to take our whale watching survey. We also wanted to see if we could get a chance to go out on a routine whale watch expedition (one of the local tours, offered by one of the fishermen). As we checked into our hot

Hey all! Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been moving pretty slowly here with our project, but we have nonetheless been keeping busy. We haven't had a chance to go back out on the water to see whales (hopefully Thursday?) but the word around town is that they have arrived (or are at least starting to arrive) so we're hoping to see some action soon! In the meantime, my project advisor has been trying to establish connections with some of the local companies - boat owners mainly - to introduce our project and get their permission to approach/set up interviews with their staff - tour guides - and tourists on their boats. As most things go in this country, the progress is a bit slow. People are receptive to our project and are happy to support the Smithsonian's efforts, but actually making contact with people can be tricky. Then my project advisor had to go out of town for a couple of days for an emergency trip for another project he is part of, so we had two days o

Hey everyone. I'm posting this a day late, but wanted to fill you all in on the activities of our first "real" field day. A.A and I met our advisor Hector, an undergrad intern he has working for him and Carlos, another assistant in his lab, at 6:30 on the docks outside the laboratories (Naos). Hector wanted to take us out into the Las Perlas islands so we could see the area we would be doing our field work. We also visited Contadora, one of the populated islands in the archipelago, so we could get a feel for the neighborhood and scope out the hotel/hostel rates as we may be staying on the island one or two nights during the season. The first step of the process was to load the boat into the water. Due to the high volume of rain and storms during the wet season, many boat owners opt to keep their boats out of the water in marinas when not in use. There are several boats that get sunk every storm due to the high waves and you can see several masts sticking out of the wat

Passport - check Camera - check Phone (the mandatory first Harry Potter book on tape) - check Rainjacket - check More clothes than I'll probably need for a month and a half - big check Long airport layover in a thunderstorm- check....  Hello all! It's been a little while since I posted about my activities. I'm currently sitting in the Atlanta Airport en route to Panama City, where I will be for the next month and a half. But I guess I should back up and give a quick readers-digest-version update of what I've been up to since the last time I posted..... Last fall I started a PhD program at Arizona State University (ASU) for Conservation and Animal Behavior. The degree is officially called Biology and Society and additionally I am also part of the 4E Academic Center, which stands for "Ecology, Economics and Ethics of the Environment." As the name implies, the focus of the center is to educate students on all aspects of conservation, not just the traditi