Whales in Bay of Biscay - Spain and France - by Ron Toft

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The Bay of Biscay, off the coast of western France and northern Spain.

Thar She Blows!
Whales and Dolphins in the Bay of Biscay

by Ron Toft
· personal page ·

In recent years, whale and dolphin experts have regularly travelled between Portsmouth/Plymouth and Santander with Brittany Ferries, drawing passengers’ attention to the range of whales, and other wildlife, that can be seen from the decks of cruise ferries, while at the same time monitoring cetacean movements.

Last year I made two Bay of Biscay crossings aboard Brittany Ferries’ Pont-Aven in the hope of getting reasonably good sightings of whales and dolphins. And I wasn’t disappointed.

On the first occasion, in August, the cetacean spotting was organised on behalf of ORCA by ebullient zoologist/wildlife officer Rachael Portnall who gave several on-board briefings and was a big hit with children. On that mini-cruise, I saw both common and striped dolphins. Other people were lucky enough to glimpse fin whales.

On the second occasion, in October, the whale watching was organised jointly by ORCA and Planet Whale. The trip was aimed at whale-watching enthusiasts, rather than ‘ordinary’ members of the public, who paid extra for talks by experts and to observe from a normally restricted area of the upper deck. This time, I had much better views of common dolphins and also spotted what was probably a minke whale.

. . . . .

Organised whale watching on Brittany Ferries’ vessels has three key aims: to gather data about the number and species of whales frequenting the waters of the Bay, to make people aware of the threats facing cetaceans and to promote and obtain support for the monitoring and conservation work conducted by charities like ORCA.

“The Bay of Biscay is a sort of underwater Pyrenees – a mysterious world that we know very little about,” said Ian. “Anything we or passengers see on the surface and make a note of while aboard one of Brittany Ferries’ ships is making a very real contribution to scientific knowledge.”

All manner of whales and dolphins have been spotted over the years in the Bay of Biscay – individual animals as well as huge pods of these charismatic mammals.

Among the whale species seen are sperm, fin, sei, minke, northern bottlenose, Cuvier’s beaked, Sowerby’s beaked, killer and long-finned pilot.

The dolphin species recorded include the familiar ‘smiling’ bottlenose of Flipper fame, striped, common, Atlantic white-sided, Risso’s and white-beaked, as well as harbour porpoise.

. . . . .

All cetaceans are divided into two groups: toothed whales and baleen whales. Toothed whales, of which there are nearly 70 different kinds, range in size from the 18-metre sperm whale to the 1.8 metre harbour porpoise. They eat fish and/or squid. Dolphins are also toothed whales.

Baleen whales are so named because their mouths have baleen plates, instead of teeth, which they use to filter small fish and crustaceans from seawater. The biggest baleen whale is the mighty blue – a 30-metre leviathan and the biggest living creature of all time. The smallest baleen whale is the pygmy right whale, which attains a length of nearly seven metres.

“It would be great to run more trips for enthusiasts,” continued Ian, “for there is a huge market out there. Whales and dolphins fire people up. There might not be whale and dolphin clubs like there are bird-watching clubs, but there are an enormous number of people who want to see these animals.

“There is also a lot more that could be done in terms of public engagement with ferry passengers by having wildlife officers on board.”

. . . . .

Last year there was a wildlife officer on board the Pont-Aven throughout the summer, Rachael and Lena each doing two weeks on and two weeks off.

“Such officers do a fantastic job. Brittany Ferries has seen the reaction from passengers to these officers. In fact, passengers ask where they are if they are not on board.”

ORCA development manager Stephen Marsh told me that Brittany Ferries had been “really, really good to us because they give us the majority of our berths free when we are carrying out surveys, which we do every month from the ship’s bridge.”

Bridge observation of cetaceans has been taking place on Brittany Ferries’ vessels for at least four or five years. “That was where it all started,” said Ian. “The interest shown has come not only from passengers but also from crew. A DVD we made on the bridge about ORCA’S fin whale project included interviews with senior crew who were really interested in learning about how to avoid hitting whales and really keen to improve their knowledge as they pass through the Bay.”

Added Stephen: “Engineers and so on get just as excited us when they see whales and dolphins.”

. . . . .

During my October whale watching trip to Santander, the Pont-Aven took evasive action at one point to avoid hitting a fin whale.

Tragically, many fin whales – the second biggest after blue whales – are hit by ships and killed. ORCA’s Go Large campaign spotlights the threat facing fin and other large whales from increasingly large container ships and tankers. “Large though many whales undoubtedly are, they are very small and extremely vulnerable when near big, fast ships,” said Ian.

One species often seen in the Bay of Biscay but little known to the public at large is Cuvier’s beaked whale, which Ian describes as “a big, weighty animal with tusks.”

Cuvier’s beaked whales are seen in the Bay all year round. They appear to live in resident groups with males fighting for the right to mate with females. Both adults and calves are seen. Some Cuvier’s beaked whales are heavily scarred by tusks as a result of fighting or playing.

“Research being conducted by ORCA is slowly but surely shedding new light on an animal that is the size of an elephant and lives around the coasts of Europe but about which next to nothing is known at present.”

. . . . .

Fin whales, unlike Cuvier’s beaked whales, tend to be seen only from May onwards, the greatest numbers being recorded in July, August and September.

“We don’t know where they go when they are not in the Bay. It’s amazing that a creature this big can seemingly disappear completely for several months of the year.”

Pilot whales are being seen in growing numbers in the Bay, but it is not known whether they are residents or migrants.

Sperm whales, “the ultimate, three-kilometre-down deep divers,” move through the Bay “but are not there every time we go. Much more research is needed. What we are doing can be likened to flying over the Pyrenees trying to monitor chamois. At a certain time of the year the herds will feed in the meadows in one area. Later on they will go somewhere else. The observations we make are but a snapshot of what is going on. Hopefully we can use a succession of snapshots to build up a picture over the course of seasons.”

. . . . .

The best Bay of Biscay trip for Ian was the time he spotted 13 or 14 whale species. “On another occasion, when I wasn’t present, pods of 1,000 common dolphins were seen. Last year, on one trip, 22 killer whales were spotted. Then there was the time that a pod of 190 fin whales was recorded.”

Although most whale sightings are made in the Bay of Biscay, cetaceans are also sometimes seen in the English Channel. “If the weather conditions are good and the sea state calm, there is a good chance of seeing any harbour porpoises that may be around,” said Stephen. “They are very small and don’t make any splash, so you need calm conditions to spot them In one survey, 150 porpoises were spotted in the Channel, as well as 11 minke whales.”

Concluded Ian: “We see ourselves as separate from nature, yet we are just as much a part of it as are whales and dolphins. Cetaceans possess the gee-whizz factor – the ability to help people reconnect with nature. When we realise that we are part of the same ecosystem, I think we will end up being better custodians of our planet.”

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WEBSITES
ORCA: www.orcaweb.org.uk
Planet Whale: www.planetwhale.com

DATES
The dates for the 2010 Brittany Ferries/Planet Whale trips aboard Pont-Aven are:
16-18 June – Midsummer Dolphin Watch (long summer days, lots of dolphins).
14-16 July – Big Whale Watch (traditionally the time when good numbers of fin whales arrive in the Bay of Biscay).
18-20 August – ORCA’s Whale & Dolphin Festival (part of its 10th anniversary celebrations and the best time to see the greatest variety of cetaceans).
Brittany Ferries plans to have ORCA wildlife officers aboard its new Portsmouth-Santander vessel, Cap Finistere, and is also supporting the charity in other ways.

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