{"id":1558,"date":"2009-10-12T07:16:24","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T07:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/?p=1558"},"modified":"2012-07-05T18:39:34","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T18:39:34","slug":"whales-in-rurutu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/whales-in-rurutu\/","title":{"rendered":"Whales in Rurutu"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lone male whale singing in his sleep - \u00a9 William Winram <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trouble in Paradise<\/span><\/p>\n

Rurutu, Austral Archipelago, French Polynesia | September 18 – October 10, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rurutu seems an awefully long way to travel just to go film one of the high-definition documentaries for the 5-part series Project Ocean Quest. But it’s no secret that the northernmost of the Austral Islands (French Polynesia) is home to one of the largest marine mammals in the world: the humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae<\/em>) during the austral winter and early spring. Indeed, these whales come there to have their calves and rest before heading back to Antartica. Project Ocean Quest was there to film William and Fred work with researchers and take a photo inventory for the creation of a whale database.<\/p>\n

After having travelled across the world to Tahiti, it would be another hour and forty-five minutes to cover the 570 km from Papeete for Wiliam Winram and Fred Buyle to reach Rurutu airport. William recounts:<\/p>\n

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I think the best part of this experience was when we heard a solitary male singing. We had gotten in the water to do some warm up dives and at around 8-10m of depth we heard him off in the distance. Luckily we were able to figure out his general direction, get back in the boat and move closer…back in the water, listen again, confirm the direction and then back in the boat until we were within 400-500 meters of him. At this time Fred and I would get in and freedive simultaneously to around 8 meters at a distance of 25 meters apart from each other. We would listen, confirm the direction and move closer. At a certain point, the sound was incredibly loud and to confirm the direction I would swim over to Fred. If the sound was louder in Fred\u2019s spot then I would confirm it and we would continue in this direction otherwise back in my original direction. Either way it narrowed the area we needed to search. <\/p>\n

The whale sounds and songs are such that you actually feel it as if you are the sound is tapping your body. Whales sleep vertically at a depth where they are neutral in their buoyancy. They normally sleep for around 25min before surfacing to breath again.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But there is trouble, even in paradise. <\/p>\n

A large number of tourist flock to Rurutu every season to see the whales. Despite the fact that it is not allowed to dive on or around the whales except with special permits (which William and Fred had because they were there for a scientific cause), everyday, whale watching boats go out and try to find the whales. Once they find them, they approach, hoping that the whales will stay put so that their customers can get in and snorkel near the whales. Naturally, the whales leave the area. They are bothered by the sounds of boat engines and the thrashing sounds of the tourists splashing in the water. These creatures inspire awe. But to what extent do we have the right to disturb wild animals just to satisfy one’s curiosity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a sea far, far away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breath-hold-diving","category-media","category-ocean-conservation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions\/2119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamwinram.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}