er and towering over 3 stories high!Jan 7th Our first attempt at research on our own.Today team 4 was scheduled to go out and do data collection in the after noon. We were scheduled to go back out to the point where we did our equipment training the first day. I really like this group of guys. They are all oddballs; they helped pass the time between surfaces of the whales quite well. Before the day was over we all had nicknames from the movie Top Gun before we left the hill. I drew the name of “Ice Man”, I guess it was because I was little quiet. Even Gretchen our group leader wasn’t able to escape with out a name. McGregor point is a small area of one of the high way about 20 min south of our hotel. We set up our equipment near the cliff ledge to get a good view of the water and so the lighthouse is out of our way. From our spot on the point we are given nearly a 180-degree field of view on to the ocean. The water was calm today, little to no wind. Spotting the whales on the ocean today was pretty easy thanks to the calm waters. The only problem is trying to find a pod of whales that wasn’t currently being impacted by a pod of whales. Since McGregor point is located right near the mouth of a pretty large port it was pretty hard with all the boat traffic around.What we are suppose to do during one of these data collection trips is to try and find a pod that is not in the presence of any boats and try to record their natural unstressed behavior for at least 20 min before a boat closes in on them. Then we are to record the whale’s behaviors while the boat is with in a mile of our focal pod. After the boat leaves we are to record the whale’s behaviors and take note of any changes in down time or in speed of travel. This was a very hard situation to accomplish with all the major traffic in the area. We will really find out how well we did when the calculations and map are completed. As ...
