WHALEFORCE is designed to produce an unbiased cetacean (whales, dolphins, porpoises) population assessment. The method we use is similar to those that have been used successfully for years to assess bird populations; Bird Counts. The data collected through Bird Counts is accepted by the scientific community, and data collection depends upon organizers to arrange for groups of interested amateurs to count birds over the same piece of countryside and the same time of year, year after year. WHALEFORCE is like a Bird Count on the sea, data is collected by interested people crossing the same stretch of sea at the same time each year. Because most sailors find it hard to identify different cetacean species WHALEFORCE provides cetacean identification sheets especially designed for identifying cetaceans from yachts. I.D. sheets and situation and data entry sighting slips, are provided to yachtsmen/women participating in blue water rallies, off shore and coastal races, and people "just messing about in boats". To keep the programme sustainable there is a small charge to participants.
This data is then transmitted to CEI where it is organized, stored and analyzed.
The concept is outlined in the following schematic.
Three components of the program require special mention:
WHALEFORCE Members
WHALEFORCE is only as good as its members. The feature of today's yachting community is that it has literally 1,000's of motivated, interested and capable people cruising the oceans of the world. Many of these people are part of the 'Grey Revolution'. They are fit, well educated, reasonably well off, and most often looking for a worth while cause in which to participate.
It
is this group of people that WHALEFORCE will recruit as their
members.
WHALEFORCE will also involve the international and costal yacht racing and rally community. Every year like minded yachtsmen join rallies which are basically organized cruises on specified routes. WHALEFORCE is already in discussions with Blue Water Rallies Limited for the inclusion of WHALEFORCE in the 2007-2009 Circumnavigation Rally. This will mean that the same group of yachts will travel completely around the world and be making consistent cetacean observations for the WHALEFORCE data base. We are also pursuing participation in rallies in the Atlantic, Pacific and southern oceans as well as races in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Yacht Marinas will also be pursued to promote membership in WHALEFORCE. This will be done by the Ambassador boats.
Members will receive a Training Package, access to the data entry and reporting on the WHALEFORCE Web Page. If the members are part of a Rally or Race a CEI organizer will visit the start of the event where a training session will be provided.
Members will also have access to Software developed by CEI for Whale Identification. This software will be based on CyberTracker (http://www.cybertracker.co.za/index.html). CEI has been actively using this innovative software for over four years.
To identify members of their WHALEFORCE yacht will fly the WHALEFORCE Burgee. This is anticipated to provide significant promotion to the project as a whole and be one of the main ways of recruiting new members.
Finally the new members will sustain the project.
Member Training
One criticism of layman driven monitoring programs is that they are not trained to identify the target species. Research at the Nanaimo Biological Research Station, Nanaimo, BC, Canada has indicated that this may not be a significant deterrent to the success of this type of project. In addition for decades the main source of bird cencusing in the western world has been the use of bird counts which are preformed by lay observers. WHALEFORCE will increase the credibility of the program by providing Training packages to all members and by providing training seminars at major participating events and clubs.
Clio Smeeton has over the past 20 years been developing a book on the identification of whales of the world that is specifically geared to yachtsmen/women. It is anticipated that this book will be completed in the ramp up phase (2007-2008) of this program. The book will be provided as part of the training package to Members. In addition there will be identification 'Quick Cards' specific to the oceans of the world. These 'Quick Cards' have already been developed for the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but will be revised and updated under this program. This is one of the major expenses for the program.
The Sightings Forms for the data have also been developed in hard copy and Electronic form. These can either be filled out by hand and mailed to CEI or filled out on the WEB and automatically emailed to CEI. With the expansion of the Web and email in the last decade most all yachts now have Web capable computers on board and nearly all marinas provide Wi-Fi internet connections free of charge. This makes this portion of the program relatively easy once the WEB pages have been developed.
The Training Seminars will
be delivered at the start of races and rallies and in participating
clubs and marinas. They will be structured over a day and include:
" WHALEFORCE theory.
" Cetacean identification
" Introduction to WHALEFORCE ID material
" Record Keeping
" Sighting Reporting
" CEI Reporting to Members
" Behaviour around cetaceans
Traveling to the sites will
be a major expense for WHALEFORCE in the first years but will
provide more credibility to the program through the collection
of better data. The start of international races and rallies are
also media friendly event. Having a WHALEFORCE representative
at the starts to talk to the media will highlight the program
as well.
Whale Identification and CyberTracker
As mentioned above a book
for the identification of whales of the world is in preparation
for WHALEFORCE. In addition there will be the production of 'Quick
Cards' to assist in identification from the deck of a yacht.
The Book - The art work and a most
all of the research for the Identification Book has been completed
for this project. What remains is to finish the research and proceed
to set up publishing. The book will approach identification based
on what will be seen from the deck of a yacht with emphasis on
'blows', behaviour, fins, colour, distinguished markings, etc.
The book will be supplemented with a series of 'Quick Cards' specific to oceans of the world. When WHALEFORCE was first established the on board identification was assisted by a series of identification sheets sponsored by Canadian Airlines. There were, for example, five sheets of two sided 11"x17" paper for the cetaceans of the Atlantic. It was found that these were not a suitable format for yachts so this version will be printed on waterproof 'quick cards' with one species per card.
Whale Identification Software - Over the past four years CEI has been using Cybertracker software (http://www.cybertracker.co.za/) on many of their terrestrial projects. This software, which is programmable, can be used to developed an intuitive identification system for cetaceans based on the features that you commonly see from the deck of a yacht. The software when used on a computer system linked to a GPS receiver (desktop, laptop or PDA) can also record and automatically add observations to a data base that can then be downloaded directly to the CEI global database for sightings.
CEI will use the information and research from the WHALEFORCE book and 'Quick Cards' to develop this identification software. The fact that a high percentage of our member yachts will have a laptop on board will make this a highly attractive option for filling out the sighting cards and then transferring the sighting data to CEI.
Sample Sighting sheet from 1997