Ti whale
The project
The Caribbean Cetacean Society (CCS) is a West Indian association that contributes to the preservation of cetaceans in the Caribbean through research and by increasing public awareness.
A standardized monitoring
While following a standardized protocol, over the last two years the CCS has been undertaking the most extensive monitoring of whales in the West Indies in order to gather missing data thanks to which preservation measures adapted to each territory could be developed. Its recent work suggests that the decline in the number of sperm whales, an emblematic species of the Lesser Antilles, is primarily caused by human activity.
A bottom-up approach
The association, via a bottom-up conservation approach, is therefore planning to raise awareness among local populations by including them in various aspects of its research program: identification of species, codas (sperm whales’ social calls), gathering of data on the ground (or in the sea, in this case!), acoustic monitoring, photo identification, navigation and putting in place of scientific protocols.
The scientific expedition
A scientific expedition will thus be organized in July 2023, accompanied by educational actions aimed at developing skills and vocations among younger people. The ultimate scientific goal of this project is to accurately identify the environmental and human variables that affect the sperm whale population and to better understand this key species’ movement, habitat and evolution.
5
expeditions in 2023
33
cetacean species identified