We have been working in collaboration with Orca Guardians Iceland to study the long-finned pilot whales of the Snæfellsness Peninsula since 2019 and hope to have a publicly available catalogue soon. Very little is known about this species in Icelandic waters, though they have recently been making headlines due to their regularly observed pursuits of orcas off both western and southern parts of the country.
Pilot Whales of the Scotian Shelf:
We are currently working with the Northern Bottlenose Whale Project (Whitehead Lab) to collect opportunistic photo-identification of long-finned pilot whales that use The Gully Marine Protected Area, a vast submarine canyon located on the edge of the continental shelf just northeast of Sable Island, Nova Scotia. All pilot whales in the North Atlantic are currently classified as part of a single population, with very little understood about movement and whether population boundaries exist. The Scotian Shelf provides another window into the lives of long-finned pilot whales who summer offshore and whether they might mix with individuals who make an inshore migration during this time of the year.
Pre-stranding Behaviour in Pilot Whales:
We are working with a collection of scientists and stranding network professionals around the world to investigate how the behaviours of stranding-prone pilot whales differ from those observed in healthy, free-swimming conspecifics. From a management and welfare perspective, we hope to use these findings to better inform stranding response, especially in cases where abnormal behaviour is observed in groups of pilot whales well before a stranding occurs.