Well, after the first four days of this second leg of SOCAL-11 with no suction cup tag attachments and marginal weather conditions we had a good day today.  We attached a total of five tags on three blue whales and a Risso’s dolphin and conducted the third-ever CEE on Risso’s.  We used a variety of tags in deeper water areas to look at diving, movement, and vocal behavior in the blue whales, and the responses of Risso’s dolphins to a controlled exposure to simulated military sonar.  All of the tag attachments and the CEE went very well and with minimal disturbance to animals, who spent much of their day surrounded by inbound and outbound ships from Long Beach.

The tag deployment on the Risso’s dolphin was really an excellent attachment for this species on which there was some question before our successes as to whether it was a good candidate for suction cup tags.  Below is a photo of the tagged Risso’s dolphin from earlier today.

Risso’s dolphin with a Dtag (A. Friedlander – taken under NMFS permit #14534)