Tracking the silent killer whales

PROJECT team tracking killer whale movements around Shetland has returned to the isles for the summer.Andy Foote, from Aberdeen University, has been keeping an eye on orca activity around Shetland for the past three years and this year has an expert on whale speech patterns alongside him.Mr Foote said there were around 30 killer whales regularly working the coastline of Shetland, all of whom appeared to travel south east from Iceland where they feed on herring with a larger community of whales."It looks as if this is a coherent community, a cohesive group of whales that splits up and comes back together again," Mr Foote said yesterday (Monday) from Yell, where he is setting up base with his two colleagues."The rest of the population seems to move around to the south west of Iceland during the summer where the herring go to feed, but these guys seem to be a small faction that splits off and comes here for a slightly different meal."Common seals form the main diet of the Shetland orcas, and Mr Foote said they could take part of the blame for the recent sharp decline in common seal numbers around Shetland.He added that his team had been working on genetic material from whales which have stranded in Shetland over the past 150 years, which showed the islands acted as a "north Atlantic crossroads" for the species, with specimens having travelled from Norway, the Scottish west coast and as far away as Gibraltar."Shetland seems to be a melting pot for different populations, but the ones we have seen in the last few years coming in close to feed on seals seem to be Icelandic animals," he said, adding that this tied in with local reports of increased seal attacks since the late `80s.One explanation could be that the population around Iceland was growing and so some members had to travel to find other sources of food.This year could be the last that Mr Foote and his colleagues visit Shetland as their funding is limited, but he hopes the study can continue using local people."There is so much interest in the local community, so even if there is not a budget for a dedicated research team to come up I think the photographic identification will keep going, even if it's as a community project."The team includes Volker Deeke, of the Sea Mammal Research Unit, who has studied whale "dialect" and vocal behaviour in orcas off Alaska and Canada and found they are particularly quiet when they hunt for seals.They arrived in Shetland on 30 April and have yet to have any sightings, even though sightings have been recorded several times since January this year.If anyone does see a killer whale, Mr Foote would like them to contact him on 07500 380 524