This section contains video footage captured on the Odyssey during the Voyage. Presented in an educational format, these videos deliver both detailed facts and broad conservation messages.
Marine Encounters This section contains two videos - ‘The purpose of the Voyage’, a 3-minute piece narrated by Dr. Roger Payne and ‘Whale Encounters’. A 3-minute video accompanied by music, this piece uses beautiful imagery of the whales we have encountered, to inspire students, promoting curiosity and wonderment.
Science from the Field This section contains video that combines reports with scientific observations made in the field. It includes visiting scientists who have worked aboard Odyssey and Ocean Alliance scientists describing the work they do. Although are technical reports, that are made accessible to students.
Ocean History This section contains pieces that give students an insight into areas with a rich oceanic and nautical history. At various times, we will focus on historical events and relate their passage of time to the modern age as we come across them.
BOWCAM / ROV View the sea from beneath the bow of the Odyssey via the BOWCAM - an underwater camera mounted in the bow of the ship.
The Odysseys (Remotely Operated Vehicle) is a new addition to the tools scientists have aboard the vessel. View unique underwater perspectives from this device.
One Ocean This section contains video pieces that focus heavily on the effects of specific human impacts on the marine environment. The consequences of our actions for marine creatures are highlighted.
Research reports This section contains video reports, summarising the scientific research, media, education and conservation work of the Odyssey and her crew, while in a particular country.
This section is under construction and will be activated in Version 2 of the DVD. Currently the educator is able to navigate through the entire menu but can only select and listen to the audio reports contained in the SPERM WHALE section.
When completed, this section will contain various audio reports from the field including Dr. Roger Payne’s ‘Voice from the Sea’, ‘Science from the Field’, interviews with visiting scientists and ‘One Ocean’ which focuses on what we can all do to make a difference. These are all educational reports relating to the daily occurrences on board the Odyssey.
Roger Payne Dr. Roger Payne has been studying whales and working for their conservation for over 30 years. In his audio pieces, A Voice from the Sea, Payne discusses the fate of the world's oceans, connecting it to daily experiences aboard Odyssey.
Sperm Whales This section explores the ocean realm of the sperm whale. Learn about its diving physiology, social behavior and its method of using sound to navigate, communicate and hunt.
One Ocean In this section, Odyssey scientists and educators write about the effects of human impacts, including pollution and toxicology on the marine environment.
WEBLINK - COMING SOON This section is under construction and will be activated in Version 2 of the DVD.
When the educator/presenter is playing back this DVD on a computer and is connected to the internet, they will be able to pull up content in an internet browser from the ‘Voyage of the Odyssey’ website
In order to track whales, the R.V. Odyssey tows a special underwater microphone behind the boat to listen for the sounds that whales make. Here are some of the sounds the Odyssey crew hear beneath the sea.
The slide show is the foundation of the Ocean Encounters program. The themes explored through these images include science, conservation, education and media. These themes are supported throughout the DVD program by audio logs and wherever possible, video reports.
The slide show contains 4 separate sections.
What is the Voyage of the Odyssey?
Why Sperm whales?
Whales of the world
One Ocean
The educator/presenter may choose to use all of these sections in the sequence listed above, the sequence may be changed or any section may be left out. Below is a list of all of the slides as they appear in sequence in each section with a short commentary that may be used when the image is displayed.
All of the images include a short description that is displayed on screen when the slide is open. This may be used as a prompt for the educator, while also assisting the audience by highlighting specific issues.
Some of the images contain sounds that will be marked by the AUDIO>> icon, click to the next slide (this is the same image) with the remote control to listen to the audio. Proceed to the following slide to stop audio.
Some of the slides include a 30-second video piece. This will be noted in the slide description by the VIDEO>> icon. This does not appear on the screen. To activate the video, proceed to the next slide.
Section 1. What is the Voyage of the Odyssey?
This section introduces Dr. Roger Payne and the Ocean Alliance. It highlights the purpose of the Voyage of the Odyssey and its sperm whale research, while discussing the scientific programs and the accompanying education and media components of the voyage.
Dr. Roger Payne President and founder of Ocean Alliance, Dr. Roger Payne is a world acclaimed cetacean conservationist and research scientist. He has been studying whales for more than forty years and has studied every species of Great whale in the wild.
Humpback whale mother and calf Dr. Payne has contributed to his field in many areas and is perhaps most famous for discovering in 1967 that the sounds produced by humpback whales are long, complex, repeated patterns or "songs". <
Section 2. Why sperm whales?
This section discusses why the Voyage of the Odyssey has chosen to use sperm whales as an indicator species to the levels of man made toxicants that humans have introduced into the sea. It also discusses how we find and track the animals.
An underwater sperm whale head shot Sperm whales are the most bizarre looking animals, there is nothing in the world that looks like a sperm whale other than another sperm whale. In large males, up to one third of the entire body length is made up of the huge nose, the world’s largest biological sound generator.
A tail slap There are two main reasons that the Voyage is using sperm whales as an indicator species to the health of the world’s oceans. The first is that they are one of the most abundant of the great whale species left after suffering years of heavy exploitation by whalers. They are also found in all of the seas and oceans of the world.
A mother/calf pair The second reason is that sperm whales are mammals like humans, so we do share several biological and physiological characteristics with them. In that respect, they are a relevant species in which to study the impact of environmental pollution. Sperm whales are exposed to ocean pollution throughout their life and they, like us do have a relatively long life span. They also have a high percentage of fatty tissue in their body, sperm whales have a layer of fat called blubber just under their skin. Now most toxicants that are persistent in the environment are chemicals that accumulate in fat tissue. What this means for the whale is that the longer it lives, the longer it is exposed to pollutants and more toxicants end up accumulating in the whales body: this is a process called bioaccumulation.
In addition to bioaccumulation, sperm whales are also subject to biomagnification. Biomagnification refers to the increasing amount of chemicals found in animal species as you move up the food chain. For example, if a shrimp were to contain, lets say 1 unit of chemical and a fish eats 10 of those shrimp, it will have eaten with its prey about 10 units of toxicants. If a bigger fish eats the smaller fish it will end up with an even higher load of toxicants in its body. This process repeats itself up and up the food chain with top predators such as the sperm whale, subject to accumulating very high amounts of toxicants.
Basically if we are finding high levels of pollutants in sperm whales, there may be dire consequences for humans as we take food from the same resource.
Acoustic array To find and track sperm whales we use a hydrophone array (two underwater microphones housed in a 30 foot, oil-filled tube and towed behind the ship from a 100 meter-long cable). Alone, this acoustic array gives us very good stereo sound from the sea surrounding the boat. Many sounds, like the clicks of sperm whales can be heard through headphones from distances of 5 or even 10 miles away.
Acoustic array program The sounds of the whales are displayed as dots on the computer screen at the helm. The helmsperson is able to determine the bearing of the animal and track it until it stops clicking, which means it is no longer feeding and is coming to the surface. Once those on observation see a blow, we are able to sail toward the animal and take a sample.
Sperm whale underwater Sperm whales are highly acoustic animals that emit powerful, regular clicks almost continuously while they are underwater. It is believed these animals are echolocating, using sound as a way to ‘see’ in order to navigate, find prey and communicate. Sound travels five times faster in water than in the air, so it is a very effective means of gathering information about your environment.
Their routine vocalizations are slow monotonous clicks, usually 2 per second. AUDIO>>
A social group A large group of sperm whales when clicking together out of sink, sound like an underwater horse race. AUDIO>>
Section 3. Whales of the world
This section introduces the abundance of cetacean (whale) species that live in the oceans of the world and discusses the differences between the two families of whales, toothed whales and baleen whales.
An aerial view of a sperm whale Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales, in fact they are the largest predator on the planet with large males reaching 60 feet in length and weighing 50 tons. They are the only toothed whales of the 12 species of Great whale species. There are currently 68 known species of toothed whale, which includes all dolphins and porpoises. However new species are still being discovered and it is highly likely there are more to be found.
Sperm whale blowhole Toothed whales can be distinguished by the presence of teeth, a single blowhole situated at the top of the head and the fact that they ‘echolocate’ - they use sound to communicate, hunt and navigate through their underwater environment. Toothed whales are generally social animals with strong family bonds, they tend to travel in groups ranging from one or two animals to several thousand.
Pilot whale Pilot whales look like big black dolphins and are distinguished by a large round melon on their forehead. Scientists believe that the oil filled melon in toothed whales is used to produce sound. They are highly acoustic animals and are relatively common in the world’s oceans.
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Section 4. One Ocean
This section concentrates on human impacts on whales, all sea life and their ocean environment.
Odyssey at sunset The Odyssey is at sea, searching for whales day and night. During our search we encounter the discarded refuse of humanity and bear witness to the negative impacts we humans are having on the oceans of the world and their inhabitants.
Plastic pollution Every minute, every hour, every day, there is no ocean or waterway that is immune and every creature is a potential victim. Plastic garbage kills approximately one million sea birds and over one hundred thousand marine mammals every year. Mistaken for food, discarded plastics are eaten by marine mammals, reptiles and birds. What refuse does not ensnare, choke, trap, drown or maim, ends up joining millions of tons of plastic litter washed up on beaches.
Sea turtle Of the seven species of sea turtles found worldwide, all are listed as endangered.
Turtles drown in fishing nets and suffocate when they swallow floating plastic bags that impersonate their favorite food, jellyfish.
Sea lion Inquisitive seals and sea lions around the world often become entangled in marine debris, causing much unnecessary suffering. In the wild, the increased drag means the animal tires quickly, finds it difficult to capture prey and often starves.
Traditional fisherman With an escalating human population, pressure on the world’s fish stocks is increasing. Where once traditional fisherman only took what they needed, global fishing fleets now roam the worlds oceans 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Commercial fishing The Elfride is a commercial tuna long liner, one of a fleet of 12 boats. Unfortunately large-scale commercial fisheries are often characterized by high catches, rapid growth and soaring profits for those who enter a fishery first. Such profit bonanzas attract more fishers and more vessels. As time passes, fishers have to work harder just to maintain their catch, let alone increase it. The numbers of fish that can be caught have their own biological limits, so fishers increase technology levels and fish with more boats for longer periods of time. The cycle of more effort being expended in the endeavour to chase fewer fish continues until increasing costs for fishers means they may have to leave the fishery or in some cases fish illegally in the protected or managed. Currently it is estimated that 75% of the world’s fisheries are threatened or overfished.
Bycatch A stingray is caught as ‘bycatch’ on the hook of a tuna long liner and is killed before it is thrown back into the sea. Bycatch consists of everything caught on the line or in a net that has not been specifically targeted. These animals, if not already dead on the line are usually thrown overboard as waste. Often the amount of bycatch exceeds the number of the target species caught. In the prawn and shrimp fishery it is estimated that on average for every prawn caught, at least five other animals are taken and discarded as bycatch. Bycatch can include anything from fish, stingrays and sharks, to turtles, dolphins and other marine mammals.
Shark finning One of the most appalling fishing practices now being pursued is shark finning. It is the fishery that collects the fins of sharks so they can be used to make Shark fin soup. This fishery has become so lucrative owing to the high prices shark fins command in cities like Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, where a bowl of apparently tasteless shark fin soup can cost $90. To get fins for shark fin soup, fishermen catch any shark by any means (long lining is the usual technique), slice off its fins and often throw it overboard alive. So valuable are their fins and so lacking the restrictions, that the young of large species get finned as well. The combined weight of all of a shark's fins is only about a twentieth of its total weight. So to get a ton of fins requires killing and disposing of twenty tons of shark. It is estimated that somewhere between 40 and 70 (perhaps even as high as 100) million sharks are killed each year worldwide, a take that has caused shark populations everywhere to crash after about ten years of fishing. Always make informed decisions before ordering of the menu. VIDEO>>
Aquarium reef fish trade The capture of live tropical fish for the aquarium trade is another widespread and destructive fishing technique that is devastating the world's coral reefs. This practice involves a diver squirting cyanide into reef crevices, thus temporarily stunning whatever fish are present. The fish float to the surface and are easily scooped up in a net. Placed in small, plastic, holding containers many die, while only a small percentage of them eventually recover. However, a small percentage is enough to pay handsomely and the cycle continues. Only about 30% of fish caught with cyanide survive the poison and subsequent trip to many first world nations were they are sold in pet shops for the aquarium trade. Always ask the pet store owner where they get their tropical fish. AUDIO>>
Pilot whale hunt The hunting of small whale and dolphin species is prevalent in many countries around the world. Small whales and dolphins are not protected in international waters under International Whaling Commission (IWC) regulations and individual countries decide whether to protect them inside the boundaries of the 200-mile territorial limit.
The annual pilot whale ‘grind’ is a tradition in the Danish Faeroe Islands, where between 1,500 and 3,500 animals may be killed every year. The whales are driven into a bay, their escape route is blocked and they are hacked to death for food.
‘Scientific’ whaling This minke whale, the smallest of the rorquals is still alive and attached to a whaling ship by the harpoon that was just fired into its back. The exploding head is designed to detonate inside the whale’s body, ripping into the inner organs.
Since the global moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986, Japan has continued to hunt Minke whales. In addition to 600 Minke whales, they have added 50 Brydes whales, 50 Sei whales and 10 Sperm whales to the list. These whales are being killed in the name of "science". Japan maintains it is continuing to whale for scientific purposes and is also able to make a tidy profit by selling the meat on the market. Global opinion is against whaling, but Japan continues its annual hunt that occurs to a large extent in the southern ocean whale sanctuary. By collecting tissue samples from sperm whales and studying the live animal, the Odyssey crew are able to contribute to a far more comprehensive data set, while allowing the animal to continue on its way, unharmed.
Commercial whaling, sperm whale The head of a sperm whale being cut up on a flensing deck in Albany western Australia. This whaling station closed for good in 1978. This is a scene we thought would remain in our past forever.
Since the end of commercial whaling Australia has been a world leader in whale conservation. Unfortunately, things are beginning to change as pro-whaling nations such as Japan and Norway increase the pressure to resume the commercial hunt.
What this means is that once they leave the protection of Australian waters, the very same sperm whales that the Odyssey crew have taken benign samples from will be a target for Japanese whalers. Japan resumed the hunt for sperms whales in the year 2000. They are now targeting 4 species of great whale, Minke, Sperm, Bryde’s and as of this year the endangered Sei whale. VIDEO>>
Propaganda used by whalers An example of the misleading propaganda employed by Japanese whaling interests. In this illustration presented in a document to Kiribati fisheries officials while in Japan, the whale is portrayed as taking an important food resource, fish, away from humans. This tactic to meant to scare smaller nations into thinking that the whale is taking away their important commercial stock. The intention is that the country will then allow Japanese whalers to solve the whale problem by killing them. In fact most baleen, whales migrate to Antarctic waters to feed, estimates putting food intake at 90% of their annual consumption. While sperm whales feed on deep water squid, a resource human fisherman do not even have access to. It is estimated that humans are actually overfishing 75% of the world’s fish stocks. The pattern that has emerged from the vast majority of fisheries studies in every major fishery from all over the world is that rather than predators, like whales, being the problem, it is almost always human fishing practices that cause the big depletions of fish stocks. Which makes sense... after all, whales have occupied these waters for millions of years, maintaining themselves at populations which have always allowed plenty of fish to survive and reproduce.
Overseas Development Aid When the Odyssey crew left Kiribati last year, there were a about thirty large crates on the dock, addressed to Kiribati Fisheries from "Japan Aid"-obviously a gift to Kiribati from Japan to help them develop their fisheries. In addition, there is a new commercial fishing market being built on the Kiribati dock to which these crates were destined. This is a familiar pattern: Japan makes a major investment in the fisheries of some small country like Kiribati, then gets that country to support them in the international whaling commission in an effort to overturn the moratorium on commercial whaling.
Sperm whale stranding Sperm whales have been known to strand all over the world, once on land, there is no way to return them to the sea and they are crushed by their own body weight. Studies are showing that perhaps not all strandings are as natural as we first thought and that human impact on the marine environment, such as pollution may be playing a significant role. Toxic metals in the blood of stranded sperm whales and pilot whales have shown levels associated with severe toxicity It has been suggested that such toxic loads may have an indirect effect on the health status or behavior of cetaceans. One theory that ties in directly to the research that is being carried out by the Ocean Alliance is that toxicants are linked with health problems in marine mammals.
Pollution The chemical revolution of the past 50 years has produced thousands of synthesized compounds. Unfortunately these chemicals are resistant to change and to not break down in the environment.
“If we get only a little of these immortal poisons in our systems during our lifetimes we may be alright, but after a few years of eating them in small amounts they inexorably accumulate to levels which can cause serious mischief in our lives.” - Roger Payne
Our Ocean Planet “No matter where we live or what shore we visit the air and the ocean bring all of the problems that anyone has created elsewhere home to us, however far away those problems may have been at the start.” - Roger Payne
It is important to be aware of the fact that we all share one fragile earth, which is sustained by one ocean system. We can all contribute to its demise, but more importantly we are all responsible for the conservation of our marine environment and the amazing life it supports. We do not need to make sacrifices in our lives, only minor modifications. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We can all make a difference.
