The Voyage of the Odyssey is a five-year global expedition designed to gather the first ever baseline data set on the levels of synthetic contaminants in the world's oceans. By taking tissue samples from sperm whales we will be able to determine how these manmade toxicants are impacting on the ocean environment and the animals that live there.
Toxicants are man-made products, artificial products introduced into the environment due to human activity; such as industrial waste products and pesticides.
Sperm whales are mammals like us, 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 also a good indicator species because they are exposed to ocean pollution throughout their life and they 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. 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.
Although our study is focusing on whales, it is also an issue critically important to humanity as we take much of our food from the same source.

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We are now almost half way through our five-year global expedition. The Voyage began in March 2000 when the Odyssey left San Diego and sailed to the Galapagos Islands. The crew spent four months collecting data on sperm whales around the archipelago before embarking on a seven month, 8,000 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean. The R.V. Odyssey and her crew spent time looking for and finding sperm whales in French Polynesia, the Republic of Kiribati and Papua New Guinea.
At the end of 2001, the Odyssey crew set sail for Darwin and the west coast of Western Australia. We found many whales along both the western and southern coast, including Blue whales. The crew also spent time looking for sperm whales off Albany, an area of Western Australia where sperm whales were heavily hunted until the late 70's. We were not sure what to expect when we arrived, as nobody had looked for whales since the whaling station closed down, but we are happy to report that we found many whales here, including large males, and family groups containing mothers and juveniles.
The Odyssey is currently conducting research in the Indian Ocean, with the crew finding sperm whales on the New Holland Grounds south of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and then in the central Indian Ocean around the British Indian Ocean Territorial waters of the Chagos Archipelago.

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