LiQUiFY Magazine December 2014 | Page 45

anymore or are starting to actually die out, well how do you want to react to this if you can’t manage it? It’s about having a proactive approach rather than waiting until the possibility that whales might start washing up on our shores and we start to freak out because we’re not prepared. “Genes play a big part too. There’s a lot of stresses. We think about climate change and temperature differences, we think about food shortages not only because of an increasing population but the shifting availability of krill - there is a need for the animals to respond and adapt to all of this. Of course, if you have a wide section of genetic material (from a large gene pool) then you have a much better chance to respond to it, but if you’re coming from a sparse gene pool, the chances over generations that one whale will, for example, handle hot water better or may be able to swim further to places where the krill may have moved to ... well it becomes very likely not to happen.” The sun dips as we creep into the afternoon. We’re heading south now in full convoy with the pod, carefully keeping afar as to not cause distress, but close enough to get the drone up every six minutes or so and try for another snot sample. Each run gets a new petri dish and a new copter battery - they’ve got this interchange methodology wired it seems. We’re coming up on a few whales off the port side when the drone heads into the blue, and with the sun behind us little Tom scores a direct hit - at least we think so. Olaf’s drone swiftly swoops right through the mist, and I glance back to see our pilot keenly steering the drone back. He seems to have a sixth sense for the whales and a sort of built in biological timer, set for exactly how long the whales spend underwater. It seems to alert him to when they are about to surface. He is clearly an advanced observer and understands these creatures very well.