By INDERIA SAUNDERS, Guardian Staff Reporter

inderia@nasguard.com

Local marine experts have launched a three-year research project to learn more about the little-known beaked whales.

The project comes almost seven years after a mass stranding in Bahamian waters.

The Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization (BMMRO) started the Bahamas Beaked Whale Ecology Study on Saturday, with a 30-day survey aboard a 95-foot sailboat called the Odyssey, which departed from Freeport.

"This study will have great implications for marine mammal conservation in The Bahamas and will help us to apply our findings around Abaco on a much broader scope," said the BMMRO's director, Diane Claridge.

This is the beginning of three months of dedicated analysis where several local and international scientists will survey the deep water canyons and basins of the northern and central Bahamas. Some of the main goals of this survey are to learn how many beaked whales there are in the Great Bahama Canyon, where they are found, and how they are related to beaked whales outside the canyon.

In order to do this, the Odyssey will run zig-zag transect lines across Northeast and Northwest Providence Channels and Tongue of the Ocean while scientists conduct visual searches for whales using high powered binoculars called Big Eyes, according to statement from BMMRO.

Whenever beaked whales are sighted a team will be deployed in a skiff to obtain identification photographs and tissue samples of the whales for genetic analysis.

Photo identification, a process where photographs are taken of all whales and dolphins that researchers encounter, is one of the main research techniques used by the BMMRO.

Scientists worldwide have acknowledged the importance of learning more about the biology and physiology of these elusive whales when a mass stranding of beaked whales occurred in The Bahamas on March 15, 2000 after a Navy sonar exercise in the NW Providence channel.

During that time, 14 beaked whales stranded directly in front of BMMRO's research station, three stranded on the Sandy Point beach in Abaco.

According to the organization, there are currently 21 species of beaked whales in the world, but the natural behavior of beaked whales makes them difficult to study. To date, three species of the beaked whale have been documented in The Bahamas, and South Abaco is one of the leading study sites in the world for these deep-diving whales.

Said Claridge: "We have given our data to the Nature Conservancy to develop a model to predict important habitats for cetaceans which has shown that Rocky Point, just off Sandy Point, is a preferred habitat for some resident species."