This project aims to carry out longitudinal monitoring of the populations of Cuvier’s beaked whale and Blainville’s beaked whale on the island of El Hierro.

This project aims to carry out longitudinal monitoring of the populations of Cuvier’s beaked whale and Blainville’s beaked whale on the island of El Hierro. In this way, their population parameters will be studied and cetaceans will be controlled as indicators of the state of the ecosystem, through photoidentification and genetic methods.

The University of La Laguna has launched this initiative based on the combination of genetic data with photoidentification, a technique that allows achieving objectives that would otherwise require years of population monitoring data.

Before the start of the project, the university had already achieved results, but with small samples, so with this project the objective of continuing with the research has been set because the interruption of sampling would imply a break in the follow-ups.

In addition, with this project the entity has set out to obtain parameters of the natural history of these species, such as the interval between offspring, the age of first sexual maturity or survival. It also aims to characterize their social structure, analyze the use of their habitat and study the resistance of populations to adverse natural phenomena.

Therefore, the project seeks to increase the knowledge of beaked whale populations and contribute to the evaluation of the protection status of the species in environmental legislation, in which they are classified as insufficiently known.

Previous research obtained an average of 600 sightings per year from land, so it is expected to continue incorporating data into the virtual catalogue, increase the sample size, obtain data on connectivity and social structure and review the conservation category of beaked whales in Spain and more specifically in the Canary Islands.

To this end, a series of activities will be carried out such as:

• Seasonal sampling of cetaceans, lasting ten days each, to obtain data on the distribution, behaviour and composition of groups, photoidentification and biopsies of beaked whales, as well as other species of cetaceans.
• Record of sightings of turtles, sharks and non-regular birds.
• Complement photo-identification studies with biopsy taking.
• Data analysis with the MARK (capture-recapture), SOCPROG (individual associations and social structure) programs, as well as genetic data analysis with the BioScope, SamTools, vcfTools and BayeScan programs.