Charismatic megafauna

Last Friday and Saturday I attended a couple of events at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

On Friday, I attended a talk presented by Philip Hoare.  I had already read his book, Leviathan or, The Whale, before it won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.  He was at the festival to talk about some of the things he covers in his book, but he focussed a lot on his own experiences of watching whales and in particular a close encounter with a Sperm Whale.  Hoare said on encountering this whale he felt almost as if it was studying him, and he mentioned that whales are considered by biologists to be amongst the charismatic megafauna, the big animals that conservationists can use to raise awareness about animals’ plights in the wild including habitat loss.

Harbour Porpoise

He asked the small audience of around 40 people who had seen a whale before, and it was a surprise to see almost everyone raise their hands.  I’ve been lucky enough to see off the west coast of Scotland Minke Whale, Common Dolphin and Harbour Porpoise.

The encounter with each of these species was different.  The Minke Whale tended to keep its distance from the boat, but on the second day I was out the water was perfectly calm.

Minke Whale

The boat’s engines were turned off and we just drifted in the water – ever so gradually, the Minke Whale and a pod of around 100 Harbour Porpoises crept towards the boat.  There was no sound other than when the animals came to the surface to breathe.

The Common Dolphins were something else entirely.  We were going full speed in the boat and they came along and rose the bow wave.  It was an exhilarating experience.  I’ve often seen TV presenters get all excited when they had this encounter, but it really is every bit as exciting as they made out.

Common Dolphin

My second event at the festival was a debate on animal intelligence chaired by Aubrey Manning.  This was held in the Budongo Trail at Edinburgh Zoo, a massive enclosure and research centre for chimpanzees.  The lecture we were in faced onto a glass window overlooking an indoor part of the enclosure, this contained a large tree with several places for the chimps to sleep.  There were a few sleeping while the debate kicked off, but I have to say as the debate wasn’t fully engaging it was more entertaining to watch the chimps as they woke up and glanced back at us.