By Julio Valeiras and Begoña Santos, Cruise co-ordinators
The Spanish cruise that has covered the southernmost offshore waters of the SCANS-III survey area is finishing tomorrow. Today we are surveying the last two transects in the Cantabrian Sea and then tomorrow we aim to finish off parts of two transects in the NW block that we weren’t able to survey because of the intense fog ten days ago. Then back to our home port of Vigo.
It’s been a highly successful cruise, not least because of our great crew of 26 people aboard the RV Angeles Alvariño of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO). The team comprised 13 scientists and 13 ship’s crew. The science team line-up was as follows:
Primary observation platform
M.Begoña Santos is the coordinator for the SCANS-III project at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO). She was the cruise coordinator during the first half of the survey. She is the Head of Fisheries at IEOJulio Valeiras was the cruise coordinator during the second half of the survey. He works as Fisheries Researcher at the Institute of Oceanography (IEO) at Vigo. He has previously participated in many marine research surveysXesús Morales is a marine biologist who has participated in research surveys in several ocean basins and has plenty of experience as a marine mammals observer. He knows the cetacean species in the area and has worked with the Galician NGO, CEMMARuth Esteban is an experienced marine mammal scientist working in the Gibraltar Strait area for the CIRCE organizationAntonella Servidio is an experienced marine mammal scientist working in the Canary Islands for the CEAMAR organization
Tracker observation platform
Camilo Saavedra is a marine mammal scientist working at IEO at Vigo. He was in charge of logistics, organization of material, and played a large part in the success of the survey, being the official troubleshooterAntonio Vazquez is an experienced marine mammal scientist working in the Mediterranean and Atlantic waters in Spain for the ALNILAM organization. He was the coordinator of observers and the acoustic expert onboardAna Cañadas is a marine mammal scientist with plenty of experience in the collection and analysis of data using distance sampling methodology in the Mediterranean and other areas and belongs to the ALNILAM organizationJosé Cedeira is a marine mammal scientist with many years of experience as cetologist working in the Galician NGO CEMMA and has participated as a marine mammal observer in many surveys
Ornithologists
Salvador García is a fisheries scientist working at IEO at Málaga. He is a seabird expert and has participated in many research surveysEduardo López is a fisheries scientist working at IEO in Vigo. He has participated in many research surveys in the NE Atlantic, Mediterranean and NW Altantic
MSc students
Paula Gutiérrez is a MSc student working at IEO in Vigo. She was involved in helping with the observer work and the sampling of water for DNA analysesAlberto Hernández is a MSc student working at IEO in Vigo. He was involved in the seabird observations and sampling of water for DNA analyses
