If you read my last post you will appreciate some of the difficulties and uncertainties of cetacean research. It is far from easy! Becoming a proficient researcher depends on having, or attaining, certain attributes of character, including: patience, determination and flexibility. The researchers I know have an almost limitless patience for, and acceptance of, the sometimes daunting, trivial, impossible, stressful, hilarious, frustrating or distressing challenges they face every single day. The average person could be forgiven if they gave up, wept and decided to become a cat-herder instead. But for a researcher, cetaceans are so infused into their being, in their blood, heart and head, that they could not conceive of a life lived any other way and will always find the means to further their research, whatever the obstacles.

Can my memory stretch back that far…? Back to this April when I revisited Peggy Stap of Marine Life Studies(MLS), to assist her once again with her research in Monterey Bay, attempting to track down some enigmatic killer whales…? (Those smart and elusive animals that experienced spotters on the bay’s many whale watching boats often only find once in an azure-blue moon).