Uncategorized Archives - Fred Buyle - Nektos

hvaldimir the beluga

Fred — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 12:52:35 +0000

Meet Hvaldimir. His human name comes from the contraction of « hval » meaning « whale » in Norwegian and « Vladimir » because of his suspected Russian origins.
This adult male beluga appeared last april, following a fishing boat, he was wearing a kind of dorsal harness. A fisherman got in the water to free him, the whale followed the boat into the harbor qnd since then he’s been travelling northern Norway’s fjord looking for human contact. That is where things are getting interesting.
Why a wild animal would look for human contact? More over when they know that humans are a plague to ecosystems. Well Hvaldimir was at some point trained by humans. Was it in a marine park or a military facility? We don’t know for sure but I’d lean toward the military facility for various rasons including the harness on his back when he was found as well as the ability to feed himself in the ocean and his abilities to survive the harsh environment. A marine park animal who would have spend his own life or most of it in full captivity would be more vulnerable I think.
Hvaldimir looking for human contact is because belugas are highly social animals living in large pods. They need to socialize and communicate. For sure the interactions he can have with humans aren’t as rich as he would with his fellow beluga but it’s a palliative to being totally alone. Ambassador cetaceans have been around forever. We call them ambassadors because with our human way of looking at the world. We believe they act as a messenger of their species.
It is a bit more complex than that. There are probably many reasons pushing animals to hang around humans but at the end it all comes to one thing: the impossibility for all beings with high cognitive abilities to live alone. What differs though is why an animal like Hvaldimir look for contacts with another species.
Usually ambassador cetaceans are animals without a pod. Here the reason is obvious, an ex captive or semi captive animal finding himself free and wild in a place where there are no other people like him.
I deliberately use here the word « people ». We ear some saying that it is bad to interact with him but without interactions he slowly socially dies.
We have screwed up our planet, we’ve crated bad situations like this one and we have the duty to take every opportunity arising to reconnect with nature and understand it for what it truly is, not for what our human distorted vison would like to understand and format it. When you spend hours with the same animal you get to know him and predict his moves and routine, and same for him, he can anticipate what you’ll do, like old friends or team mates. A mutual respect is set.
It’s not often you can experience that in the wilderness and it helps you to get a deeper understanding of animal psychology and refine your interactions with all other species.
On a technical note conditions were harsh, diving in arctic environment is difficult. Water is cold and outside temperatures are below -10°c. Both gear and freediver are affected: our thick wetsuits don’t allow us the freedom of movement we are used to, the cold makes us less relaxed and shorten our dive time. The photo equipment suffers, battery life is reduced even in an aluminium housing. Natural light is low and modern sensors help a lot to get decent images. The dynamic range of the Nikon Z6 helped me a lot to focus on the encounter instead of being stressed by the quest for the right exposure, the white whale on dark water background would have been tricky to expose with sensors we had 10 years ago.

[See image gallery at nektos.net]

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Hosting Airbnb event at Paris Aquarium

Fred — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:50:37 +0000

Earlier this month Airbnb organized one “a night at” event at the Paris Aquarium.
I was chosen to host it, it was a good opportunity to bring shark awareness and conservation to mainstream media. More than 1200 key media talked about it around the world including Good Morning America, Cnn amongst others. The guest slept in a underwater bedroom immersed in the main tank. On a personal level it was very interesting to collaborate with a company like Airbnb, their economical model is part of the future, shared economy is somehow one of the solutions for a better world and the ecological issues we are facing.

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mid atlantic freediving

Fred — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 08:11:20 +0000

When you are freediving in the Azores you are already at the western part of old Europe, almost mid distance from what they call the New Wolrd. But if you want to feel even more in the the middle of the Atlantic and in the middle of nowhere, go to Princess Alice bank, a pinnacle 80km offshore Faial island…the rock literally raises from the abyss to 35m deep! It is home to lots of pelagic life and in summer the migrating mobula rays (Mobula tarapacana) are cruising these crystal clear waters. In the past I had the chance to encounter mako sharks and large blue marlins over there. You can expect the unexpected everyday when you freedive that magical spot! Please note that we don’t touch the animals, the pictures showing a freediver with his hand on a mobula was taken to document a scientific study aiming at collecting mucus for a DNA/stable isotope study of the University of the Azores. That method is the less invasive possible of course.

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Darewin project on ABC Nightline

Fred — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 11:14:30 +0000

Here is a piece ABC Nighline did about our work with sperm whales for the Darewin project

ABC Breaking US News | US News Videos

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underwater underwater photography exhibition nemo33

Fred — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 13:08:58 +0000

Until mid april 2015 Nemo33 host an uw photo exhibition with my pictures. 14 large format prints are hanged from 1.5m to 10m. You can visit the exhibition in both freediving and scuba, it’s even possible to do a first experience dive or freedive with an instructor if you are not a diver yet.
I must say that I enjoy the project very much and I could rediscover my images as seeing them underwater send me back to the exact moment I took the shots.
So if you’re around Brussels in the next weeks give it a go!

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norwegian artcic adventures

Fred — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:00:06 +0000

This year all the ingredients were there for a successful Norwegian expedition: a good sailboat as base mobile base camp, a seaworthy rib, a great crew of 8 highly motivated and competent freedivers/sailors and of course a big chunk of luck! So far I’ve never been very lucky with orcas, only one elusive encounter in Antarctica in 2013 and a unsuccessful expedition last year. The luck turned around and we had real encounters, not just observations or animals swimming by. We gathered HD/4K videos, captured incredible 360° uw footage never seen before and tested new equipment for the Think! project . Some images will be forever engraved in my mind: a baby orca trained by adults to catch the herrings right in front of us, a pack of 5 humpbacks surrounding us while feeding, two gigantic fin whales stopping right under to look at us… the list of unforgettable underwater moments goes on and on. Maybe we deserved it a little bit as the conditions were very hard: the air temperature went down to -12°c , the water was at 2°c, the boat heating system died on the second day so we had ice inside the boat for the rest of the trip ,fortunately we had hot water to put on and remove the wetsuits. Oh and we also killed two drones…

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Expedition Guadalupe 2014

Fred — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 11:21:19 +0000

Back from our 2014 Guadalupe Island expedition. This year we spent a full month based on the island instead of operating from a liveboard like we usually do.

Camping on the island helps a lot to focus on the tagging work and allows to enjoy Guadalupe at its full potential! From my first visit I could feel that Guadalupe was not only about the white sharks, there is much much more. The island itself is spectacular, the mineral landscapes totally surreal.

Our camp was set in a old building near a beach. Well, by building I mean some old walls with areas partially covered with old plywood sheets, the place was full of mice and roaches, there is no fresh water nor electricity.

We asked boats to fill our water jerrycans and once every two days we fired up an old 2 strokes generator for an hour

in order to charge our electronics. One hour was just enough not to get fully suffocated by the exhaust gases…

We brought all our food with us on the island and sometimes we were getting a meal on one of the diving charter boats anchoring in the bay and taking the opportunity to give a talk about the research we were conducting to the guests. These conditions don’t sound particularly nice but there are so many things to see here that we din’t even think about it.

This year was an El Nino year, the water was 3°c warmer than it should be and the sharks stayed well below the 40m thermocline, where the conditions are more stable for them. The visibility was not as good either. The sharks rarely visited the surface waters. Well, that’s just the cycle of nature, we had to deal with it, we had to be more opportunistic to tag the sharks as they were not staying very long after their curiosity in the boat and the freedivers was satisfied. Despite these difficult conditions and the usual problems you can face during expeditions in remote locations….we could eventually tag 14 great whites, four of them with a new generation tags that were deployed for the first time ever. These tags will bring groundbreaking informations about the social behavior of the great whites during their annual migration to Dr Mauricio Hoyos and Dr Yannis Papastamatiou, the leading scientist of the study .We were aiming specifically at male sharks to place these new tags.

Now we’ll have to wait next year for the second phase of the study and recover the precious data’s the tags will provide…..I can’t wait for next year’s expedition!!!!

We would like to thank Islander Charters, the owners Shane and John, the captain Jason and his amazingly professional crew who helped us a lot by giving us a ride to and back from Gudalupe as well as logistical support when they were at the island with their guests.

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Lautlos unter Giganten on Servus TV 28sept 9pm

Fred — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:03:26 +0000

http://www.servustv.com/at/Medien/Lautlos-unter-Giganten

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whale newborn encounter

Fred — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:05:10 +0000

Today I probably had the most amazing experience I ever had in the Ocean. The funny thing is that yesterday I decided that today I’d post to a “blue” pic with nothing on it to show that for one successful day at sea, you’ll spend countless without seeing anything and not even mentioning that taking a decent pic of what you might see isn’t guaranteed either…
But this morning was just unbelievable: I got in with a socializing pod of sperm whales, and the reason of that big whale party was that a mother just gave birth to a calf a few minutes before…the water was still full of blood and the calf has part of its umbilical! For 30min we were in the middle of the celebration, feeling part of it, the mother was showing the calf to all the 20 others whales and even brought it to us!!!! These are very special moments happening in front of your eyes, you shouldn’t look for that because it might happen anytime, but the least you can do is to spend as much time as you can in the Ocean. Not more, not less.

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Time to Think!

Fred — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 10:00:07 +0000

Today we launch on Indiegogo our campaign to fund expeditions to gather data’s that will help to crack sperm whale language. It sounds crazy but this has nothing to do with new age stuff or people selling you trips to be in communion with marine mammals…it’s science, knowledge and years passion for these incredible animals. So jump onboard with us and get a chance to participate to the expedition and being part of the first 360° immersive documentary!

Think! On Indiegogo, click on the link!

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/98580566[/vimeo]

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