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My name is Glicia Gomes.
I’ve been working for Shell for eight years right now.
Part of the most interesting part of my job is to give support
to the whales project that Shell has sponsored since 2001.
The project is basically to discover the migratory route of the humpback whales.
So, the beginning of this project was to answer this question: where are these whales going?
This project is really important to Shell because as you have all this information,
this knowledge about whales’ behaviour, what is exactly the migratory route,
where they are, what are the critical points for them, this population.
When you need to take part in a bid round, for example, to achieve some areas
you can make the right decisions.
Sometimes if you go a little bit north or a little bit south
you will not have the same impact on this population.
If you keep doing this, supporting this research,
you will always have more information to take the right decisions.
The evidence is that, at least for humpback whales,
it seems that rigs and all this oil industry,
when it is offshore, is not causing any huge impact on this population.
Even though the oil industry is increasing in this area – Campos Basin, Santos Basin,
Espirito Santos Basin – this population is also increasing,
so now you can see humpback whales all around the coastline of Brazil, which is great.
Usually, the project would start in September that is the high season for humpback whales in Brazil
and goes through to October or November so it is the best period to spot them and to tag them.
When they identify the whales to tag
it is not to get the results or information for our oil company actually,
they are answering important questions for the scientific community.
And Shell is just tasking an opportunity to learn with them.
The first time that I had the opportunity to be close to this big mammal,
it’s 15 metres usually; it’s a huge emotion.
The whale is right here and you just listen to the noise like “ssshhh”; it’s fantastic.
So when we are on the project, we avoid getting close the groups that we call competition groups.
That’s the whales that are jumping. Or sometimes we find calves.
They like to play and start jumping
and sometimes you don’t know if they will jump and just get inside the boat.
I am really proud to have the opportunity to work with these guys.
We are building a great relationship with them.
Now it’s more than partners to us. Or just a project that Shell is sponsoring.
We have a friendship. So when they need some advice from us, they ask.
When we need something from them, we can ask.
We have this freedom. And I think it’s great.
It’s very rare you have this kind of relationship.