Biodiversitas dan Tingkah Laku Kemunculan Cetacea di Perairan Laut Sawu, Nusa Tenggara Timur
Authors: Raudina Anggit Sapta , Redjeki Sri , Taufiq-Spj Nur 
Published: October 2022

Perairan Indonesia memiliki lebih dari sepertiga jenis paus dan lumba-lumba dunia, termasuk juga beberapa jenis yang dikategorikan langka dan terancam punah. Beberapa jenis Cetacea yang menggunakan jalur migrasi melalui perairan Indonesia bagian Timur, antara lain Samudera Hindia dan Pasifik melalui perairan Kepulauan Komodo, Solor-Lembata (NTT), Laut Banda (Maluku), Sulawesi Tenggara, Sulawesi Utara dan Sorong-Fakfak (Papua). Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa Laut Sawu merupakan area pengasuhan dan mencari makan paus. Laut Sawu menjadi tempat potensial karena dijadikan jalur migrasi berbagai spesies Cetacea secara rutin. Sehingga penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisa keanekaragaman dan tingkah laku Cetacea yang bermigrasi. Penelitian ini dilakukan pada bulan November 2018 di perairan sekitar Teluk Kupang dan Sulamu dengan menggunakan metode pengamatan single platform yang telah dimodifikasi. Data diolah melalui aplikasi ArcGIS 10.4 dan Microsoft Office Excel. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa jumlah kemunculan Cetacea berbeda-beda tiap spesiesnya dengan total 114 kali kemunculan. Aktivitas yang dilakukan Cetacea saat kemunculan sangat beragam, namun yang paling banyak yaitu aerials dan bowriding dari jenis lumba-lumba, kemudian logging dan spyhopping dari jenis paus. Dari data ini dapat disimpulkan bahwa, lumba-lumba mempunyai kebiasaan untuk cenderung bermigrasi dalam satu kelompok besar. Sehingga kemunculan lumba-lumba sangat mendominasi di perairan Laut Sawu dibanding kemunculan paus yang cenderung soliter maupun dalam kelompok lebih kecil. More than one third of the world's whales and dolphins are found in Indonesian waters, including several that are categorized as rare and endangered species. Several types of cetaceans - migrate use eastern part of Indonesian waters as a migration route, i.e. between the Indian and Pacific Oceans through the waters of the Komodo Islands, Solor-Lembata (NTT), Banda Sea (Maluku), Southeast Sulawesi, North Sulawesi and Sorong-Fakfak (Papua). This indicated that the Savu Sea is a region for whales feeding ground and for their breeding.Apart from being a potential place for the Savu Sea to be used as a regular migration route for various cetacean species, it also has very promising tourism potential. Other than that, Migratory cetacean species are also very diverse, so this research was aims to analyze the diversity and behavior of cetaceans that migrate every year. This research was done in November 2018 around the Bay of Kupang and Sulamu, and a modified single platform observation method was used. The data were processed through the ArcGIS 10.4 and Microsoft Office Excel. The result shows that the occurrence number of cetaceans was in different species with a total of 114 appearances. The activities carried out by cetaceans at the time of emergence were varied, but the most common were aerials and bow-riding by dolphins, then logging and spyhopping by whales. Dolphins themselves are animals that tend to group in one large group so that their appearance is very dominant compared to whales which tend to be solitary and aggregated in small groups.