Drone video of gray whales captured over seven years off Oregon has revealed new details about how the giant marine mammals find and eat food. “Before this study, we thought that any whale used any of those behaviors,” said the lead author of both studies, Clara Bird, a researcher at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. “No one really thought that there was a pattern in who used which behavior.”
Drone footage captured by researchers in Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute is offering new insight into the acrobatics undertaken by gray whales foraging in the waters off the coast of Oregon. The findings were just published in two new papers authored by Clara Bird and co-authored by Leigh Torres.
Leigh Torres and her team of scientists from Oregon State University perform field studies on the conveniently located whales.
A study by OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute and colleagues reveals that gray whales in a small group that sticks close to the shores of the Pacific Northwest appear to be shrinking — and shockingly quickly.
A new paper based on data collected from MMI shows that Pacific Coast Feeding Group gray whales have gotten significantly smaller over the past two decades. The smaller size raises questions of whether this subgroup of whales can maintain a healthy population.
Doctoral candidate Lisa Hildebrand was interviewed by Jefferson Public Radio about her recent publication in Scientific Reports documenting the relationships between kelp forest health and gray whales. [Audio]
A new study from MMI shows that booming sea urchin populations result in less prey for gray whales. The paper is first-authored by PhD candidate Lisa Hildebrand and published in Nature Scientific Reports.
In a hearing by the Environment Protection Authority of New Zealand, Leigh Torres testified about the potential impact of industrial noise pollution on a population of blue whales in the South Taranaki Bight.
“I have spent a lot of time at sea in all oceans of the world, and I’ve seen a lot of amazing things,” said Lisa Ballance, director of OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute. “A hoary bat was a first for all of us. It’s a reminder of the wonder of nature, and of its vulnerability.”
What has [Clara] Bird particularly intrigued is the idea that gray whales now starting to show up in the Atlantic Ocean may be early efforts to establish the same sort of separate population that the Pacific Coast Feeding Group has successfully accomplished closer to home.
PhD student Lisa Hildebrand talks to the Marine Mammal Science Podcast about her research studying the prey of gray whales.
Josh Stewart and Leigh Torres are featured in this PBS mini-documentary about new understandings of gray whale Unusual Mortality Events.
On this episode of the Marine Mammal Science Podcast, Associate Professor Leigh Torres talks about the health and habitat of the “summer resident” gray whales.
Gray whales that spend their summers feeding off the coast of Oregon are shorter than their counterparts who travel north to the Arctic for food, new research from Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute shows. The females average 3 feet shorter and males average 1.5 feet shorter, said the study’s lead author, K.C. Bierlich, a postdoctoral scholar in the institute’s Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory.
A new paper authored by Leigh Torres and Susanne Brander estimates that gray whales feeding off the Oregon Coast consume up to 21 million microparticles per day. Microparticle pollution is a threat to the health of gray whales, in addition to obstacles related to increased boat traffic and loss of prey.
