Researchers with Oregon State University have spent so much time with our local gray whales that they know them by name. Now, they’re sharing those observations to help casual whale watchers become better acquainted with the animals and to help raise money for additional research through the their Adopt a Whale campaign.
Dawn Barlow and colleagues listened to the blue whale undersea chorus in the South Taranaki Bight, New Zealand. To their surprise, they found that the whales appeared to be unperturbed by natural seismic activity.
MMI grad student and postdoctoral researchers were recently aboard the R/V Bell M. Shimada as part of ongoing marine mammal surveys. Listen to a 4-min story here to share in their excitement over finding the tiny crustaceans that whales call food.
“All these sightings over the past month have been pretty exciting,” Leigh Torres said. “And what’s especially cool here is that you can view them from the shore pretty easily.”
“The gray whales eat mainly mysids while here off Oregon, so we are guessing that food supply might be reduced,” [Leigh] Torres said.
[Leigh] Torres is hoping to see more and healthier whales this year. Some of the underfed whales they spotted in years past have not recovered to where researchers think they should be.
The Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory at OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute has developed a website that allows visitors to meet some of the whales the researchers have identified over the years. IndividuWhale aims to teach about the animals, the stressors humans put on whale populations, and how those stressors can be reduced.
KC Bierlich, currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Marine Mammal Institute, was a PhD student at Duke University when he contributed to the project. “They are eating so much more than we thought. It’s crazy,” Bierlich said.
Certain hormones in gray whales could act as a distress signal, revealing how whales cope when it’s harder for them to find food.
Dawn Barlow is the lead author on a paper that describes new ways of predicting when and where blue whales will occur off New Zealand.
A new paper by MMI Affiliate Rachael Orben and MMI Associate Professor Leigh Torres describes a new method of analyzing encounters between albatross and commercial fishing vessels.
A new paper authored by Leila Lemos describes the variability of hormones in the fecal samples collected from different age and sex classes of gray whales in Oregon over three years. The work was part of Dr. Lemos's graduate research at MMI.
ODFW is asking commercial Dungeness crab industry representatives to help design the next steps in reducing risk of whale and sea turtle entanglements in crab fishing gear. ODFW is hosting virtual public meetings Oct. 8 and Oct. 22 to further develop the draft conservation plan describing Oregon’s actions to both support this culturally iconic fishery and reduce entanglements.
Marine Mammal Institute researchers who recently discovered a population of blue whales in New Zealand are learning more about the links between the whales, their prey, and ocean conditions that are changing as the planet warms.
In an interview last night with KGW8, Dr. Leigh Torres discussed her research on the health of gray whales off the Oregon coast. Dr. Torres and her team found that, overall, the whales’ body condition deteriorated after three years of poor upwelling conditions.
