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.
Ballance and her team were on the trail of what they thought could be a totally new species that had been sighted, but not identified, near the garbage patch. But with more than half their time being eaten up by engine repairs and other delays, the team made the call to look for whales a bit closer to home.
Last week, Oregon’s two U.S. senators announced a $2 million grant to OSU to study potential impacts of offshore wind developments to seabirds and marine mammals. Project leader Lisa Ballance, director of the school’s Marine Mammal Institute, says data gathered in the survey will help the Department of Energy site wind facilities.
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.
In a video interview with KGW8 News, Stranding Program Manager Jim Rice talks about a dead gray whale that washed ashore near Yachats.
A reminder to please give a very wide berth to seal pups on the beach, including keeping dogs far away.
MMI Associate Professor Daniel Palacios coauthored a paper released this week that evaluates the global threats faced by 126 marine mammal species worldwide and the conservation methods available to address them.
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.
In his commentary on a recent study, MMI Associate Professor Daniel Palacios reflects on sperm whales' apparent ability to learn from each other and adapt quickly to human interference.
Jim Rice, stranding program manager for the Marine Mammal Institute, said it’s normal behavior for what the seal is currently going through — catastrophic molting.
Dr. Ellie Bors and coauthors were interviewed by Public Radio for the Central Kenai Peninsula about their recently published work on a new method to determine the ages of living beluga whales.
Thanks to a new genomic-based technique, researchers can now determine the age and sex of living beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
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.
Jim Rice was recently interviewed by the Willamette Week about the process of responding to marine mammal strandings on the Oregon coast.
A humpback whale reported floating dead in the Strait of Juan de Fuca last week was examined by a team led by Cascadia Research Collective and aided by several organizations including the MMI.
In this 15-min interview, Professor Scott Baker speaks to BYU Radio about mass strandings of whales. Last month, hundreds of pilot whales were found stranded on a sandbank in Tasmania.
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.
The Cut reached out to Dr. Renee Albertson, a marine biologist at the Marine Mammal Institute, who was able to shed some light on why dolphins excel at achieving every skin-care goal we strive for without a 12-step routine, pricey facials, or even thinking about it at all, really.
