Marine Mammal Institute

A sperm whale carcass washed up on a northern Oregon beach this week. Jim Rice, stranding program manager, said, "We document an average of six large whale strandings annually in Oregon. In the vast majority of cases, the animal is dead before it comes ashore."

Charles Nye, a graduate fellow with OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute, said he was able to examine some organic material from the crabbing gear line. Nye has determined that the dead orca was not [endangered Southern Resident killer whale] K44. 

The federal government has commissioned Oregon State University to look into the possible impacts of offshore wind farms on marine wildlife. “The (continental) shelf and the slope have high abundance and high density of marine mammals and seabirds,” reported OSU Marine Mammal Institute director Lisa Ballance after the first two of seven planned research cruises were in the books. Ballance said her team needs to do a lot more analysis before she would consider making any statements about whether anchoring massive floating wind turbines amid this maritime abundance would create problems.

“Because extensive commercial shipping in the Arctic is a relatively new phenomenon, Arctic species may have a lower tolerance of, and react more strongly to, such noise,” said [Kate] Stafford, [Associate Professor at MMI]. 

The biologically rich waters along the West Coast are prime feeding grounds for baleen whales, especially during summer. These waters also support busy international shipping routes to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in southern California, and Oakland, Richmond, Benicia, Redwood City, and San Francisco off central California. The Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at UC Santa Barbara, along with a consortium of research and conservation institutions including MMI, have recently launched Whale Safe for the San Francisco Bay region. Whale Safe is a technology-based mapping and analysis tool designed to prevent fatal ship collisions with whales. Whale Safe was originally designed for...

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. 

A new study from a team including MMI Assistant Professor Mauricio Cantor found that sperm whales in the Pacific Ocean make distinct vocalizations that help them identify whales in different clans.

In 1995, Professor Scott Baker established research on southern right whales at the Auckland Islands, the same time as Stewart's research at Campbell Island. This collaboration led to a joint publication and acknowledgements of support in subsequent work.

When North Atlantic right whales get entangled in fishing gear, it can have long-term consequences for their populations. Not only can the energy cost of carrying the gear around cause the whales to become smaller, it can also result in them having fewer calves. “These impacts are influencing population growth rates,” said Joshua Stewart, assistant professor at the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute.