Marine Mammal Institute

It appears that Oregon will have a new license plate with the image of a gray whale mother and her calf after the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute sold its 3,000th voucher for the plates earlier this week. The Marine Mammal Institute will continue to sell the $40 vouchers for the next few weeks at www.whaleplate.com, For each voucher sold, the institute will receive $35, which will help fund marine mammal research and education. “There has been a great deal of enthusiasm from Oregonians for the new plates – not only because of how striking they are, but also because they will help fund whale conservation efforts,” said OSU’s Bruce Mate, who directs the institute.

"Whales are very acoustic animals, so we assume that a lot of the cues they get about where food is located are based on sound," said Leigh Torres, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University in Newport and collaborator on the research project.

For the past two-plus years, the carcass of a 78-foot blue whale that washed ashore near Gold Beach, Oregon, in November 2015 has been submerged in Yaquina Bay allowing nature to run its course by having scavengers clean the bones. The cleansing process is nearly complete, according to researchers with the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, who hope to bring the skeleton to the surface and treat it with chemicals to get oil out of the bones. Eventually, they hope to display it for the public as an educational exhibit at the new Marine Studies Building that OSU will open in late 2019 on the Hatfield Marine Science Center campus in Newport.

The College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University is seeking a Director of the OSU Marine Mammal Institute. For the complete position description and application instructions, visit https://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/52816. Apply by January 15, 2018, for full consideration. Position closes February 15, 2018.

Oregonians may now purchase a voucher for a new license plate featuring a gray whale and her calf, with proceeds going to support the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute. The voucher can be purchased for $40 through the institute at whaleplate.com. Once 3,000 vouchers have been sold, the Oregon DMV will begin manufacturing the plates. The OSU Marine Mammal Institute will receive $35 for each pair of license plates sold, which will support whale research, graduate student education and public outreach.

A bacteria outbreak is making sea lions sick along the Oregon Coast, so state officials are warning people and their dogs to stay away from the animals. The outbreak began in September and likely will last into December, said Jim Rice, coordinator with the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Anyone who comes across a sick sea lion or other ill marine mammal is asked to stay at least 50 feet away and call Oregon State Police dispatchers at 800-452-7888.

Sperm whales are social animals that travel in groups, but when it comes to eating, they prefer a table for one. That's one of the takeaways from a study conducted by researchers at Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute. The research was published in late August in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

“Our increased understanding of how whale populations are structured can help governments and inter-governmental organizations like the International Whaling Commission improve management decisions in the future,” said Dr. C. Scott Baker of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and a member of the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium that contributed to the study.

Blue whales didn’t become the largest animals ever to live on Earth by being dainty eaters and new video captured by scientists at Oregon State University shows just how they pick and choose their meals.