Researchers fail to detect signal from rare whale

"I think our adventure with Flex is over for now," said Bruce Mate, director of Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute, which worked on the tracking project with the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "We've got a great track record and lots of great stuff to look at."

Markus Horning at Science on Tap

NEWPORT – Oregon State University marine mammal researcher Markus Horning  steps to the bar for this month’s Science on Tap lecture, with The secret lives or seals: Using high-tech marvels to pry into ocean depths.

In recent research, the high-tech tools have helped show that more juvenile Steller sea lions are falling to predators than had been thought, casting doubt on prospects for the animals’ ability to recover from recent population decline in Alaskan waters.

Scientists use DNA to identify species killed during early whaling days

“From a preliminary look at the DNA sequences, it appears that there was a high level of genetic diversity in these whales, which is what we’d expect from pre-exploitation samples,” said Angela Sremba, a doctoral student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University and lead author on the study.

Beached whale will be buried

The whale was already dead when spotted from the air earlier this week, said Bruce Mate, executive director of Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine ...

Scientists find evidence suggesting herding behavior in sperm whales

Toothed whales are known to form long-standing social groups – especially among females – and scientists have hypothesized that these bonds are created to fend off sub-dominant males interested in mating, and to watch after each other’s offspring while individual females dive for food.

Scientists think whale's tracking device on fritz

Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, who, with Russian colleagues, tagged Flex last fall in his summer feeding grounds in the Sea of Okhotsk, suspects the tag has fallen off.




Registration Support for Students, Research Staff, and Faculty to Attend Scientific Conferences in Fall 2021
7th International Bio-logging Science Symposium (BLS7)

With support from the Oregon Gray Whale License Plate program to cover registration costs, three members of the WHET Lab participated in the 7th International Bio-logging Science Symposium (BLS7), 18-22 October 2021. BLS7 is a triennial international conference for researchers using animal-borne technologies to discuss their results and recent technical and analytical advances. This year's meeting was conducted entirely virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic so all presentations were pre-recorded. Our three presentations at BLS7 were (click on the linked titles...

Scientists still following far-ranging Varvara as Russian whale returns

NEWPORT, Ore. – After visiting three different lagoons in the Pacific Ocean side of Baja Mexico, a rare western gray whale named “Varvara” is migrating up the West Coast – presumably en route to her home range near Russia’s Sakhalin Island....By Friday, the 9-year-old female was near the Washington/Canadian border, traveling northward at a rate of up to 100 miles a day.

Scott Baker visits South Africa to lecture on conservation genetics

Professor Scott Baker, Associate Director of the Marine Mammal Institute, was in South Africa this month (May 2013) as a contributing lecturer at a workshop on Advances in Conservation Genetics. The workshop was sponsored by the American Genetic Association and hosted by University of Pretoria and the Southern African Wildlife College.

Gray whale recovery called incorrect

The success story of the Pacific gray whales' full recovery from near-extinction is wrong, according to a new genetic analysis that pegs the current population at only one-third to one-fifth of historical levels.

Why Whale Tracking Matters (The Oregonian editorial)

This opinion piece focuses on funding for the Marine Mammal/Marine Genomics Building at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.

C Scott Baker conducts research on world's smallest and rarest dolphins

The population of the world’s smallest and rarest dolphins has dropped by half in the past seven years to an estimated 55 individuals, according to research released March 13 by the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC), the University of Auckland and Oregon State University.

Researchers from OSU Study Whales Affected by DeepWater Horizon Spill

A team of marine mammal researchers from Newport, Oregon is headed to the Gulf of Mexico next week to tag Sperm Whales near the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. They'll find out how the whales are doing 3 years later. Bruce Mate is Director of the Marine Mammal Institute at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. He says his team has been going to the Gulf region since before the oil spill.

MMI researchers study gray whale migration along the Oregon Coast.

Researchers will conduct shore-based observations to track the migration of gray whales as they pass Yaquina Head on the central Oregon coast.

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For more information on wave energy development in the Pacific Northwest, click here.

Bruce Mate tracks rare whale migrating up West Coast

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The Loneliest Whale in the World?

The MMI's Bruce Mate will be leading a scientific team on a search for the "52-Hz whale" next fall. The expedition is planned as part of a documentary about the elusive whale and will involve tagging whales in the eastern North Pacific. Because it is possible to hear this distinctive whale over large distances, Dr. Mate's team will rely on the leadership of NOAA's Bob Dziak and the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab's access to fixed hydrophones in the North Pacific to guide the search, find the whale, and tag some of its cohorts.

MMI attends Society for Marine Mammalogy meeting in Capetown, South Africa.

Four MMI scientists flew to Capetown, South Africa, in November 2007 to present their research findings at the 17th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals.

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Post-doctoral position in 'genomics diversity of endangered whales' available - Apply by June 15, 2010!

Position in the Cetacean Conservation Genetics Laboratory for a post-doc in 'genomic divrsity of endangered whales' - click here for description and details.

 

Scientists hope OSU whale-tracking data can reduce accidental deaths

A multi-agency team of scientists has launched a project to reduce the number of whales killed from ship strikes and entanglement in fishing nets by identifying high-risk areas along the West Coast of the United States. The WhaleWatch project will use data from the tagging and satellite monitoring of more than 300 whales, conducted by researchers at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.

Expedition Austral Islands: A Comprehensive Study of Whales and Dolphins in French Polynesia

MMI PhD student Renee Albertson is in the Austral Islands collecting data on whales and dolphins as part of the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium. The results of this project will contribute to long-term, ongoing genetic and demographic studies of residency patterns and social organization among whales and dolphins throughout French Polynesia. Follow Renee’s adventure through her bilingual blog.

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