Marine Mammal Institute

Springtime is pup season. At this time of year, harbor seal pups are frequently found alone on area beaches. They are usually not stranded, but simply resting (as all baby mammals must do) and waiting for their mothers to come back ashore to nurse them. Adult female seals are shy and unlikely to rejoin a pup if there is activity nearby. They may only return to suckle their pup at night when people (and dogs) are not around. It is very important not to interfere with this process, and especially not to move a pup from where it is receiving care from its mother.

Within three or four weeks of birth, harbor seal pups are weaned from maternal care and are left to fend for...

When endangered killer whales swim through the sheltered waters of Puget Sound, they leave behind traces of “environmental DNA” that researchers can detect as much as two hours later, a new study has found. The findings, published today in the journal Frontiers, are surprising and significant. They not only provide a new non-invasive way to study whales, they may help scientists locate cetacean species that are known but have rarely been detected – including...

We are pleased to congratulate Ellie Bors on receiving a Fulbright Arctic Initiative Scholar award. Dr. Bors is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Laboratory at the OSU Marine Mammal Institute, where she is developing molecular methods to age Cook Inlet beluga whales. Her Fulbright Arctic Initiative project will explore both the biological and policy implications of shifting distributions of Arctic fish stocks. In 2017, Ellie was a Sea Grant Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of International Affairs in Washington, DC. She completed her PhD in the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography.

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.

A new blog by veterinarian Dr. Lauren Jacobsen describes the adventure of searching for the source of elusive beaked whale vocalizations. Extracting eDNA from seawater offers an opportunity to collect biologic information from the animal generating these calls. The samples are being analyzed by Dr. Scott Baker and his team at the Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Lab at Oregon State University.

The Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Laboratory, led by Dr. Scott Baker, is seeking a postdoctoral scholar to specialize in epigenetic aging of beluga whales by next-generation sequencing. Apply by December 1, 2017, for full consideration.

The Department of Conservation will carefully review a study which has described a constant underwater racket created by seismic airguns. In a new blog post, US scientists Dr Leigh Torres, of Oregon State University, and Dr Holger Klinck, of Cornell University, have aired their concerns over the oil and gas industry's use of the instruments, which they say are having a harmful impact on marine life.

As in past years, we are currently seeing a significant increase in the frequency of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) appearing on Oregon beaches in varying states of health and disease. Many have been affected by Leptospirosis, a contagious bacterial infection of the kidneys. This disease causes animals to appear very lethargic and unable or unwilling to move their hind limbs, and is often accompanied by weight loss and pneumonia. While it is possible for infected animals to recover from this disease if given plenty of opportunity to rest, there is no option to rescue and rehabilitate these animals in...

Humpback whales, it seems, are coping with dwindling marine resources by moving inland. A sharp decline in the Pacific's krill (small shrimp) have them shopping for alternatives. "They're hungry," said Bruce Mate, director of the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute in Newport and one of the world's leading whale scientists. "They wouldn't be there if there wasn't something to eat."