Marine Mammal Institute

During January 2020, the British Antarctic Survey’s wild water whales team has been conducting surveys for southern right whales all around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. MMI's Dr. Scott Baker is on the team of ten international experts from five countries (the UK, USA, Canada, Brazil, and New Zealand), which includes marine mammal observers, photo-ID specialists, geneticists, acousticians, a drone pilot, and an expert in satellite tagging. The wild water whales expedition is running for 33 days on New Zealand research vessel the R/V Braveheart.

After more than three years of rest in the Yaquina Bay in Newport, the skeleton of a 78-foot blue whale was brought back to dry land this week so it can be preserved and prepared for a public display.

Oregon Sea Grant’s annual State of the Coast conference, will be held Nov. 9 at the Salishan resort in Gleneden Beach. Among the panelists will be MMI's new director, Dr. Lisa T. Ballance, in a session about whale research off the West Coast, the Unusual Mortality Event of gray whales, and fishing perspectives on the impacts of increasing whale entanglements.

Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute researchers using electronic tags were able to monitor blue and fin whales off the coast of Southern California over multiple weeks, providing new insight into the feeding behaviors of the two largest whale species. “The information collected with these tags gives us a good description of the scale of whales’ feeding behavior over periods of hours, days and weeks, which is something we’ve not been able to do before,” said Ladd Irvine, a senior faculty research assistant in OSU's Marine Mammal Institute and the study’s lead author.

MMI Associate Director Scott Baker is co-author on a study that describes new subspecies of short-finned pilot whale using genomic and mitogenomic data collected from individuals throughout the global range of the species. The results support the hypothesis that food-poor regions of the central Pacific Ocean have isolated these populations, leading to evolutionary divergence, despite the absence of physical barriers. The proposal to recognize the subspecies is important new information for managers and conservationists.

Blue whales reach their massive size by relying on their exceptional memories to find historically productive feeding sites rather than responding in real time to emerging prey patches, a new study concludes.

MMI graduate Dr. Alana Alexander has been awarded a Rutherford Foundation postdoctoral fellowship for research entitled, “Hologenomics for conservation: a first test of utility.” Congratulations, Alana!

Oregon Public Broadcasting filmed Dr. Leigh Torres in action, as she researches underwater sound and whale health.

Scientists at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute have pioneered new ways of documenting these incredible whale defecation events with aerial drones. Leigh Torres, an OSU MMI marine ecologist, is a specialist in this field who has helped capture illuminating views of gray whales for several years.