Marine Mammal Institute

Leigh Torres's work has taken her all over the world as she studies the behavior and environment of marine animals including blue whales. She recently returned from a research trip off the coast of New Zealand.

Postdoctoral Scholar Hannah Myers and colleagues found that 42 of 199 tagged Chinook salmon were eaten by salmon sharks.

Two sea turtles washed up along Oregon’s beaches in the final days of 2024, bringing the number of sea turtles that appeared on the state’s shores last year to 17, the highest number the state has seen. “During the winter months, in particular, we tend to see sea turtles succumbing to hypothermia,” said Jim Rice, program manager at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

MMI Postdoctoral Scholar Taylor Hersh has been named one of five women in science awardees by L’Oreal USA for 2024, a recognition that also comes with a $60,000 grant that will support her research on the diversity and temporal dynamics of bowhead whale song.

Drone video of gray whales captured over seven years off Oregon has revealed new details about how the giant marine mammals find and eat food. “Before this study, we thought that any whale used any of those behaviors,” said the lead author of both studies, Clara Bird, a researcher at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. “No one really thought that there was a pattern in who used which behavior.”

Drone footage captured by researchers in Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute is offering new insight into the acrobatics undertaken by gray whales foraging in the waters off the coast of Oregon. The findings were just published in two new papers authored by Clara Bird and co-authored by Leigh Torres.

Leigh Torres and her team of scientists from Oregon State University perform field studies on the conveniently located whales. 

A new paper based on data collected from MMI shows that Pacific Coast Feeding Group gray whales have gotten significantly smaller over the past two decades. The smaller size raises questions of whether this subgroup of whales can maintain a healthy population.

A new study from MMI shows that booming sea urchin populations result in less prey for gray whales. The paper is first-authored by PhD candidate Lisa Hildebrand and published in Nature Scientific Reports.