'Flex' Leads Researchers to Five Endangered Western Gray Whales

The saga of Flex the whale continues to deliver surprises a year after the 13-year-old male western (North Pacific) gray whale was tagged and took scientific observers on a four-month, satellite-tracked ride, far from the Asian coast where he was expected to migrate, across the Bering Sea, through the Gulf of Alaska and down the west coast of North America.

Coastal visitors may encounter whales – but what kind are they likely to be?

For the past several weeks, gray whales that spent the spring breeding or calving in the waters off Mexico have been arriving in the Pacific Northwest to feed for the summer and fall, including areas along the Oregon coast. But gray whales aren’t the only species of whale that can be seen off Oregon, according to experts at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.

Beastly Appetites: The Animals We Love Too Much to Eat

"Hambleton took the meat, froze it, and the following morning sent it by courier to Scott Baker, the associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University and an expert in cetacean molecular genetics. Baker, who recently established a database of whale, dolphin, and porpoise DNA, identified the meat as sei, the fourth largest of the baleen whales."  [The New Yorker, Nov. 4, 2013]

Whales tagged in anticipation of another marathon journey

Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, who has been part of the satellite tagging team both years, said he expects the Russian whales to stay around Sakhalin Island until January, which is when Flex took off.

New study identifies five distinct humpback populations in North Pacific

“Though humpback whales are found in all oceans of the world, the North Pacific humpback whales should probably be considered a sub-species at an ocean-basin level – based on genetic isolation of these populations on an evolutionary time scale,” said Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and lead author on the paper.

National Geographic Magazine article on blue whale

Read the National Geographic story about blue whales online.  This article by Kenneth Brower, tells about the second part of a National Geographic-funded expedition to discover breeding and feeding grounds of the world's largest mammal, the blue whale.   National Geographic Channel will first air this TV special on March 8th - please check for times on your local TV listings.

See the...

Terra Magazine Article features Markus Horning - "Polar Plunge"

Markus Horning, pinniped ecologist for the Marine Mammal Institute, will venture to the Antarctic in October to study Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii), the southernmost mammals on the planet.

Psst. Wanna Buy a Whale?

Second, if trade in whale meat is legalized, it could be difficult to identify black market meat. Monitoring and enforcement would be a challenge. "These problems are not easily solved," adds Scott Baker of Oregon State University, Corvallis. His molecular sleuthing of whalemeat markets has shows a large trade in illegal or unreported whale products. A return to commercial whaling, he suspects, would provide even greater incentives for illegal hunting.

Bycatch whaling a growing threat

Scientists are warning that a new form of unregulated whaling has emerged along the coastlines of Japan and South Korea, where the commercial sale of whales killed as fisheries "bycatch" is threatening coastal stocks of minke whales and other protected species.

NOAA and University Scientists Launch Research Cruise to Determine Effects of Oil Spill on Endangered Whales

NOAA ship Gordon Gunter departed July 1st to continue its mission to evaluate the effects of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill on whales and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, including the endangered sperm whale. This project includes leading researchers from Cornell University, Oregon State University, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who will work with NOAA scientists to monitor the distributions and movements of whales over the next several months.

Heceta Head Coastal Conference set Oct. 26–27

Global connections across the Pacific Ocean in science, economics and policies — and how these things affect Oregon's ocean — are the focus of the eighth annual Heceta Head Coastal Conference, Oct. 26–27 at the Florence Events Center. Scientists, policy-makers and community leaders — including Oregon first lady Cylvia Hayes and Oregon State University marine mammal specialist Bruce Mate — will address the theme “Oregon's Oceans: Bringing the High Seas Home” during the two-day conference, which is open to the public.

New species of river dolphin born of Amazon rapids

"It's exciting evidence for a previously unrecognised species within the ancient lineage of Amazon river dolphins," says Scott Baker of Oregon State University in Newport. "Yet it's already rare, and its habitat is now fragmented by dams."

Chasing Giants: A whale tracker reflects on four decades of searching for answers
1859 Oregon's Magazine:

Every spring for almost thirty years, Bruce Mate makes his way down to Baja to reconnect with the same female gray whales. Over four decades, he’s witnessed their transition from smooth-skinned youth into mothers. More recently, he’s seen wrinkles start to appear around some of their eyes, each eye roughly the size of a baseball. He’s met and played with their offspring, even seeing some from the next generation become mothers themselves. These whales feel like family to him. 

Digital Photography Workshop with Flip Nicklin

The MMI is hosting a 3-day digital photography workshop featuring world-renowned nature photographer, Flip Nicklin...

OSU’s Bruce Mate joins Russian scientists to track endangered whale

A team of scientists from Russia and the United States has successfully tagged and is tracking by satellite a whale from one of the world’s most endangered populations – a western gray whale off the coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island.

OSU Spotlight: Education on Ice

After five hours on a 140-ton C-17 military aircraft that had taken off from Christchurch, New Zealand, Mee-ya Monnin, peering through one of the plane’s small circular windows, saw white ice covering the ocean. The members of her research team and military men on the plane with Monnin chuckled as she squealed and jumped up and down in her seat.

Read more about Monnin’s first season in Antarctica and follow her this fall as she returns at blogs.oregonstate.edu/hailingfrozenthoughts/.

A whale’s tale: Fighting for survival

Mate is now a professor in the department of fisheries and wildlife and is the director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Hatfield Marine Science Center.

Protected whales found in Japan’s supermarkets

Many of us get a feeling of satisfaction when we learn that governments or international bodies have issued regulations to protect imperiled wildlife. Such as whales. Then we encounter a paper like the one in the October Animal Conservation that snaps us out of our complacency. Its new data drive home once more that rules have value only if they’ll be enforced. [read the article]

“FLEX” UPDATE: WHALE FROM ENDANGERED POPULATION SURPRISES SCIENTISTS

A lone western gray whale, tagged off Russia’s Sakhalin Island by scientists in September and tracked for more than 70 days, has suddenly taken off from its feeding area and sped across the Sea of Okhotsk to the west side of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Predators may block recovery of Alaska sea lions, scientists say

Researchers at Oregon State University and the Alaska Sealife Center started tracking 36 juvenile Steller sea lions in 2005. By November, 12 had died, a death rate that's not exceptional, OSU marine mammal expert Markus Horning said Thursday.

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