Marine Mammal Institute

A new paper authored by Leigh Torres and Susanne Brander estimates that gray whales feeding off the Oregon Coast consume up to 21 million microparticles per day. Microparticle pollution is a threat to the health of gray whales, in addition to obstacles related to increased boat traffic and loss of prey.

An increase in killer whales attacking boats off Europe have some people asking, are they being playful or seeking revenge? “My personal opinion is that people do revenge, animals don’t do revenge,” said Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist.

It's the heart of harbor seal pupping season. Jim Rice, the stranding program manager for Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, said seal pups may come ashore and seem stranded, but they’re just waiting for their mom to retrieve them.

Few beachgoers can resist the desire for a close-up look at these fascinating mammals, but Rice warns that it’s best to give them a wide berth.

On Monday, May 8, whale watchers along the Oregon coast spotted a rare sight: a pod of orcas appearing to hunt prey together in an organized group. According to Craig Hayslip, a faculty research assistant with the Marine Mammal Institute at OSU who witnessed the event, the mother defended the calf throughout the time it was being attacked and long after it was dead.

Lisa T. Ballance and Robert Pitman led an international team in 2019 that collected samples from living "type D" killer whales for the first time. The genetic laboratories of NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center are now helping decipher the genetic patterns from the samples. Results just published in the Journal of Heredity indicate that the “type D” killer whales have among the lowest genomic diversity and highest level of inbreeding of any mammalian species.

The blue whale’s 70-foot-long carcass washed up in Gold Beach, Oregon in 2015. Often whales sink to the ocean floor and are picked apart by predators and scavengers, making the odds of a nearly complete carcass being recovered exceptionally rare. “It’s an exciting opportunity for us and we’re thrilled to make it happen,” [Lisa] Ballance said.

MMI Research Associate Angela Szesciorka and Associate Professor Kate Stafford talk to Alaska News Source about their findings related to changes in bowhead whale migration patterns. [VIDEO]

“Conceptually it makes sense that an individual would have to gain enough energy to survive and reproduce, but we were able to demonstrate how entwined these are and suggest when survival may be prioritized over reproduction,” said co-first author Keith Hernandez, who worked on the study as a postdoctoral scholar at UCSC and is now at Oregon State University.