Marine Mammal Institute

The North Pacific humpback whale population had been recovering from commercial whaling over four decades when it abruptly declined during a massive marine heatwave that warmed the eastern Pacific Ocean, scientists reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Co-authors include Daniel Palacios, Craig Hayslip, and Jay Barlow.

Maurico Cantor has been appointed as a National Geographic Explorer as part of the Wildlife Intelligence Project. This new initiative will fund and follow three early career scientists as they embark on animal cognition and behavior research that will potentially change how humans view, interact, and connect with wildlife. 

What has [Clara] Bird particularly intrigued is the idea that gray whales now starting to show up in the Atlantic Ocean may be early efforts to establish the same sort of separate population that the Pacific Coast Feeding Group has successfully accomplished closer to home.

The climate crisis is upending a unique and complex ecosystem that has existed in the Arctic for millennia. The loss of sea ice means more vessels can pass through the Bering Strait, bringing more ocean noise and pollution and driving up the risk of catastrophic oil spills and deadly ship strikes. In this special issue of The Circle magazine, Angie Szesciorka asks, What will this mean for bowhead whales — an ecologically and culturally important species — and the Indigenous communities that rely on them?

“They’re not afraid of boats, and there’s nothing for them to eat there,” said Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. “They’re intelligent, social animals, and they live in what I think is probably an under-stimulating environment for their mental capacity.”

When scientists listen with sensors placed throughout the oceans, Kate Stafford said, “it can seem quite loud and chaotic.” Marine wildlife like whales, dolphins, and many fish “are not visual like most of us humans are,” Stafford said, and “largely rely on their sense of hearing to navigate their world.” 

Kate Stafford, an associate professor and bio-acoustician at Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute, joins today to explain how a film brought her to the Republic of Seychelles to locate blue whales using their vocalizations, share insights into whale song and explain how she hears climate change.

Josh Stewart and Leigh Torres are featured in this PBS mini-documentary about new understandings of gray whale Unusual Mortality Events.

In 2021, Kate Stafford and Ladd Irvine took part in a research voyage aimed at finding and identifying a population of blue whales in the Seychelles. In this article from BBC, Dr. Stafford describes the research as well as the fascinating qualities of blue whale song.