Category Archives: Science / Conservation

SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series: Friends Through Thick and Thin: How Injuries Disrupt Bottlenose Dolphin Associations

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The SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.

Thursday, 16 December 2021 at 4 PM EDT (1 PM PDT / 9 PM UTC)
SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series: Friends Through Thick and Thin: How Injuries Disrupt Bottlenose Dolphin Associations

About this talk:
Social connectivity is important for measuring the fitness of common bottlenose dolphins because social relationships can enhance survival, reproduction and foraging success.  Human-related injuries such as boat strikes or fishing gear entanglements can potentially remove an individual from its association network and disrupt these relationships. Using data from the long-term resident dolphin community in Sarasota Bay, Florida, we investigated how these injuries affect the dolphins’ social associations by examining the differences in their social networks before and after injury. We found that while injured dolphins were found in groups of similar size to those prior to their injury, their number of preferential associations (i.e., their best friends) seemed to decline immediately after injury but were often regained within two years following injury. An individual’s strongest associations, namely those between mothers and calves and those between male alliance partners, remained stable before and after injury. Because dolphins rely on these relationships for survival, increased occurrence of injury from boating and fishing may put the animals at greater risk for long-term survival, including making them more vulnerable to predation.

About the presenter and co-authors:
Michelle Greenfield is a veterinary student at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine (2023). She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University where she began her research with the Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. Since then, Michelle has continued her studies of marine mammals working with organizations such as Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institute and the United States Navy’s Marine Mammal Program. Her research interests focus on bottlenose dolphin social behavior and regenerative medicine in marine mammals. In addition to her research and clinical work, Michelle is the producer and host of Aquadocs Podcast, a top 50 life sciences podcast and the leading podcast on aquatic veterinary medicine (www.aquadocspodcast.com).

Open access to all Marine Mammal Science papers is available to current SMM members. Open access to this article will be made temporarily available to the public during the week prior to and of the presentation.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select  presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

 

SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series: Patterns of mortality in endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales

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You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.

Join us on Tuesday, 16 November 2021 at 2 PM AKST (3 PM PDT / 10 PM UTC)
for the next SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series:
Patterns of mortality in endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales:
Insights from pairing a long-term photo-identification study with stranding records with Dr. Tamara McGuire of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID Project.

Free to attend. Registration required. Presented online on Zoom.
Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_O7140C1TR7-CREClYeWLkw
Space on Zoom is limited to the first 500 attendees. The talk will also be streamed live on the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
To understand why endangered beluga whales in Cook Inlet Alaska are not recovering despite over a decade of legal protections, we need to understand recent demographic patterns and sources of the population’s mortality. We used photographic records of individually identified live belugas collected over 13 years and combined them with stranding data from belugas found dead during the same period to assess mortality patterns.  Dead females and males were evenly represented. For both males and females, mortality rates were greatest in reproductive-aged adults, and there were no very-old adults. Live stranding was the most commonly assigned cause of death, but did not account for the majority of deaths. The cause(s) of most deaths and live strandings were undetermined. Our analysis advances the current understanding of mortality patterns in CIBWs, but linking a greater proportion of carcasses to photo-ID individuals and collecting more data from stranded carcasses would further improve our understanding of the causes of mortality in this population; we conclude with recommendations for achieving this.

About the presenter and co-authors:
Dr. Tamara McGuire is the Principal Investigator for the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID project. She has studied marine mammals for over 25 years and is interested in habitat use, life history, behavior, and the effects of human activities on endangered and threatened aquatic species and their habitats. She has studied marine mammals in Alaska since 2006, and before that on the Oregon Coast and in the Orinoco and Amazon River Basins. She has worked with Federal, Tribal, and State agencies, NGOs, and private industry. She led the Cook Inlet Beluga Recovery Team and is an advocate for collaborative research. Kim Shelden is a marine biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based at the Marine Mammal Laboratory of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. She has worked for the Cetacean Assessment and Ecology Program since 1990 studying species present seasonally and year-round in Alaska waters including Cook Inlet belugas, North Pacific right whales, bowhead whales, gray whales, Pacific white-sided dolphins, and harbor porpoise. Dr. Gina Himes Boor is Assistant Research Professor in the Ecology Department Montana State University. Her research focuses on developing models to better understand the demographic and spatial-use patterns that contribute to the decline and recovery of imperiled species. Amber Stephens has studied marine mammals since 1998, including beluga whales, Steller sea lions, harbor seals, narwhals, and Pacific walrus.  A CI on the CIBW Photo-ID Project, her responsibilities include cataloging, field work, public outreach, and website management. John McClung joined the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Photo-ID Project in 2017 and has over ten years of photo-identification experience of cetaceans including humpback whales, melon-headed whales, and belugas. Prior to receiving his MS in wildlife science from Oregon State University, he served 26 years in the U.S. Air Force. Christopher Garner is a biologist for the Department of Defense at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.  He has studied beluga and harbor porpoise in upper Cook Inlet since 2001 with emphasis on beluga ecology within rivers emptying into a hypertidal region as well as the effects of military activity on marine mammals and their prey. Dr. Carrie Goertz is the Director of Animal Health at the Alaska SeaLife Center where she oversees veterinary care for animals in the aquarium and out in the field, working with sea birds, fish, invertebrates, sea otters, seals, sea lions, beluga, and other marine animals. Dr. Kathy Burek Huntington has been the pathologist for the Alaska stranding program and in particular for the Cook Inlet belugas for 23 years and works collaboratively with the rest of the stranding network throughout Alaska. She is particularly interested in emerging pathogens, harmful algal bloom toxins, pathology, the intersections of these topics with climate change, and mentoring young scientists in pathology. Dr. Greg O’Corry-Crowe is a behavioral ecologist and geneticist focused on marine mammals and conservation. He runs the Wildlife Evolution and Behavior (WEB) program at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and is a research professor at Florida Atlantic University. Bruce Wright is an ecologist with the Knik Tribe whose work focuses on Alaska marine and terrestrial top predators.

Open access to all Marine Mammal Science papers is available to current SMM members. Open access to this article will be made temporarily available to the public during the week prior to and of the presentation.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select  presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

Editor’s Select Series Seminar: A comparison of Northeast Atlantic killer whale call repertoires

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The SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.

21 October 2021 at 4 PM UTC (9 AM PDT)
SMM Editors’ Select Series Seminar: A comparison of Northeast Atlantic killer whale call repertoires
with Anna Selbmann of University of Iceland

The SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. This is your chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions from anywhere in the world. All are welcome.

About this talk:
Killer whale call repertoires can provide information on social connections among groups and populations. Killer whales in Iceland and Norway exhibit similar ecology and behavior, are genetically related, and are presumed to have been in contact before the collapse of the Atlanto-Scandian herring stock in the 1960s. However, photo-identification suggests no recent movements between Iceland and Norway but regular movement between Iceland and Shetland. We used acoustic recordings collected in Iceland, Norway, and Shetland to undertake a comprehensive comparison of the call repertoires of Northeast Atlantic killer whales. Time and frequency parameters of calls from Iceland and Norway were relatively similar but no call type matches were confirmed between Iceland and Norway or Shetland and Norway. Three call types matched between Iceland and Shetland. Therefore, these findings agree with what is currently known of the movement patterns of these whales but argue against past contact between Icelandic and Norwegian killer whales, since call repertoires are thought to be maintained over time.

About the presenter:
Anna Selbmann is currently a PhD student at the University of Iceland investigating killer whale acoustic behaviour and interspecific interactions between pilot whales and killer whales. She gained a BSc in Marine Vertebrate Zoology from Bangor University (UK) in 2015 and completed her Masters of Biology at the University of Iceland in 2019 investigating the call repertoire of Icelandic killer whales and comparing it to the repertoire of Norwegian killer whales.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select  presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

Editor’s Select Series Seminar: Echolocation behaviour of fish-eating killer whales during pursuit and capture of salmon prey

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The SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.


Guest, Brianna Wright of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) presents: “Echolocation behaviour of fish-eating killer whales during pursuit and capture of salmon prey“

September 23, 2021 4-5:30 pm PDT (11 PM-1230 AM UTC)
Online. Free to attend. 

About this talk:
We used high-resolution acoustic and movement tags (Dtags) to analyse the echolocation behaviour of fish-eating killer whales during pursuit and capture of salmon prey. Whales produced more echolocation trains and had faster clicking rates prior to catching salmon versus afterward, confirming the importance of echolocation in prey detection and tracking. Extremely rapid click sequences (buzzes) occurred in the lead-up to salmon captures at depths typically exceeding 50 m, and were likely used for close-range prey targeting. Distinctive crunching sounds related to prey handling occurred at shallow depths following captures, matching observations that whales surfaced with salmon prior to eating them and often shared their prey.

About the presenter:
Brianna Wright received her B.Sc. majoring in Biology and Anthropology from the University of Victoria in 2007. During her undergrad she also participated in the UVic Biology Co-op program and studied at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. From 2008-2010, she worked as a Technician with the Cetacean Research Program of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) before returning to school and completing her M.Sc. in 2014 at UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit under the supervision of Dr. John Ford and Dr. Andrew Trites. Brianna’s thesis investigated the fine-scale foraging behaviour of resident killer whales using suction-cup attached tags that recorded dive depth, body position and acoustic behaviour of individual whales. She returned to work with DFO’s Cetacean Research Program at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo in July 2014, and is currently a marine mammal Biologist with this group. She has participated in killer whale and sea otter census surveys and offshore ship and aerial distance-sampling surveys for cetaceans. Analytically, her recent work has focused on spatial density modelling of survey data for cetacean species to estimate their distribution and abundance. She also conducts assessments of killer whale diet composition and prey sharing behaviour through field collection and analysis of prey remains.

Open access to all Marine Mammal Science papers is available to current SMM members. Open access to this article was made temporarily available to the public between September 20-September 30, 2021.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select  presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

Dr. John Wang Receives the 2021 Society for Marine Mammalogy’s Conservation Merit Prize

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Cetacean biologist heralded for over 30 years of research and conservation efforts.

Every two years in the lead up to the Society for Marine Mammalogy conference, our Conservation Committee considers potential awardees for the Conservation Merit Prize. The Conservation Merit Prize is public recognition given to a person, team, or organization contributing toward solving a pressing conservation problem for marine mammals, either ongoing or resulting in a conservation success. The prize is only given when the Conservation Committee finds a case of exceptional merit and may not be awarded at every biennial.

After reviewing an impressive slate of nominees, the Society Conservation Committee and Board selected Dr. John Wang as this year’s recipient.

John Y. Wang, Ph.D.
2021 SMM Conservation Merit Prize Winner
• CetAsia Research Group Ltd – Chief Biologist
• Trent University – Professor, Department of Biology
• National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium of Taiwan – Adjunct Researcher

John’s work started in the chilly waters of Canada’s Bay of Fundy in the late 1980’s. Donning a wetsuit and snorkeling equipment, John jumped into herring weirs, a fixed fishing trap, to help fishermen release harbor porpoise. The fishermen used seine nets to remove herring that had aggregated in the weirs and porpoise would become trapped in the nets as they were hauled in. That work quickly pivoted to focusing on harbor porpoise bycatch in the gillnet fishery and lead Dr. Wang to start the first groundfish gillnet observer program in Canada.

In the mid-1990’s the global issue of cetacean bycatch pulled John beyond the borders of Canada to the other side of the planet when he started working on understanding cetacean fauna and bycatch throughout Taiwan. Early investigations consisted of visiting fishing ports around the country, recording carcasses, and conducting interviews to understand local fisheries. He attended stranding events and visited various scientific and academic institutions to examine their specimen collections. These efforts resulted in one clear conclusion – bycatch was a significant conservation issue for cetaceans in Taiwan. Specifically, large-mesh pelagic driftnets were clearly a serious problem as well as smaller-scale gillnet fisheries throughout Taiwan with a total annual cetacean bycatch in the thousands to tens of thousands per year for Taiwanese fisheries. His path for cetacean conservation in Taiwan was set.

In 2002, John was encouraged by a good friend and colleague to conduct exploratory surveys in the inshore waters along the heavily-industrialized and developed coast of western Taiwan. It was during these surveys that the endemic and highly restricted Taiwanese white (or humpback) dolphin subspecies was discovered. Given the status of the subspecies and the many threats it faced, John decided to put the driftnet bycatch issue on the backburner as urgent attention and focus on the Taiwanese humpback dolphin was the priority. For more information about the Taiwaianese humpback dolphins, threats and recovery actions please visit the IUCN Red List.

To this day, conservation of the Taiwanese humpback dolphin still occupies most of John’s attention. However, his expertise and decades of experience working with small cetaceans and local communities/fisheries has proven valuable to other ongoing bycatch reduction and other conservation efforts around the globe including finless porpoise bycatch in several areas in east Asia, underwater noise and cetaceans, Indo-Pacific humpback conservation in other parts of east Asia and river dolphins in Brazil.

Dr. Wang has made a career out of working on challenging conservation issues, many of which are ongoing – taking years or decades to affect change. We asked John why he does his work and what kept him motivated to continue his efforts all these years. His response spoke of a deeply seated belief that scientists have a duty to use their abilities to better the natural world.

“ Other living things have no “voices” (or votes) to choose not to be exploited and to be driven to extinction so we should lend them our voices. The voices of scientists are often “louder” and will be given more attention by others. Although the main responsibility of a scientist is to conduct solid, objective research to better our knowledge of the universe, being a scientist is a small subset of the responsibilities of being human. Humans have a much larger responsibility to not stay quiet and voiceless when we possess specialized/privileged knowledge of conservation issues (some of us may be the only people who know of some issues) and this responsibility supersedes those of being scientists. It is clear that there is no reason why scientists cannot advocate for conservation and environment issues while continuing to fulfill his/her role as a scientist and maintain a high level of credibility and scientific integrity.”

As far as what motivates him, it is about knowing he is doing what he believes is right.

“Working on conservation issues is difficult because there is often strong opposition, the chance of failure is high and rewards or accolades are few (if any). But it’s the right thing to do and being self-satisfied with doing the right thing is the strongest motivation.”

The Conservation Merit Prize includes travel to the award presentation at the Biennial Conference. Conservation Merit Prize nominees may be nominated at any time for the next upcoming Biennial Conference by any active SMM member and the SMM Conservation Committee selects award recipient(s) with the approval of the Board of Governors.

Editors’ Select Series Presentation: Population genomic structure of killer whales (Orcinus orca) in Australian and New Zealand waters

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The SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.

Guest, Isabella Reeves of Flinders University presents: “Population genomic structure of killer whales (Orcinus orca) in Australian and New Zealand waters“

August 19, 2021 6-7:30 pm PDT (1-2:30 AM GMT August 20; 10:30 am-12 pm ASCT (August 20)
Online. Free to attend. 

About this talk:
In Australasia, seasonal killer whale aggregations have been recently discovered and they have known to also reside year-round in New Zealand waters. However, there is currently limited information available about the species in these regions and therefore effective conservation management strategies are lacking. Here, we present the first study on the number of killer whale populations and their connectivity in Australasia using DNA. We discovered a minimum of three populations of killer whales, one in tropical and a second in temperate Western Australia, and a third in New Zealand. They each have distinct female-driven societies and appear to have little movement between them with low number of breeders. These findings can assist conservation management of these animals in the region.

About the presenter:
Isabella is currently a PhD Candidate in the Cetacean Ecology, Behaviour and Evolution Lab and the Molecular Ecology Lab at Flinders University in South Australia. She has over five years of experience researching cetaceans, leading her to obtain a skillset predominantly in photo-identification methods and using genetics to understand population-level questions for conservation. Her research now focusses on using genetics to broadly understand cetacean evolution, with a focus on Australasian killer whales.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select  presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

Editors’ Select Panel on July 15, 2021: Reintroductions have saved the sea otter throughout North America: why should we care?

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We are pleased to announce the next edition of the the SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.

Guest, Shawn Larson of Seattle Aquarium presents: “Reintroductions have saved the sea otter throughout North America: why should we care?”

July 15, 2021 5 PM PDT (12 AM UTC)

About this talk:

Sea otters were once abundant throughout the nearshore of the North Pacific. The maritime fur trade left few remnant populations with low genetic diversity. Subsequent reintroductions of otters resulted in several new populations in North America. We sampled sea otters genetically from Bering Island to California to evaluate genetic diversity, population structure and geneflow. Genetic diversity was the highest in reintroduced populations, population structure was greatest between California and all other groups, and geneflow was evident between all populations except for those at the ends of the range. The reintroductions are arguably the greatest success in sea otter conservation.

Dr. Larson shared details about this work during this 1-hour presentation followed by a Q&A session. All are welcome to participate.

Open access to all Marine Mammal Science papers is available to current SMM members. Open access to this article will be made temporarily available to the public between July 8–July 31, 2021.

About the presenter:
Shawn Larson, PhD, She/Her pronouns, is Curator of Conservation Research at the Seattle Aquarium. Shawn has been working at the Seattle Aquarium since 1995. Her main duties are leading the rehabilitation program, the water quality/research lab and the conservation research program which includes 10 long term ecological monitoring projects on sea otters, Salish Sea whales, sharks, temperate water rocky reefs, Hawaiian coral reefs, and microplastics. She has been studying marine mammal physiology, genetics, population biology and ecology for 27 years and has published several scientific papers and chapters on marine mammals and was lead editor on a 2015 book published by Elsevier titled Sea Otter Conservation.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

SMM Conservation Fund Now Accepting Proposals

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The Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) is now accepting proposals for projects under its new Conservation Fund. Proposals for up to US$25K can be submitted between now and 31 July 2021. Proposals should be focused on projects that can catalyze real conservation action for the world’s most endangered marine mammal species. Details on the application process can be found here. Proposals will be judged by the SMM Conservation Committee and Committee of Scientific Advisors and awards will be announced at the SMM member’s meeting at the Marine Mammal Conference in December.

Dr. Danielle Kreb On Winning the SMM Conservation Merit Prize

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Thank you for submitting your inspiring nominations for the 2021 SMM Conservation Merit Prize winner. The Conservation Committee is now reviewing all nominations. 

Meanwhile, here is a video from the 2019 SMM Conservation Merit Prize winner, Dr. Danielle Kreb, discussing how much receiving the prize has meant to her work and giving us a peek into her impactful conservation efforts in Indonesia. 

Brazilian Marine Mammalogist, Pedro Fruet, Awarded Whitley Award

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This year, the Whitley Award was granted to six researchers and conservationists in the Southern Hemisphere, among them Pedro Fruet, a Brazilian marine mammalogist who has been studying the Lahille’s bottlenose dolphin since 2000. Pedro completed his graduate studies (MSc and PhD – the latter in cotutele with Flinders University, Australia) in the Biological Oceanography Graduate Program at the Federal University of Rio Grande-FURG, in southern Brazil. As a graduate student and pos-doctoral fellow at FURG, Pedro and colleagues increased considerably the understanding of the ecology and conservation needs of this subspecies of bottlenose dolphins, including taxonomy, population genetics, population structure, estimation of population-specific parameters, and viability analysis. This achievement is a result of the long-standing partnership between Kaosa (an NGO funded by Pedro and colleagues in 2007), the Oceanographic Museum “Prof. Eliezer C. Rios” and the Ecology and Conservation of Marine Megafauna Laboratory (Ecomega) at FURG, with the continued financial support of Yaqu Pacha, a German NGO focused on the conservation of Aquatic Mammals in South America. The project under the scope of the Whitley Award aims to reduce bycatch in fishing gear, raise awareness about this subspecies and strengthen the community’s connection to their marine environment.