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.

Thursday, May 19th at 4 pm PDT / 7 pm EDT / 11 pm GMT (Friday, May 20th at 11 am NZST)
SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series: Feeding tactics of resident Bryde’s whales in New Zealand

This event is free to attend and presented online via Zoom, but registration is required.
Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_90MvXhciTZ61bj-3rNwA-g
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:
Baleen whales are the largest mammals on earth, but many questions about their behaviour remain unanswered as they are submerged in the pelagic environment. Among baleen whales, Bryde’s whales are one of the least known. They are a non-migrating species of baleen whale with a wide distribution. There is a small (∼ 135) year-round population of Bryde’s whales in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand. We investigated their foraging behaviour using data collected by an archival tag (DTAG2), boat-based surveys, and drones. Our investigation not only revealed some interesting aspects of their foraging behaviour, but also helped us to understand other aspects of their lives such as rest.

About the presenter:
After receiving a Master’s in Marine Mammal Science from the University of St. Andrews, Sahar moved to New Zealand to do a PhD at the University of Auckland. She completed her PhD on behavioural ecology of Bryde’s whales and graduated in 2019. Since then, she has been doing something completely different from marine mammal science — she is a co-founder at a tech start-up in New Zealand. However, she hasn’t distanced herself from science; she continues to work on the papers from her PhD and plans to return to the marine science world full-time in the future.

Open access to all Marine Mammal Science papers is available to current SMM members. Open access to this article is made temporarily available to the public in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here.

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