VALUE FOR MONEY

by oceansadminConservation, WhalesPosted on No Comments
Surveying Antarctic whales

In these troubled economic times, scientists are under increasing pressure to (a) demonstrate the value of the services we provide to society, and (b) find creative ways to provide those services at ever-lower cost.  Money is scarce, and environmental research is competing for funding with other worthy causes.  Because many of the biggest foundations in the charitable sector make funding decisions based on the year-end value of  their portfolio, an economic downturn like the 2008 crash can affect funding decisions for years to come, so that grantmaking remains low and risk-averse long after the private sector has started to experience fiscal recovery.

At Oceans Initiative, we specialize in doing more with less.

The theme of Rob’s doctoral thesis was how to study whales when you have no money.  The mathematical models at the core of his PhD research were cutting edge and represented an interesting scientific question in their own right, but their real societal value was to provide cost-effective tools to estimate how many whales are in an area by collecting sightings from ships that were already on the water:  platforms of opportunity.  He developed the methods in the Antarctic, where research costs are high and whale populations are still recovering from historic whaling.  Our colleague, Nicole Koshure, recently earned her Master’s degree from Simon Fraser University using a similar approach to estimate abundance of cetaceans around Vancouver Island using sightings collected from the Straitwatch monitoring vessel.

We’ve just read about a new partnership between UVic and BC Ferries, where forward-thinking oceanographers have installed sophisticated sensors on ferries to collect oceanographic data to monitor the health of the Strait of Georgia.  We think this is a great idea.  In our view, funding is the greatest challenge we face in marine conservation.  Kurt Vonnegut said it best:  “We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.”  True enough, but given the financial realities we face, there is also a compelling need for scientists to identify clever, cost-saving methods so we can identify ways to be sound stewards of the environment at minimal cost to society.

TELLING STORIES IN THE DARK

by oceansadminAcoustics, Habitat, Human ImpactsPosted on No Comments
A killer whale and a cruise ship, sharing Johnstone Strait

One of the overarching themes of our work is quintessentially Canadian.  We study survival.  {Margaret Atwood proposed that survival is one of the most central and enduring narratives in Canadian literature.} OK, we study the probability that whales and dolphins, not humans, will survive from one year to the next, given the amount of fish or noise or propellers in the sea, but bear with us for a minute.

We ran across a few quotes today about the environment from Margaret Atwood’s talk at this week’s “Big Thinking” lecture series in Ontario, and thought you’d want to read them:

With the growing awareness of human impacts on the environment, Atwood notes that there’s a sense that  “we’re clinging on by our finger nails.”  “We will kill it [the environment], and in doing so seal our own doom, because you are what you breathe and we and nature were joined by the hip all along.”

Amen.  But listen to this perspective on the importance of story-telling.  She called her talk “Bedtime Stories,” because that’s how children learn about their world from their parents.  “People are natural storytellers,” she said. “Most people will put up with almost anything to engage in an act of communication. We must narrate or die.”

“The world is uncertain, and it has been dark, and it’s always been dark at bedtime,” said Atwood. “[But] we listen better in the dark.”

We’re still mulling this over, but this story resonates with our work on whales.  Killer whales are rare among mammals in that they possess what can only be called culture.  Our colleagues have shown that different families use different dialects, and that mothers teach their calves their vocal repertoire in much the same way that we learn our stories from our parents.  Much of our work now focusses on increasing levels of human-made ocean noise that hinders the ability of whales to communicate with one another.  Ocean noise is the aquatic equivalent of turning out the lights.  We’re still struggling to understand what that means for the story-telling whales we study.

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A DOLPHIN

by oceansadminDolphinsPosted on No Comments
Wishart the dolphin dog

This is the time of year we’re supposed to be packing up our academic lives, and heading into the field for our whale & dolphin work.  We like it.  Our dog, Wishart, loves it.  Our Scottish adventure ends 6 months from now, and while we’ll be sad to see this chapter end, we’re excited for Wishart to get back to work spotting dolphins in BC.  Actually, we need to do some research on our dog, because we’re not sure if he sees, smells or hears the dolphins, but he manages to detect them long before we do.  And he catches small, cryptic groups of dolphins {“ghost dolphins”} that try to sneak by our boat.  Wishart has one, well, let’s be kind and call it a bark, to let us know that there are dolphins around. It’s closer to throat singing than a bark, but it’s our cue that we missed something and need to pay closer attention.  Interestingly, he never makes this sound around humpback or killer whales, minke whales, Dall’s porpoise… He never gets all that excited about any of the species Rob studies.  But show him the dolphin species that Erin studies, and he comes alive.  It’s as though everything is right with the universe and he’s found exactly the task he was born to do.

We hope you get on the water this summer, and that you see all the whales & dolphins we’re missing as we spend a few more months crunching numbers and writing about what we’ve learned in the field over the last few years.  If you happen to see any dolphins, please don’t tell Wishart.

 

Dog at work