Happy LEAP(S) Year

by oceansadminDolphins, Populations, Women in SciencePosted on No Comments

Happy Leap(s) Year!

Here, we call it LEAPS Year, because that’s the snazzy acronym for our dolphin project:  Lagenorhynchus Ecology, Abundance and Population Status.

Mom and baby dolphin leaping in British Columbia, Canada

This time of year, our dolphin research involves a lot of time in front of the computer.  We’re training computers to screen thousands of hours of underwater recordings to detect dolphin calls in an increasingly noisy ocean.  And, learning more about how these dolphins communicate with one another.

While that set of computers is chugging away and the dolphin calls are analyzed, the rest of our team is going through more than 10,000 dolphin photographs to see if we see anyone we know.  While a lot of these dolphins look alike, some fraction of the individuals have unique natural markings that allow us to identify individuals, like mugshots or fingerprints.  (FIN-erprints?)

I know.  It sounds like Dolphin TMZ, except that this is for a good cause.  We use these photographs to develop an encounter history for hundreds of individuals, and {insert fancy math here} estimate how many dolphins there are in the population, and whether the population is going up or down.  We use that information to assess the health of the population, like a checkup at the doctor’s office, and that allows us to make recommendations about whether we need to change human activities to protect these dolphins, or if they’re doing just fine without our help.

What’s next?  Right now, we’re trying to raise funds for an intensive dolphin field season this summer.  We’re shaking out the sofa cushions and collecting frequent flyer miles  to make sure we can spend some time in the field to collect the last few photographs I need to finish my PhD on Pacific white-sided dolphin ecology.  If you’re able to help this project, or know someone who can, please get in touch.

It takes a village to do this work, and we are thrilled to be working with a team of smart, talented, eagle-eyed women.  Thanks, Christie, Marie, Nicole & Melissa!  It’s great working with you on this!

Finally, do you spend time on the water in the Salish Sea?  If you see dolphins, let us know:  http://www.seadocsociety.org/dolphin-study  If we find a match to the dolphins in our catalogue, it will tell us about movement patterns across the Canada-US border, and whether our two countries need to work more closely together to protect these dolphins and their habitat.

Happy Leap(s) Year, everyone!

 

FREE RINGTONE: A HUMPBACK WHALE SINGING IN DOUGLAS CHANNEL, BC

by oceansadminAcousticsPosted on 4 Comments

One of the things that makes humpback whales so interesting to study is their iconic song.  Many of us first heard these haunting sounds when Dr Roger Payne published them in a vinyl, floppy 45rpm soundsheet in an old issue of National Geographic.

The Voyager space mission included humpback whale song with other sounds representing life on Earth

Generally, humpbacks sing on their breeding grounds (in Hawaii and Mexico), and are less vocal on their feeding grounds, although they do make grunts and other calls to coordinate feeding activities.  Our Quiet Ocean Campaign involves measuring underwater noise levels to see how much of these calls could be masked by chronic noise levels from commercial shipping and other human activities.  We were thrilled to hear humpbacks, well, “singing” on BC’s north coast feeding grounds in late summer.

So.  Two things:

1.  This is a recording of humpback whales singing in Douglas Channel.  We thought you might like to hear it.  We’ve saved it in M4R format for iPhones and MP3 format for most other smart phones.  Right-click or control-click and “save as” to your computer or smart phone, and iTunes will let you convert it to a ringtone.  Every phone is different, so apologies if it’s not straightforward to use as a ringtone on other systems, but please leave a comment if you have tips for making it accessible on other systems.

DOWNLOAD RINGTONE HERE

 

Zack Morris wishes he had a humpback whale song ringtone for that cell phone.

 

2.  Ship noise has the potential to mask these sounds.  Here is an animation (made by our colleagues at Cornell) of the acoustic footprint of one large container ship transiting Vancouver Island.  In our acoustics study, we’re finding that Douglas Channel has some of the lowest levels of shipping noise in BC.  But that could all change soon if industrial development applications are approved to expand shipping activity into and out of Kitimat.  Our research is focused on measuring how much acoustic masking whales experience from current levels of ship traffic, how much more masking we could expect if shipping levels increased, and ideally, how we can make important habitats quieter for whales.

But we’ll save the lecture for next time.  For now, let us know what you think of the humpback recording.

Five Ways to Show Your Love for the Ocean.

by oceansadminAcoustics, Dolphins, Ecosystems, Habitat, Human ImpactsPosted on No Comments

Whale you be my Valentine? I dolphinately will! Illustration by Leafeon via Quid Pro Quo on Tumblr

 

Love prompts us to do brave, romantic and sometimes foolish things.  To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, today we’re asking ourselves:  How do I love thee, Ocean?  Let me count the ways.  We came up with 5.  On Valentine’s Day this year, here are a five healthy, sane ways to show your love for the ocean.

 

“They do not love that do not show their love”
Shakespeare, from Two Gentleman of Verona

 

1. Say No to plastics:  Marine wildlife accidentally eat and ingest plastics in the ocean, which blocks their stomachs and can cause them to starve.  Alternatively, they can get tangled in plastic, which causes them to suffer and suffocate.  Either way, it is a huge problem.  What can you do?

♥ Use re-useable grocery and shopping bags.  More and more cities and small towns are banning plastic bags.  Be ahead of the curve and pack a Chico bag or other tote everywhere you go.

♥ Sip your water from sleek, BPA-free water bottles (we love these from Kleen Kanteen) or other re-usable bottle.

♥ Straws suck! Consider going straw free when indulging in your next cocktail (it will cut down on pesky mouth wrinkles).  If you’re married to straws, channel your inner Nacho Figueras by using these Oprah-approved stainless steel straws.

 

2. Eat organic and local:  The killer whales we study in the Pacific Northwest are some of the most contaminated marine mammals on the planet.  No wonder they are endangered! Toxins from pesticides, antibiotics, and fertilizers used in conventional farming practices eventually find their way into our oceans, into the fish the we and the whales eat and eventually into our bodies where they cause harm.  Luckily, you can help by:

♥  Buy organic whenever you can.  If organic is not an option, stay away from the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen and focus on the Clean Fifteen.

♥ Shop at your local farmer’s markets (find yours here) and choosing minimally packaged foods when you shop!  While in Scotland, we love going to our local farm shop where we actually see the fields where our food grows!

♥ Dine out at restaurants that include local and organic menu items.  Places like Chipotle are relatively inexpensive, and check out their extraordinary commercial on factory farming.

 

3. Sustainable Seafood:  Bycatch in fishing nets poses one of the largest threats to the survival of whales and dolphins on the planet.  Each day, thousands of dolphins drown in fishing nets.  There are standards, but they vary worldwide, which is why it is important to make informed decisions.  At home in the Pacific Northwest, our research has shown that harbour porpoise may be at risk from bycatch in gillnet fisheries in the Salish Sea, and this warrants additional research.  Porpoise caught in hook-and-line fisheries (e.g., trolling) are unlikely to cause much marine mammal bycatch.

♥ Choose sustainable seafood with a free guide from the Vancouver Aquarium or US regional guides available for free from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

♥ Choose wild salmon, never farmed salmon

 

4. Buy less stuff and reduce impacts of global shipping: Noise in the ocean has increased in some areas ten-fold over the last few decades.  Why?  More than 90% of the things we buy in North America are shipped from overseas, using massive container ships that produce a lot of noise underwater.  The ocean soundscape is now dominated by the noise of these distant ships.  This is bad news for whales, dolphins, fish and other marine life that depend on sound to communicate, find mates and food.  Think about this tonight while you’re trying to hear your Valentine’s sweet nothings over dinner in a crowded restaurant.  How can you help?

♥ Buy locally made products whenever you can or join Patagonia’s Common Threads Initiative

♥ Buy gifts on Etsy

♥ Make your own gifts!  There are thousands of amazing DIY project ideas on Pinterest

♥ Check out our Quiet Ocean Campaign.  We’re working hard to keep quiet places quiet for whales and dolphins.   

 

5. Share the love:

♥ Tweet about this post or like it on Facebook by clicking on the sidebar.

♥ Leave a comment on our website to share more ideas for showing your ocean love.

♥ Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on ocean issues by entering your email address in the box in the upper right corner of this page.

♥ Make a tax-deductible donation to support our research, conservation and education initiatives to protect whales, dolphins, sharks and other marine life.  Or, donate frequent-flyer points to Aeroplan’s Charitable Pooling Account for Oceans Initiative. This helps us cut the cost of doing the work we do.  Thanks for your support!  We wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Valentine’s Day!

OCEANS ELEVEN

by oceansadminConservation, Dolphins, Ocean Noise, Populations, Whales, Women in SciencePosted on 2 Comments

Our plan was to spend a quiet year in Scotland.  Erin’s making great strides on her PhD on Pacific white-sided dolphins.  Rob won a Marie Curie Fellowship to model the effects of noise on whale populations.  But MAN!  This ended up being one of our busiest years ever.  Here are 11 of our highlights of 2011.

 

Oceans ’11

IF YOU WERE A WHALE, WHERE WOULD YOU LIVE?

by oceansadminHabitat, WhalesPosted on 3 Comments

Former First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, said it best: “There is nothing more important than a good, safe, secure home.” She was talking about people, but it’s not a bad description of how we protect wildlife. Much of our work as marine conservation biologists involves identifying habitat that’s important to whales and dolphins, and ensuring that their home is kept safe from human activities that may be causing harm. Easy, right?

THE CONCEPT OF HOME MAY BE A BIT, UM, BIGGER TO A WHALE THAN IT IS TO US.

Some whales migrate half-way around the world between a good meal and a hot date, so a whale’s home covers some serious square footage. Legal definitions of “critical habitat” tend to be a bit fuzzy: critical habitat is the habitat area essential to the conservation of a listed species. Canada has interpreted this definition progressively for resident killer whales. Their critical habitat includes adequate availability of Chinook salmon, the whales’ preferred prey, and most interestingly, a recognition that a whale’s habitat is inherently acoustic. So we know that critical habitat is more than just a box on a map.

The pioneers of killer whale research, like the late Dr Michael Bigg, first called the fish-eating killer whales “resident”, because they found the same whales in Johnstone Strait year after year. Some features of the whales’ landscape are pretty obvious.  The famous pebble rubbing beaches off northern Vancouver Island, are fixed and immediately apparent to casual observation. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to guess that a place like Salmon Bank might be important feeding habitat for southern resident killer whales. A rubbing beach, a narrow strait, Salmon Bank — these are relatively small, tractable areas to protect.

We do a lot of work in critical habitat for killer whales.  We estimate how much salmon killer whales need to thrive, how boat noise can mask a killer whale’s ability to find fish, and how many killer whales could be affected if an oil spill occurred in critical habitat. For years, we’ve studied how boat traffic can affect behaviours and activities of killer whales, and have recently identified a candidate marine protected area for southern residents built around the whales’ feeding hotspots.

What about all the other whale, dolphin and porpoise species?  How do you begin to identify the areas that are most important to species that cross national boundaries the way you and I cross the street? How do you look at the whole ocean and set aside priority areas to protect? These questions are at the core of marine spatial planning and systematic conservation planning. We partnered with Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society’s (WDCS) Critical Habitat/ Marine Protected Area Programme to outline steps to incorporate cetacean distribution into marine planning. Download the report by Rob Williams, Kristin Kaschner, Erich Hoyt, Randall Reeves and Erin Ashe here, or on Erich’s website, www.cetaceanhabitat.org.

The first step is outlining where people have looked for whales, and where they have and have not seen them. Then you can figure out methods to fill in the gaps.

One use of this report is in designing marine mammal-oriented protected areas (MPAs), networks and protection zones.  We’ve mapped the data so you don’t have to.  We’ve combed the published literature from all the line transect surveys we could find, and with Doug Sandilands’ help, we produced cetacean distribution and density maps for dozens of species throughout the vast IUCN marine region of the northeastern Pacific Ocean. The report includes a number of appendices for data sets and experts for the region.

At the First International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas (ICMMPA) in Maui (Hawaii) in 2009, participants concluded that a global effort was needed to identify and define important marine mammal habitats and hot spots. Our new report is our contribution to that global effort. It sums up the current state of knowledge on the density of cetaceans on a large geographical scale. Such information — once integrated and mapped with similar data on other species and with biogeographic data covering environmental features and ocean processes — can be used to help identify critical habitat and contribute to the design and creation of MPAs, networks and zones in national waters and on the high seas.  To paraphrase Mrs Carter, we’re working to create good, safe and secure homes for whales, dolphins and porpoises in BC waters.

Check out the pretty maps