Show your love for the ocean

by oceansadminConservation, Killer Whale ConservationPosted on No Comments

Are you in a healthy relationship with the ocean?

You love the ocean. We love the ocean. Let’s work together to protect it. (PC GGraphics)

Valentine’s Day is all about making sure we don’t take the people we love for granted. Sometimes it feels as though we’re taking the ocean for granted, even though it’s the 71% of the planet that gives us the air we breathe, much of the food we eat, the way we transport goods around the globe, and supports the miraculous wildlife that sparks so much joy. How can we show our love for the ocean?

Right now, people are pulling together to show their love for our endangered orcas any way they can. We use science to find solutions that help us protect endangered species while supporting the people who earn a living from the sea. We are working to reduce bycatch of dolphins, whales, and other ocean creatures by making fisheries more sustainable. Our ongoing efforts to measure and reduce ocean noise can make it easier for whales and dolphins to find food, mates, and navigate an increasingly noisy ocean. Our work on dolphin health provides a glimpse into which pathogens may affect whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals in the Pacific Northwest, and aims to draw a direct link between what we dump into the sea and how the ocean ecosystem is affected.

You don’t have to be a marine biologist to have a positive impact on ocean conservation. The choices we make as consumers can have a ripple effect that encourages industry and policy-makers to embrace ocean-friendlier practices.

Here are five ways to show your love for the ocean. What did we miss? Please share your ideas in the comments!

  1. Reduce your plastic use. Pass on the plastic straw and use re-usable cups. Some of our favorite go-to thank-you gifts are these custom Oceans Initiative pint cups and coffee mugs from our friends at MiiR.
  2. Buy locally and support local artists: 90% of everything comes to us from ships, which are important sources of carbon emissions and underwater noise. Buying locally reduces our shipping footprint. This year, a lot of our gifts include sweets from Seattle-based Joe Chocolates and custom orca stickers from the talented artist, Sophia Trinh. Sophia even offers painting classes, so you can give the gift of experiences, not things.
  3. Choose and support sustainable seafood: Ask your local grocer, farmer’s market, and restaurant about the source of their seafood. It makes a difference. Aim for wild, locally caught seafood that has MSC certification. If you already do this, you can go further to help southern resident killer whales. In the wake of the tragic story of Talequah and the ongoing struggle of the orcas, Chef Renee Erickson made a bold decision last summer to pause serving Chinook salmon in her restaurants. We love giving Renee’s excellent cookbook to our friends and family. Feeling bold? Eat invasive species! Totally guilt-free eating. You’re doing the ocean a favor.
  4. Get out and enjoy the ocean! Go for a walk on the beach, organize a local beach clean-up, surf, paddle, sail, learn about a new whale, fish, or other sea creature, paint or create your favorite ocean art. Have a nap on the beach.
  5. Find a marine conservation nonprofit whose work you like, and support it. Spread the word about their work. Convince a friend to support it. Make a charitable donation in the name of someone you love. It doesn’t have to be us (but we’d be thrilled if you did support our work, of course). Honest. Find the group whose mission sings to you, and get involved.
Pacific Northwest classic gifts (clockwise from top left): Chef Renee Erickson’s cookbook is a love song to the Pacific Northwest; Sophie Trinh’s whale stickers and paintings are magical (& she even offers painting lessons); Joe Chocolate is a sweet, local company; and MiiR’s reusable cups and mugs are lovely and handy in a town that runs on coffee. What are your go-to gifts?

How do you show your love for the ocean?

Underwater noise from airplanes: An overlooked source of ocean noise

by oceansadminAcoustics, Exploration, Ocean Noise, Women in SciencePosted on No Comments

We tend to think of the air-water interface as a barrier to noise. Planes fly over the ocean all the time, but conventional wisdom tells us that most of the sound bounces off the surface of the ocean, and has little impact on the whales and dolphins that swim beneath the surface. A classic paper from 1972 tells us we only need to worry about airplane noise in a narrow cone under the flight path.

We recently worked with colleagues from Curtin University, Udayana University, and Conservation International Indonesia to measure noise levels from commercial jets taking off from coastal runways in Bali and Australia. We found that under certain conditions, those jets introduce up to 130 dB of noise into shallow waters. Those noise levels are high enough to cause disturbance to killer whales.

Planes fly pretty quickly of course, so any noise exposure is fleeting. But during the busiest periods, we recorded planes taking off every 3 minutes! Below is a map of runways, with coastal runways (<10 m above sea level) in red.

We conducted this study during Nyepi, the Balinese Day of Silence. We did not expect to be able to hear airplane noise over background conditions, but we got lucky. Did you know that fish have a chorus of song, just like the dawn chorus of songbirds? Check out the sounds of fish singing below:

And this is the sound of a small boat passing by our hydrophone. In the last few seconds, you can hear the roar of a jet aircraft taking off from the nearby runway of Denpasar airport, Bali, Indonesia.

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Runways of the world, with coastal (<10m above sea level) marked in red

 

Pacific white-sided dolphin dorsal fin photos and breath samples

by oceansadminDolphins, Populations, Wildlife Health, Women in SciencePosted on No Comments

In August, part of our team traveled to the Broughton Archipelago off the coast of northern Vancouver Island to continue our long-term study on Pacific white-sided dolphins.  This study is multi-faceted. We are studying the health of the population by taking dorsal fin photos for statistical analysis, but we are also studying the health of individuals by looking for pathogens in exhaled breath. We’ve just celebrated the 10th anniversary of this study, but we made a few changes along the way. This year, with the help of Alimosphere, we were able to look at dolphin pods we encountered from a new perspective through the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), also known as drones.

Drone footage collected under permit, by Alicia Amerson.

This year, we are sponsoring our research associate, Natalie Mastick, to start an exciting PhD project in marine parasite ecology. As she explains in a recent blog post, taking photos of dorsal fins is a non-invasive way to study the population that allows us to identify individuals that we can use as statistical samples in models to estimate survival rates, and population size and trends. High-resolution dorsal fin photographs show us distinguishable details such as nicks, scars, and markings that help us to recognize individuals from year to year. The Pacific white-sided dolphin study launched by our co-founder, Dr Erin Ashe, has involved taking, processing and matching dorsal fin photos to previous catalogues since 2007. Some individuals have been seen in the study area since the 1990s, and we have seen one pair of dolphins together on two occasions 17 years apart.

Laurel Yruretagoyena, Oceans Initiative research assistant, aiding Dr Erin Ashe in taking dorsal fin photos for her long-term photo ID study. Look closely, like deckhand Molly Brown is doing, and you’ll see some dorsal fins in the distance!                               Photo credit: Laura Bogaard, 2018.

As a continuation of a study started by Erin in 2015, we also spent much of our time collecting exhaled breath samples from these dolphins. We collect breath samples by positioning a long pole with a petri dish attached to one end over a dolphin as it surfaces and exhales. This is a tricky activity that involves a knowledge of dolphin surfacing patterns, careful boat handling, precise timing, and skillful maneuvering on the bow of the boat. Despite the difficulty, our team was able to collect many breath samples that we will use to assess the pathogens (e.g., viruses, bacteria and fungi) this population has been exposed to. Ultimately, we aim to let the health of the dolphins tell us something about the health of their environment. Understanding how pollutants impact marine mammals and their habitat is essential to informing recovery efforts and monitoring ecosystem health.

A beautiful crisp morning spent with energetic Pacific white-sided dolphins off Vancouver Island.                                                 Photo credit: Dr Erin Ashe, 2018.

Next year, we are hoping to invite Alicia Amerson from Alimosphere to the Pacific Northwest to join us in the field again for a workshop on using UAS for noninvasive marine mammal research. We aim to offer this opportunity to other women in marine mammal science, and to our entire staff. We hope this will provide us with a new tool for collecting breath samples in the future, in a continuation of our efforts to use minimally invasive field research techniques. As we close out our field season, we  are so thankful for the support we have received to do this important work.

Southern Resident killer whale monitoring on San Juan Island

by oceansadminConservation, Human Impacts, Killer Whale Conservation, Ocean Noise, Protecting Species, Whales, Women in SciencePosted on No Comments

This summer, from mid-July to the end of September, we studied southern resident killer whale behavior under varying levels of boat and ship traffic. (This is an extension of our 2017 field season with OrcaSound). The Port of Vancouver has asked ships to slow down to less than 11 knots as they transit Haro Strait. Reducing ship speed can reduce shipping noise underwater, but slower speeds mean those ships take longer to transit the area. Working with Port of Vancouver and SMRU Consulting, we are exploring how whales navigate that trade-off between noise level and duration of exposure.

Do the whales find more salmon if they are exposed to a little bit of noise for long periods of time? Or is it better to get the noise over with quickly? 

Reducing noise is especially important because endangered southern resident killer whales (SRKW) feed in Haro Strait in the summer, and our work has shown that vessel noise disrupts killer whale foraging. While missing one meal might not seem like it would have long-lasting or population-level effects, Haro Strait is a noisy place, which may result cumulatively in many lost meals for the killer whales. We had our team on the western hillsides of San Juan Island all summer to track killer whales in an effort to find out if and how their behavior changes with the slower, quieter ships.

A ship transits Haro Strait by a family of southern resident killer whales. (PC Toby Hall). The theodolite crosshairs allow us to convert horizontal and vertical angles to estimates of latitude and longitude, knowing the cliff height.

To track these whales, we used an instrument called a theodolite. You may have seen them on construction sites or traffic surveys. A theodolite has a telescopic lens that we use to track killer whale movement. After setting a constant reference point, the theodolite can determine the angle between the reference point and the whale we’re looking at. It gets the vertical angle from a gravity-referenced level vector. A computer connected to the theodolite can use those two angles (along with the precise location and elevation of the theodolite) to estimate distances and fixed positions of objects on the ocean’s surface (whales, ships, etc). Your geometry teacher was right—this math does have real-world applications. And we can get all of this fine-scale information noninvasively, without another research boat confounding the effect we are trying to measure. This year, the developer of Pythagoras software generously shared code to let us integrate extremely high-resolution AIS data on the movement of ships, so we could automagically collect precise and accurate data on the ships, while having our expert observers concentrate on measuring the whales’ behavior.

In 2017, the killer whales were worryingly absent from the islands much of the summer, which left us with a small sample size. In fact, for the month of August 2017, the SRKWs were nowhere to be found. This year’s longer field season produced much more data. There were 29 days with whales present around San Juan Island. We had tracking stations set up in three locations along the west side of San Juan Island: County Park, Hannah Heights, and Cattle Point, which allowed us to get close to continuous tracks along Haro Strait. We are excited to analyze the data, which should allow us to determine more about killer whale behavior in the presence of these slower ships.

Video credit: Toby Hall

This work felt profoundly important this year, in a season riddled with heartbreaking news about the endangered southern residents. J35’s calf died shortly after being born, and the mother mourned the loss of her offspring by pushing around the carcass for 17 days. J50, the youngest individual in the southern resident population, was found to be critically malnourished. NOAA launched the first attempt to supplement a southern resident killer whale’s diet with additional fish. Unfortunately she has not been seen since September 7 and is presumed dead. It is abundantly clear than additional conservation effort is needed, and our team worked hard to make this field season count, both in the field and on the Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force.

This work wouldn’t have been possible without a super pod of a team. The Oceans Initiative team was led by Erin and Rob, and consisted of our employees Laurel Yruretagoyena, Natalie Mastick, and Laura Bogaard, as well as Toby Hall, Sarah Colosimo, Jess and Chris Newley, and Elizabeth Robinson, who provided additional field support.

Thank you, as always, for supporting our efforts to keep orca habitat clean, quiet, and full of salmon.

Please help us keep orca habitats clean, quiet, and full of fish

by oceansadminAcoustics, Conservation, Habitat, Killer Whale Conservation, Ocean Noise, Populations, Protecting Species, WhalesPosted on No Comments

 

 

The critically endangered southern resident killer whale population now numbers 74 individuals. The ability of the population to recover is hindered by a perfect storm of threats—not enough salmon, too much noise, and toxic chemicals affecting calf survival—but lack of access to salmon is at the eye of that storm.

We need to recover Chinook salmon stocks throughout the whales’ range. 

We support all efforts to do so. We support dam removal, where this will get more salmon into the environment. We applaud the recent announcement to reduce salmon fishing quotas until the whales recovery, which will reduce our competition with the whales. While we wait for those measures to take effect, we need your help to give the whales a fighting chance to find as many of those salmon as possible in a noisy ocean.

We need to give the whales a quiet place to hunt for salmon

Our work has shown that killer whales spend 18-25% less time feeding on salmon when boats are around than when they are undisturbed. We have found that the southern resident killer whale population needs 662 big, fat Chinook salmon each day. We have found that mothers with calves need 43% more calories, more salmon, than adult females without calves.

A protected area can help the whales if we put it in the right place. 

We have found that killer whales are more vulnerable to disturbance when they are feeding than when they are travelling from A to B. They also need more salmon. We have identified areas that whales use preferentially for feeding. (One is called Salmon Bank. We have a feeling the whales knew this before people did.) We need to bring together all dedicated datasets we can use to identify areas where the whales are finding salmon, so we can prioritize those for protection. Protecting key feeding areas is essential to protecting the whales.

Please support our efforts to keep orca habitat clean, quiet, and full of fat, wild salmon.

PS Thanks to our team, especially Toby Hall, for the great footage, and to our friends at SeaLegacy for help editing this video.