Shadowing Whales

MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Julie van der Hoop snapped this quick self-portrait as she prepared to locate a whale tag with a VHF antenna in the spring of 2013. Van der Hoop was part of an expedition led by Michael Moore, a WHOI marine biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center, to study the physiology and behavior of whales that feed in and around the Kaikoura Canyon, a deep, productive part of the ocean just off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island.(Photo by Julie van der Hoop, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)