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Michael Moore

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Diverse Voices From Our Maritime Past

WHOI biologist and veterinarian Michael Moore has studied the North Atlantic right whale for twenty-five years. Regularly working to monitor the populations of these critically endangered animals and to help free individuals from entanglements […]

Scientists Reveal Secrets of Whales

Scientists Reveal Secrets of Whales

Researchers have known for decades that whales create elaborate songs. But a new study has revealed a component of whale songs that has long been overlooked-sort of a booming baseline to go along with the […]

Whale-safe Fishing Gear

Whale-safe Fishing Gear

WHOI engineers are developing a new kind of lobster trap buoy that could help keep whales from getting tangled in fishing gear.

Endangered Whales Get a High-Tech Check-Up

Endangered Whales Get a High-Tech Check-Up

Drones seem to be everywhere these days, from backyards to battlegrounds. Scientists are using them too: in this case, to assess the health of endangered North Atlantic right whales. Since drones are small and quiet, they can fly close to whales without disturbing them, bringing back incredibly detailed photographs and samples of microbe-rich blow.

Marine Mammals Meet Modern Medicine

Marine Mammals Meet Modern Medicine

Whales do not make the easiest patients, but CT scans, MRIs, ultrasound, hyperbaric chambers, and other medical tools are making it easier to learn about them.

Tangled Up in Fishing Gear

Tangled Up in Fishing Gear

Are Jellyfish Populations Increasing?

Are Jellyfish Populations Increasing?

Delicate but armed, mindless yet unstoppable, jellyfish sometimes appear abruptly near coasts in staggering numbers that cause problems and generate headlines: Jellyfish fill fishing nets in Japan, sinking a boat. Jellyfish clog nuclear plant water […]

The Latest Fashion in Bowhead Whale Songs

The Latest Fashion in Bowhead Whale Songs

Whales, it turns out, are dedicated followers of fashion. There’s a style to the song they sing to attract mates, and that style shifts. To keep up with their very latest crazes, you need an […]

To Free a Tangled Whale

To Free a Tangled Whale

Scientists successfully used a new sedative delivery system for the first time on a large whale in the wild. It calmed the 40-foot, 40,000-pound whale so that rescuers could approach safely by boat and cut away fishing gear wrapped around its head.

Sea Life Is Accumulating Pathogens

Sea Life Is Accumulating Pathogens

An unprecedented survey of seabirds, marine mammals, and sharks on the U.S. East Coast has revealed that marine wildlife contains a wide variety of disease-causing microbes—including many that have developed resistance to antibiotics and several […]

Mining the Origins of Life

Mining the Origins of Life

Scientists Investigate Mysterious Duck Die-offs

Scientists Investigate Mysterious Duck Die-offs

Andrea Bogomolni was in a skiff near shore when she saw the ducks in October of 2007: “It was surreal,” the biologist remembered. “You could see hundreds of lifeless brown, black, and white lumps on […]

Stranded Marine Mammals Stir Tough Decisions

Stranded Marine Mammals Stir Tough Decisions

A seal, sick or injured, is found stranded on a beach. What should be done?

That depends on whom you ask.

An animal welfare advocate would urge efforts to help the disabled animal. A scientist might want […]

Following Whales Up a Creek

Following Whales Up a Creek

Michael Moore is accustomed to working solo (or nearly so) in remote places, but this was a very public endeavor. The WHOI marine mammal biologist and veterinarian flew across the country on short notice in […]

WHOI Scientists Provide Congressional Testimony

WHOI Scientists Provide Congressional Testimony

Susan Humphris, chair of the Geology and Geophysics Department, testified May 4, 2006,  before the House Committee on Resources, one of several WHOI scientists to appear this spring before members of Congress or their staff.

Humphris […]

Mass Strandings Keep New Marine Mammal Facility Busy

Mass Strandings Keep New Marine Mammal Facility Busy

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s new Marine Research Facility (MRF) opened its doors just in time for a terribly busy winter season. An unprecedented number of fatal dolphin and whale strandings near Cape Cod brought many […]

Diving into the Right Whale Gene Pool

Like forensic detectives, a multi-institutional team of scientists has followed a thread of DNA from the highly endangered right whale population across the oceans and back through generations.

Doing the Right Thing for the Right Whale

The situation is urgent: Seventy years after whaling was banned, the North Atlantic right whale population has not recovered. Only 300 to 350 remain, and the species is headed toward extinction.

The threats remain dire: Right […]

Big Whale, Big Sharks, Big Stink

Big Whale, Big Sharks, Big Stink

A shipping tanker first spotted the whale on Sept. 9 about 24 miles southeast of Nantucket, Mass. It floated belly up—species unknown, cause of death a mystery.

Like a detective, Michael Moore, a biologist at Woods […]

Even Sperm Whales Get the Bends

Even Sperm Whales Get the Bends

It seemed only natural for deep-diving sperm whales to be immune from decompression illness, or the bends?the painful, sometimes fatal condition that human divers suffer when they surface too rapidly. But the whales may be as susceptible as land mammals, according to a new study by WHOI biologists.