Marine Mammals
Untangling Impacts on Right Whales
Whale scientists look for new ways to mitigate whale entanglements in fishing lines
Read MoreSeal Spy
Drones helps WHOI scientist measure the body mass of mother and pup seals during lactation
Read MoreLooking Back: Studying Historic Whale Populations
Geodynamics Seminar Judith Lund, New Bedford Whaling Museum Sponsored by: Academic Programs Office
Read MoreNew regulations are a matter of life and extinction for right whales
New Initiative Launched to Help Protect New Yorks Great Whales
New report: Saving the North Atlantic Right Whale
Learn how scientists and concerned organizations are responding to threats facing this critically endangered species.
Read MoreMarine Mammals
Marine mammals are warm-blooded vertebrates (animals with a backbone) that bear live young and nourish them with milk as land…
Read MoreSeal Facts
What are they? Seals are pinnipeds, a group of animals with three separate families—phocidae (eared seals), otaridae (non-eared seals), and…
Read MoreFrom the humpback to the Antarctic blue: why do whales sing?
Groups of Pilot Whales Have Their Own Dialects
In humans, different social groups, cities, or regions often have distinct accents and dialects. Those vocal traits are not unique to us, however. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has found that short-finned pilot whales living off the coast of Hawai’i have their own sorts of vocal dialects, a discovery that may help researchers understand the whales’ complex social structure.
Read MoreHearing Tests on Wild Whales
Scientists published the first hearing tests on a wild population of healthy marine mammals. The tests on beluga whales in Bristol Bay, AK, revealed that the whales have sensitive auditory systems and showed less age-related hearing loss than is expected.
Read MoreThe Future of Lobstering May Mean Fishing by Computer
Scientists study how marine mammals survive at great depths
Mystery of how deep-diving whales avoid the bends may have been solved
How Do Marine Mammals Avoid the Bends?
Deep-diving whales and other marine mammals can get the bends – the same painful and potentially life-threatening decompression sickness that strikes scuba divers who surface too quickly. A new study offers a hypothesis of how marine mammals generally avoid getting the bends and how they can succumb under stressful conditions.
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