Marine Mammals
Whale Blow Microbiome
Researchers from WHOI, NOAA Fisheries Southwest Science Center, SR3 Sealife, and the Vancouver Aquarium analyzed whale blow samples collected via drone to identify a core group of bacteria in the respiratory tract of healthy whales.
Read MoreWhale Biopsy Collection
A team gathers skin samples from healthy humpback whales in waters off the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Researchers obtain samples by releasing a biopsy-collecting dart, which bounces off the whales’ skin and into the water. The team then retrieves the floating dart and brings it back to a lab for analysis.
Read MoreGirls in Science Program: bioacoustics
August 2019: Woods Hole Sea Grant has teamed up with Earthwatch Institute on the Girls in Science Fellowship. This fellowship aims to promote diversity and expose young women to a variety of marine careers in STEM. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Research Specialist Laela Sayigh is the principal investigator working with the fellows analyzing marine mammal bioacoustics data.
Read MoreClassification of Marine Mammal Vocalizations in Seismic Environment
Thomas Guilment, University of Louisiana, Lafayette Sponsored by: AOP&E Department
Read MoreRight Whales
North Atlantic right whales face many threats and need our help. Supporting innovative technologies to reduce entanglement and vessel strikes…
Read MoreWhales may owe their efficient digestion to millions of tiny microbes
A study by NSF-funded researchers at WHOI shows that the microbial communities inside whales may play an important role in the digestion of one of the ocean’s most abundant carbon-rich lipids: wax esters.
Offshore Wind May Help The Planet — But Will It Hurt Whales?
As whale populations have grown, the WCS and its collaborator, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have been monitoring them, with an eye toward mediating conflicts with the ocean’s heaviest users: cargo ships, commercial fishing trawlers and the U.S. military.
Whales may owe their efficient digestion to millions of tiny microbes
A study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that the microbial communities inside whales may play an important role in the digestion of one of the ocean’s most abundant carbon-rich lipids, known as a wax ester.
Read MoreRight whale population drops to 409, as consortium urges more action
“Yet another year of decline for right whales,” said Consortium Chairman and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researcher Mark Baumgartner.
I spy a pilot whale
This spy-hopping adult female short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) was photographed offshore of Hawai‘i Island while checking out the Cascadia…
Read MoreScientists meeting in Portland say right whales on the way to extinction
The future continues to grow ever darker for the highly endangered right whale, a species that has been in decline every year since 2010 and is at the heart of regulatory protection efforts threatening to upend Maine’s valuable lobster fishery.
SeaWorld & Busch Gardens conservation fund commits $900,000 to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales
The funding provided by the SeaWorld Conservation Fund will be primarily used to test alternative non-lethal fishing gear. Whales and sea turtles commonly entangle in ropes that connect crab or lobster traps on the sea floor to buoys on the sea surface.
Read MoreConservation of Endangered Marine Species in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
Randall Arauz, Migramar and Fins Attached Marine Research and Conservation Sponsored by: Biology Department
Read MoreDrone technology could better measure effect on right whales of food shortages, entanglements
Drone technology could better measure effect on right whales of food shortages, entanglements has been limited to dead specimens. Researchers at WHOI and Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies devised a measurement method for these ocean giants that yields accurate data that can be used for tracking the changes in body mass over time, providing clues to their daily energy requirements and the impacts of outside stressors.
How Drones Are Helping Scientists Figure Out Whales’ Weight
Michael J. Moore, a biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, tells Jessica Leigh Hester of Atlas Obscura, body mass “tells you about the health of the animal, and in the context of its environment, it gives you a sense of how it’s doing nutritionally.”
Drone-Piloting Scientists ‘Weighed’ Whales From 130 Feet in the Air
A whale’s mass “tells you about the health of the animal, and in the context of its environment, it gives you a sense of how it’s doing nutritionally,” says Michael J. Moore, a biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Researchers use drones to weigh whales
Researchers devised a way to accurately estimate the weight of free-living whales using only aerial images taken by drones.
Read MoreAfter 33 years, Michael Moore is still free to be curious at WHOI
Michael Moore is a senior scientist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Read MoreSince When Did Animals Become Synonymous With Our Grief?
After a story about 52 Blue called “Song of the Sea, a Cappella and Unanswered” appeared in The New York Times in 2004, letters from heartsick readers flooded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the laboratories that had studied the whale. 52 Blue sang at a different frequency than all the other blue whales they had studied before.
Whale populations in New York Harbor are booming—here’s why
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the New York Aquarium teamed up to deploy a high-tech acoustic buoy named Melville, 22 miles south of Fire Island. Whales communicate mostly via sound, and each species has distinct calls (and even dialects).
Camp Harbor View Whale Watch
In August, WHOI participated in a whale watching trip for 85 Leaders-in-Training, ages 15 to 17, from Camp Harbor View,…
Read MoreLocal fishermen assist leatherback research
After several years, Kara Dodge began to do other work with turtles, in particular a “TurtleCam” project with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution engineer Amy Kukulya. The project involved tagging and tailing turtles with autonomous underwater vehicles to study diving behavior, eating habits, and assess ways to reduce entanglements.
New Technology Will Listen For Underwater Whale Traffic In An Effort To Reduce Ship Strikes
Scientists from the Benioff Ocean Initiative and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have deployed a a hydrophone, or underwater microphone, to listen for whale traffic in the Santa Barbara Channel. They hope to use the microphone to help prevent collisions between whales and boats – which are often deadly to whales.
Lobstermen seek help in protecting right whales
Michael Moore, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, raised the concern that the “torturous” process the fisheries service was undertaking to write and enact the new regulations would “still come up short.”
