It’s a Saturday night. Yet, here I am at my desk with a list of thesis stuff as long as my arm staring at me. Trouble is reading about 2-step Generalized Additive Models just isn’t appealing on a Saturday night.  This morning I had grand plans to write a blog post about why I think the BC Liberal government rejected the Enbridge Pipeline proposal... but a case of political posturing sort of lost my interest as the day progressed; there will be many more opportunities to write about this as industrial development along BC’s coast is not going away – whether it be Enbridge’s pipeline or the Liberal’s grand Liquefied Natural Gas plans.   Instead, on a chiding from my friend Jonathan Stern I have decided to write about minke whales – and more precisely the case of the two-stepping minke.

So what is so special about minke whales? Most folk overlook them for being common, being those whales that are the target of Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whaling activities. True they are still hunted, and in some parts of the world are they are extremely abundant but here in the Pacific Northwest minke whales are rare. Yes they are rare. In fact NMFS is now reporting fewer than 600 whales in California, Oregon and Washington State waters. So let me say this again... minke whales on this coast are rare. If you see one please report it and then have a little dance party because you just had an encounter with a super cool rare whale! No I’m serious... just don’t fall overboard in your excitement because the water here is really really cold! So this is partly why I think these little whales are so special.

The Salish Sea happens to be what we call a hot spot for minkes. Whales can be consistently found on the banks off the south end of San Jaun Island, e.g., Salmon Bank and Hein Bank during the spring and summer months. In the 1980s they could also be found inside the islands, in fact their presence was so predictable that the waters between Waldron and Stuart Island was referred to as “minke lake”, and it is to this day though you rarely see a minke in ‘minke lake’ these days.

Our ability to photo-id minke whales has provided a foundation from which we can conduct foraging studies through focal follows. You sort of have to know that you are following the same whale for a successful focal follow.... But the data we collect from these focal follows tells us a thing or two about these critters that isn’t so obvious to the casual observer. In fact minke whales tend to frustrate the casual observer due to their unpredictable surfacing behaviour. You never quite know where the whale will come up next or, if indeed the whale will come up! But if you have the patience (this is a pre-requisite of the minke project) you can follow these animals for sometimes hours at a time.

Changes in foraging behaviour may be the result of changes in their prey’s behaviour or perhaps a shift in the main prey base. In the Salish Sea minke whales feed on bait fish, e.g., juvenile herring. In recent years we have observed changes in the way that both birds and minke whales are feeding so could this be due to a change in the main forage fish composition of the area? The insights that we gain into minke whale feeding ecology are a stepping stone to understanding the local marine ecosystem.

I am sure by now you are wondering why I titled this post “The case of two-stepping minke”; sitting down to write about minke whales brings back memories of my experiences with the minke project. Most revolve around floating in our small research boat on Hein Bank waiting for our whale to pop up again. Listening for its breath and scanning 360 degrees searching for that tell-tale disturbance in the water’s surface as the smooth dark back breaks the surface.  In a way their surfacing patterns remind me more of a dance but in reality these whales are always two steps ahead of us leading us off in random dances across the banks, a little whale in constant search of the little fish.

To many, both inside and outside of academia, attending a scientific meeting (e.g. a conference, symposia or workshop) may seem like a bit of luxury that only those established in their field should be allowed to attend. However I would argue that these meetings are a key component in the training of graduate students like myself and that our attendance should be encouraged. 

As it happens many scientific meetings do encourage student participation; there are often awards for the best student presentations and student oriented workshops.  Also, these meetings provide us with opportunities to not only learn the latest developments in our field but also to learn who the movers and shakers are in our fields (and if we are lucky, even meet these individuals!).  The opportunities and connections available to us at international meetings often help set us on career paths in our chosen fields that may one day see us become the next generation of movers and shakers, and that is no small thing! Not to mention the valuable presentation and communication skills that we have to learn in order to actually give an award worthy presentation. Have I managed to convince you yet of the value of the scientific meeting to the mere student?

Not quite, well how about this. We, as grad students, are the next generation of scientists in our chosen field. (That in it-self should be enough!) We should be exposed to the experts in our fields.  We should be taught how to share and communicate our findings to the experts in our fields, the academics, government scientists, NGOs and of course our own peers. If we do not learn these valuable skills we risk loosing the fruits of our labour to obscure scientific journals that can few can access! We want to make... or at least think, that we have something to offer and that our work can and lead to progress in our chosen fields.

But for a student to attend a scientific meeting they must have the means to do so and this means $$$!. Without funding these meetings are usually inaccessible to students. Some students are lucky to have a conference budget included in their funding package or perhaps have supervisors who can financially support their attendance.  For others of us without these opportunities we must be resourceful and get really good at finding the money elsewhere. Most universities expect that a grad student will have the opportunity to present their work at a scientific meeting at least once during their graduate program and have limited pots of money available for this.

Over the course of my PhD program I have been pretty lucky – I have been able to attend and present my work at both large international scientific conferences as well as a number of smaller symposia. And I have managed this without any formal conference budget or financial support from my supervisor. How have I managed this you might be wondering? Well in short I have had a good dose of luck and a good credit card in my pocket! (by the way I don’t recommend the credit card route except as a last resort..).  In some cases I have been able to gather up small pots of money from NGO groups, my department and other sources so that at least my flights, accommodation and registration fees can be covered. In others, I have crashed in other student’s rooms, searched on line for cheap hotels or used carefully saved air-miles to save money.  Other times I have had to dig deep into my pockets but this has been a sacrifice I have been willing to take because I understand the importance of being able to share my work with my colleagues, particularly in Alaska. 

This December the 19th Biennial Conference on Marine Mammals is taking place in New Zealand.  After much agonizing I decided against trying to present at this meeting, due in part to the huge cost of getting to New Zealand as well as the fact that I will be desperately trying to finish my thesis at that time and the guilt of being in New Zealand and not working on the dam thesis would be too much for me. But last week, as I signed up to run in my first ever half-marathon, an idea came to me. Why don’t I put this challenge to a greater use? Why don’t I use this half-marathon to help raise funds for student travel grants so that so that I can help other students attend the conference.

 In 2011 I was the lucky recipient of a travel grant from the American Cetacean Society – Puget Sound Chapter (without their grant I would not have been able to present my work at the 18th Biennial Marine Mammal Conference), so over the next few weeks I will be raising funds to donate towards the ACS-PS student travel grants.  Though a slightly offbeat thing to run 13 miles for I hope that I have managed to convince you of the worth of the Scientific Meeting for the grad student and why indeed this is a good cause to support. After all we are the future scientists in our field and in this particular case we will be the ones working to conserve and manage cetaceans and other marine mammals that inhabit our oceans, and working to improve the overall health of the world’s marine systems. A noble cause if ever there was one!

    I arrived in San Francisco on Friday to visit with my friend and colleague Dr. Jonathan Stern. Jon had told me earlier in the week that he had planned a trip down the coast to Monterey Bay on Saturday.  I had never been to Monterey Bay before but ever since I first met Jon back in 2005 I have been listening to his many stories of field work there; from following minkes back and forth along the kelp line to being surrounded by blue whales and all in between. So needless to say I was pretty excited, especially at the prospect of possibly getting to see my first blue whale. Blue whales are the largest animal to have ever lived – that in itself is a pretty good reason to have them on my bucket list!

    However, I was also keenly aware of all the other marine mammal species that I might get to see. At this time the northward migration of the Eastern Pacific Gray whale is under way. Mother calf pairs are running the gauntlet from the breeding lagoons of Baja Mexico to their feeding areas in the Chukchi Sea, off the north coast of Alaska. Along the way, and especially around Monterey Bay Transient killer whales hang out knowing that there will be good hunting to be had with the vulnerable young calves. The Monterey Bay canyon is also a feeding area for blue whales and humpbacks and a small population of minke whales can be found just to the south. And I am not even going to start on the delphinids that frequent the area, but suffice to say I knew that I was in with a chance of seeing tursiops, rissos, and Pacific White-sided dolphins.

    We left San Francisco before dawn in order to make down for the 9am trip. It is a 3 hour drive down the coast and much of it was shrouded in fog, common to this stretch of coast in the spring and summer. We drove through a sleepy Santa Cruz, stopping briefly at Emily’s Bakery for coffee and muffins; passed the Moss marine labs and arrived at a busy breakwater in Monterey around 8.15 am. The break water is popular hangout for California sea lions and cormorants alike; they give the area an interesting odor....

    By 9 am I was loading onto the whale watch boat still hopeful in my quest for blues. In the marina a sea otter was busy breaking into a shell with a stone; we could hear the hammering over the hum of the engine. It ignored us and continued on with its business. Sea lions were hauled out on any available buoy, sometimes 3 or four of them fighting for a spot. We rounded the breakwater on our way out giving us a fantastic view of a whole slew of sea lions, both hauled out and in the water. Then we were heading out into the bay; apparently a group of killer whales had been reported by fishermen about 4 miles offshore earlier that morning and this was where we were headed. I won’t lie; my heart sank just a little bit. Indeed I may be one of the only marine mammal biologists out there not to get that excited about killer whales! perhaps I am spoilt as I spend so much time in the San Juan Islands but the reality was that I knew with transients around the chances of seeing many other baleen whales would be slim (on top of that the whale watch company was hell bent on getting to the killer whales and announced that they were unlikely to stop for other species seen along the way!). Killer whales; these critters are perhaps best described as oversized dolphins dressed up like police cars (I think Christopher Moore coined that description in his book Fluke),and they have an ego to boot! Ok so, I’m a baleen whale aficionado; except for the singing, flipper waving humpback whale the bristled variety of whale often don’t get the same attention as the showy toothed type.... particularly the little minke, or apparently the big blue!

    We reached the killer whales after about an hour’s ride, I had seen a couple of dolphins along the way, though we (and they) were moving too fast to allow me to get an id on the species. The group of 7 transients, with one large male CA20 and a good sized sprouter had recently made a kill, perhaps the night before; there was evidence of slick in the water. But soon after arriving the whales began to travel more, sometimes together, sometimes spread out. Their movements more erratic, which were likely due to a combination of hunting behaviours and perhaps even some evasive behaviours as there were 3-4 large whale watch boats surrounding them. We stayed with the group for an hour and a half. After a while I took the opportunity to talk with some of the passengers about whales – something that I rather enjoy doing when I get the chance and the naturalists were busy elsewhere. On the way back to the marina we were keeping our eyes peeled for any large blows. My hope for a blue had not quite been quashed. Soon a blow was spotted up ahead. A large humpback was cruising around. While the whale did not fluke at all during this encounter it gave us some wonderful dorsal views and I got some id shots worthy of the minke project (“full-frame”).  The whale even passed close enough to the boat at one point to allow us to see the great white flippers below the surface.

    On leaving the humpback to its business came the realization that I was not going to be crossing the blue whale off my bucket list; for that I had to wait for another opportunity. But regardless of this it was great to be back out on the water observing marine mammals in their element, simply doing their thing. As a graduate student working with archival data I find myself more often desk bound than out on the water. Being on the water and observing these creatures in the flesh is my passion, it is why I got into this field of work and it is why I stay. I am so grateful for Jon to sending me out on this boat on Saturday and giving me this opportunity to see this part of the Pacific. But next time I will bag that blue!

My colleague and fellow PhD student Rachel Neuenhoff, studies the role and relative impacts of marine mammals on fisheries and is interested in how gray seals interact with this depleted fishery. This subject is perhaps a contentious one, and is certainly highly charged with emotion on both sides - the fishermen who see the seal as a direct competitor of a limited resource upon which their livelihoods and communities depend, and the environmentalists who's remit it is to protect all marine mammals regardless of the social or economic impacts to small coastal communities. Rachel has not been afraid to wade into this debate and in fact she has done it with gusto! Perhaps not what you might of imagined from the slight somewhat quiet lady who sits a few desks away from me in our lab at the University of British Columbia.

Rachel is using a somewhat underused tool to help her with her research.  She has designed a questionnaire to collect "traditional knowledge" from the fishermen. Fisherman played an integral part in the design of the questionnaire to ensure that it would accurately captured the issues that they confront on a daily basis.  (I borrowed the last part of that sentence from Rachel's blog but I am sure she won't mind... I can bribe her with coffee ;-) ).  Thus far the responses to her questionnaire have been tremendous and I think that this just goes to show how much fisherman have to offer and also how keen they are to share their knowledge.  All we have to do is ask.  This is not something that is always well taught to students of fisheries.  I have had my own experience of this while working on my Masters research in Orkney, Scotland. 

In May 2004 I travelled from Aberdeen to Orkney armed with acoustic recording devices and a surveyors theodolite to collect data on harbour porpoises distribution in the vicinity of a fish farm that employed acoustic deterrent devices (ADDs) to deter seals.  I spent time with the fish farm manager of the site that I was focusing my study on, asking simple questions and was often surprised at the answers I received.  The knowledge of this fish farm manager, in terms of how to control viral diseases such as Infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) or indeed on how to keep marauding seals away from his fish pens was often contrary to what we we had been taught in classes just a few months before.  Almost 10 years later this apparent disconnect between scientists and fishers (be they farmers, commercial fishermen or subsistence users - such as the Inupiat whalers, to whom my current PhD work relates to in Alaska), is still something that is not properly addressed. Often fisheries and subsistence users are wary of scientists because of our tendency to brush off this traditional knowledge as anecdotal. It does not fit the rigours of the scientific method that we have been so carefully taught. However, the efforts of scientists such as Rachel and others (particularly in the Fisheries Centre at UBC) to incorporate the knowledge of local stakeholders is changing this mind-set. Traditional knowledge can in fact provide that vital foundation for the design of scientific studies and together these key components can help us make the right decisions, so vital for the sustainable management of marine systems.

Well... it seems that this post went places I wasn't expecting it too so thanks for baring with me.  I strongly encourage you to check out Rachel's blog and join in the discussion surrounding the impacts of marine mammals on fisheries.

Whales are what we tend to call charismatic megafauna.  People love these critters, they have a certain cute factor, there is a mysticism that surrounds these giants of the sea. They have social networks sometimes similar to ours. All these things draw people to love these animals. This can make them an important tool to further marine conservation, after all if people want to save whales then surely they want to conserve the very environments that whales need to survive? But more often than not the little fish. so crucial to whales and countless other marine species at every level of the oceans ecosystems are forgotten. Who cares about these guys? Well you should care. Anyone that has any interest, any passion in the conservation, sustainable management and survival of our oceans should care about the little fish. Really it is common sense; not only do whales reap the benefits of the little fish but we do too. We like to eat big fish  - big fish like to eat little fish; so many species rely on the little fish.  So surely it would be nonsensical to remove these mighty little fish from the oceans? Well think again, we are removing little fish from the ocean - after all tight schools of fish are easy to scoop up. They provide a cheap source for fertilizer, for fish farm feed.  The Pew Foundation has produced a brilliant animated video that shows beautifully why the little fish is so important to marine ecosystems and to us humans, highlighting the economic, trophic and conservation values of the little fish. So next time you think about whales, think about the little fish, arguably mightier than the great whale.

For the past week I have been tucked away in a wee cabin (commonly known as the Whale Cabin to those in the know) perched on the west side of San Juan Island.  My friend Sharon kindly let's me stay here from time to time; it makes for a great work retreat and the views out over the Juan de Fuca Strait help remind me why I am still slaving away at my PhD (though at times I will admit that the view is distracting!). It's a sea thing, a whale thing.  This vast expanse of water ahead of me that is in constant motion and home to such an incredible diversity of creatures. In one word: fascinating.  But I digress.

Last winter I spent 3 weeks here at the Whale Cabin writing the first draft of a thesis chapter. This year that chapter has been accepted for publication (cue acceptance dance!) and I have found my way back to the cabin to address my reviewers comments and suggestions. My paper is reporting on the results of my research into the effects of seismic operations on surface-respiration-dive behaviour of bowhead whales(see diagram below); made possible through my access to an incredible database on bowhead behaviour. Most of what we know about bowhead behaviour has been learned from dedicated behavioural observation studies conducted from small aircraft. But how do you study the behaviour of a whale from an aeroplane? I must admit that though I have now spent 3 seasons working on an aerial survey programme for bowhead whales and other Arctic marine mammals, though I have not had the privilege of collecting detailed behavioural data.  Conducting systematic line transect surveys to estimate distribution and abundance of whales is quite different to circling for hours over the same area trying to keep tabs on the same whale.  Anyone who has tried to follow a whale, dolphin or porpoise from small boats or even from shore have an appreciation of how difficult it is to keep tabs on these animals, let alone manage to measure the time they spend at the surface, how many times they breath and how long they dive for.  

Over the last few days I have been reading and re-reading my doggeared copies of the papers that first described the methods used for bowhead behavioural studies. I have been trying to summarize into one short paragraph how such fine-scale behaviour data were able to be collected from an aircraft circling around whales at an altitude of over 1500 ft. These published papers provide a pretty good account how these data were collected, but it is sometimes hard to imagine yourself in the position of an observer circling over whales somewhere in the central Beaufort Sea 25 years ago. Or so you might think.... unless you find yourself in the online Macaulay acoustic library of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  Here you can find these incredible recordings of bowhead whales. During the early aerial behavioural observation studies observers also did a really cool thing. They dropped sonobouys (small acoustic transmitter systems) near the whales they were watching.  These instruments allowed the observers to record the whales and what the whales were hearing (for example seismic sounds from oil and gas exploration activities).  These instruments also recorded audio of the observers on the plane.  This means that not only can you listen to the whales you can also listen to the observers collecting their data, noting specifics of a whale, how they identified whales etc. 

As I have been working through the revisions to my paper this week I have been listening to these old recordings, imagining what it was like back then, circling over groups of whales for hours at a time.  Up to now I have known these whales through numbers in my spreadsheets; but listening to these audio recordings have now brought my spreadsheets to life. 

You too can share this experience, simply click the spectrogram to the right and join the aerial observers circling over bowhead whales off the Alaskan coast in the early 1980s.

Till next time..... Thanks!

Have I mentioned how lucky I am to have been given the chance to study such a fascinating creature for my PhD? Well if not here are a few tidbits why. The bowhead whale, weighing in at around 120,000 lbs and growing to as much as 60 ft is the only mysticete whale to have evolved to live year round in the icy Arctic.  And while this animals' impressive life span - estimated to be up to (and perhaps beyond) 200 years consistently cause jaws to drop a lesser known, and I think perhaps, an equally impressive characteristic of this whale surround it's acoustic abilities.

Yes whales produce sound; it is how they communicate. Large mysticetes tend to make rather odd moaning sounds of very low frequency and it is generally well known that male humpback whales sing intricate songs during the winter breeding seasons in a bid to attract females.  If you ever find yourself in Hawaii' during the months of January and February try sticking your head under the sea - you will hear the chorus from male humpbacks.  Research has confirmed that it is only the males that sing and for those that are aware that whales singing most only know about singing from humpbacks. But here they are wrong, oh so wrong.  The bowhead whale is a singer too, in fact at times this rotund cold water creature could arguably rival the humpbacks singing ability.... or at least that is what I like to think.

Yet we know so little about the song of the bowhead whale, who is the singer? Is it just males that sing, as is the case with humpback whales or do females sing too? Why do these whales sing? are they singing for a mate? Bowheads in the Western Arctic have been recorded singing during the eastward spring migration and it is thought that these songs are the leftovers of much more active singing over the winter months.  It is also suggested that singing is a method of maintaining connections between migrating groups.  Bowheads in Disko Bay (off Western Greenland) have also been recorded to sing and songs are much more complex in the winter than than during the spring.  But over the winter of 2008/2009 the crème de la crème of bowhead song was recorded and more exciting the 60 plus complex songs were recorded in the Fram Strait (to the east of Greeenland).  The whales in this area are part of what is known as the Spitsbergen Stock.  This stock of whales, once the largest of the bowhead stocks was the first to be targeted by commercial whalers as early as 1600 and were reduced to near extinction by early 1800. 

The University of Washington researchers did not expect to get much from their 2 recording devices. But boy were they wrong.  Between November 2008 and April 2009 the device located in the Western Fram Strait recorded whale songs nearly every hour and over 60 unique song patterns were detected. The authors of the this study (published in Endangered Species Research this year ) commented on the remarkable nature of such a diverse repertoire that approaches song birds rather than whales.  The study also found that singing peeked with the lowest water temperatures, when ice conditions were most dense and while is was almost completely dark.  The extent of the singing has suggested this population may be larger than previously thought and if bowheads do only sing during the breeding season then these recordings have provided some evidence of an active breeding part of this critically endangered population, which is always good news!

Research Article, freely available:
Stafford, K.M., S.E.Moore, C.L. Berchok, Ø. Wiig, C. Lydersen, E. Hansen, D. Kalmback and K.M. Korvacs. 2012.
Spitsbergen's endangered bowhead whales sing through the Polar night. Endangered Species Research. 18(95-103)

Examples of the Bowhead songs:
(These examples are available on the University of Washington Office of News and Information website)
Song 1
Song 2

LINKS
These links take you to some of the press coverage, I have been a bit late in posting about this story but it is still so exciting that I think it continues to be worth sharing. Plus it is another reason for me to share with you why these whales are so fascinating.
Critically endangered whales sing like birds; new recordings hint at rebound (University of Washington)
Study: Chatty Arctic Bowhead whales sing like the birds (Alaska Dispatch)
Critically Endangered Whales Sing Like Birds; New Recordings Hint at Rebound (Science Daily)

Western Greenland Bowhead Acoustic Research:
http://diskobayarcticstation.wordpress.com/bowhead-whales/bowhead-whale-biology/

The North Slope Borough, Alaska: Bowhead studies and other bowhead sources
http://www.north-slope.org/departments/wildlife/Bowhead%20Whales.php

This is the week of the 64th IWC (International Whaling Commission) meeting, held this year in Panama City.  Delegates from ~63 countries are present to discuss and vote on a series of proposals that are due to be put forward this week, while countless representatives from NGOs all over the world are present to witness and report on the proceedings as well as to lobby delegates for the continued protection and conservation of whales and small cetaceans around the world.

During this intense 5 day meeting (of which we are on Day 2) a number of key items will be up for vote, some of them for a second attempt.  One such proposal is that of the South American countries for a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.  This is the second attempt to introduce this proposal and unfortunately yesterday the vote failed to achieve a 2/3 majority.   Other key issues that are on the table include the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling quotas, that include those of the bowhead whale for the Alaskan Inupiat and Russian subsistence groups.  The US have been fighting hard to get these quotas approved and many would argue have resorted to some interesting politics to obtain the support of Japan.  However, it is not news that the politics of the IWC is interesting to say the least!  But I have only brushed the surface and the week is packed with items including whale-watching, small cetacean conservation, ship strikes, small type coastal whaling (this one is of keen interest to the Japanese), the revised management plan and many more.

The IWC website has provided access to the meetings schedule as well as key reports of the scientific committee (that met in the weeks prior to this 64th meeting).  http://iwcoffice.org/meetings/meeting2012.htm

Another good source of information from an NGOs perspective is the ACS (American Cetacean Society).  Cheryl McCormick (Executive Director of the ACS) is currently at the IWC meeting in Panama and actively blogging, posting detailed reports of the proceedings (often with a rather witty slant).  Check out her blog 'IWC: The World is Watching!'

I will post a summary of this weeks events in Panama early next week and highlight the key developments and outcomes.  I'll also save and post any interesting news articles that I find related to this years' meeting. 

Cheers
F

Oceans Inc. A multimedia channel dedicated to the sharing news about our oceans will be broadcasting from this years Rio +20.  The UN conference on sustainable development brings global leaders and representatives from around the world.  This video has been produced by the Pew Environmental Group and the Zoological Society of London to tell us why global leaders should seize this opportunity for action to protect our oceans.

Dr. Alexis Rogers gives an overview on some of the solutions to key problems currently affecting the oceans today

This evening was almost perfectly calm and meant for a perfect island send off for Stefan. Stefan Brager, the former research director at the whale museum, is a friend and colleague who also tells me on no uncertain terms to finish my thesis! We will all miss Stefan here on San Juan but I hope that he continues to be that little voice in the back of head reminding me that I need to hurry up and get this thesis finished so that I can move on to the next the exciting adventure!!