Every year off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, approximately 18 blue whales, 22 humpbacks, and 43 fin whales are hit and killed by ships.  On the east coast of the United States, it is estimated that nearly a third of all right whale deaths are caused by vessel strikes.

We speak to two groups who are trying to find solutions to this issue. Join us now for this whale of a tale of Saving Whales in the Digital Age. The University of California Santa Barbara’s Benioff Ocean Initiative's Whale Safe, and Ship Speed Watch - a project from Oceana and Global Fishing Watch.

Guest include:

• Morgan Visalli, a Marine scientist at the Benioff ocean initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara
   
• Briana Abrahms, an assistant professor at the University of Washington who studies how climate change and environmental variability, and human activities impact top predators on land and in the ocean.
   
• Whitney Webber, I'm the campaign director for responsible fishing at Oceana.

Stressful animation shows blue whale dodging hundreds of ships while trying to feed.

We speak with Angelo O'Connor Villagomez - senior officer of Marine Protection at Pew Charitable Trusts, Laure Katz - Senior Director of Blue Nature at Conservation International, Ashland and Philippe Cousteau of Antarctic 2020, and Susana Waqainabete-Tuisese - Senior Director Pacific Region at Conservation International. 

The conversation covers the need for real marine protected areas, why the Antarctic needs to be protected, and the importance of indigenous knowledge and collaboration in conservation.

Be sure to check out the hashtag #CallOnCCAMLR 

Listen to Angelo O'Connor Villagomez on our sister program, Marine Conservation Happy Hour. 

Got an idea for the podcast? Want to ask a question? Email us at [email protected]

Check out the Virtual Early Career Ocean Professional Conference here. 

The team sits down with  Douglas Mughan - the NSF office head for the convergence accelerator, Chris Sanford -  a program director with the accelerator, and Clea Harrelson -  2021 Knauss Marine policy fellow, to talk about what the National Science Foundation is hoping to achieve with this new program. 

We also speak with Fadel Adib - Doherty Chair of Ocean Utilization and Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab and EECS and Seth Zippel - an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who generated the idea. 

Letters of intent are due May 5th for this huge opportunity, learn more here.

Over the last four years, ocean policy in the United States shifted from one focusing on stewardship, science, and conservation, to resource exploitation and defense. By the end of 2020, marine protected areas had been opened up for fishing, restrictions on oil extraction practices were relaxed, scientific bodies took climate change down off of their websites, the National Ocean Council had been restructured to remove regional planning bodies, and official charts were altered with… sharpies. 

We speak with Miriam Goldstein - Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress and Jean Flemma - director of the Ocean Defense Initiative and the co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab for their take on the changing nature of policy and politics around the ocean in America. 

WARNING - this episode deals with sex. On our 50th Episode, the team interviews Lynn Bonomo, a Graduate Student Researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, and Vanessa Knutson, a Graduate Student at the Giribet Lab at Harvard University, to talk about nudibranchs and the crazy sexual behaviors these beautiful creatures get up to. P.S. you learn what the term "penis fencing" means. 

Featuring Andrew Kornblatt, Frances Farabaugh, and Dr. Skylar Bayer. 

For more about Reubens work, check out thisvideo that accompanies this research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8sANI2aZlU

The team interviews Dr. Tiara Moore: environmental ecologist, diversity influencer, founder of A WOC Space, co-host of the We Danglin podcast, and co-founder of Black in Marine Science week about why and why the event came together and her experiences as a Black person in STEM. 

We also interview Romaric Moncrieffe, a master's student in the Aquaculture, Environment, and Society program at the Scottish Association of Marine Sciences, and Jaida Elcock a grad student at UW who studies movement ecology of elasmobranch and co-founder of MISS. They discuss their experiences in STEM and what the Black in Marine Science event means to them. 

Just as a heads up, y'all are going to want to check out the BiMS Roll Call hashtag.