The manatee, also known as a sea cow, is a generally slow moving, warm water species.  They are very common in Florida, where humans and their associated water-craft are also quite prevelant, which there in lies the rub. Often found in shallow water, near the surface, manatees are at high risk for water-craft interactions (i.e. getting hit by boats and other things like jet skis).  This problem has been known about for years, and there are regulations and protections in place, but manatees are still getting hit. How many and how often? That is what this paper is about this week. Join us to find out the astronomical numbers surrounding how many manatees have evidence (scars) from water-craft collisions (and how many scars per animal - spoiler it is usually way more than one), what this means for their population, and how our current protections and regulations are just not doing enough.

Paper freely available: https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v43/p395-408/

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!  

This week: Atlantic spotted dolphin  

Learn more about Atlantic spotted dolphins at http://www.wilddolphinproject.org/ 

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver

Gray whales have been extinct in the Atlantic for hundreds of years...but there have been sightings of Gray whales in the last decade along the European and North African coasts.  More strangely, there was a sighting in 2013 of a Gray whale of Namibia... why is this strange?  Because Gray whales are only found in the Northern hemisphere!  This particular Gray whale was very, very far away from home.  Who are these odd visitors? Are they remnants from an Atlantic population, or are they intentional or accidental migrants from the Pacific? This week's paper answers this question for the 2013 Namibian gray whale.  Join us to learn more about this record breaking whale, and how this fits into the conservation and future of this species.

Paper freely available: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0136

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!

This week: The Harbor Porpoise

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie

Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!

This week: The Right Whale

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie

Check our our FB feed to see a post we shared about the sighting of the North Pacific Right Whale!

Climate change is a hot topic right now (pun intended!).  With that comes the discussion about carbon emissions, how we can lower them and needing to better understand the carbon cycle.  Earth is the biggest recycler there is, nutrients are constantly recycled, reformed and moved around the ecosytem and even the planet!  So keeping track of where the carbon is going, staying (removing carbon from the atmosphere and helping to mitigate climate change) or getting back into the atmosphere (and thus affecting the warming of the planet) is important in our efforts to slow down the rate of climate change.  Enter marine vertebrates (small to large, fish to whales).  These animals, through their bodily functions and behavior have direct and indirect effects on the movement of carbon.  However, little research has focused on this, and their ultimate (and complicated) effects are unknown. This paper reviews the available knowledge and why it is so important to better understand these interactions.  Leveraging naturally occurring carbon interactions for mitigating climate change can be a productive strategy with lower cost and risk than other geoengineering solutions.  Join us as we discuss the paper, and how cetaceans, pinnipeds, fish and other marine vertebrates can help us combat climate change, if we just protect their populations and environment.

Paper freely available: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332221002384

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!

This week: Risso's dolphin

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie

Check out an article and photos of the Risso's and bottelnose dolphin hybrid here: https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/new-encounter-with-a-possible-rissos-bottlenose-dolphin-hybrid-in-scottish-waters/

Jonian Dolphin Conservation's smart photo identification of Risso's dolphins: http://dolfin.ba.issia.cnr.it/spirs

We are on the topic of microplastics again, but this time with our favorite study animal, the harbor porpoise!  This interesting paper looks at the amount and type of microplastics between harbor porpoises in 2 differenct seas: the North sea and the Baltic sea around Germany.  Are there differences in the abundance of microplasitics found in animals of different ages, between males and females, or reproductive status?  Is there a difference between the microplastic load in harbor porpoises in the North sea vs. the Baltic sea (which is more enclosed)?  Does it make sense that animals that have good nutrional status actually have higher levels of microplastics?  Learn the answers to these questions and more as we dive into this important topic and begin to understand just how pervasive microplastics are, and what the consequences of that may be.

Paper freely available: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.682532/full

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!

This week: Monk seals

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie

How do prey avoid their predators?  Can an intelligent, social mammal share knowledge about what they have learned, with other unexperienced individuals and have it make a difference?  This is the question being asked in our journal pick this week, but in this case humans are the predators, and sperm whales are the prey. Utilizing data from digitized whale logs, along with what they know from decades of research on the social structure and behavior of sperm whales the authors can use mathmatical models to test hypothesises on why, in only 2.4 years, the rate of a whaler striking a whale (harpooning them) decreased by 58%!!  That is a stark decrease in a short time. So, was it due to a difference in whaler's abilities, individual whales learning from their own experience, the fact that vulnerable whales were likely taken first (and they were easier to strike), or was it because sperm whales used social learning - the unexperienced learning from the experienced?  Join us as we discuss how social learning may have played a role in the history of whaling.

Paper freely available: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0030

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