This map shows the movements of four of the tagged sperm whales, for the last 2 days, up to 08:00 on 17 June 2013. It includes only the higher  quality position estimates from the Argos satellite system, and the red dots indicate the most recent position.

Whole story: http://www.sitkascience.org/research/sperm_whale_avoidance/

Alaire Hughey was born and raised in Sitka. She graduated from Sitka High School in the spring of 2012, and then took off to volunteer for non-profit educational organization PROBIGUA in Guatemala for six months. She now works as an interpreter for Sitka Sound Science Center, giving tours and charming visitors. In mid-July, she will start working as an intern for an anthropological research project, studying perceptions of risk in Coastal Alaska, with Yale Professor and friend of SSSC, Karen Hébert. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, and will be working in partnership with the Science Center.  She plans to pursue cultural anthropology when she goes to Linfield College in the fall.

This map shows the movements of four of the five tagged sperm whales, for the last 24 hours, up to 10:00 on 12 June 2013. It includes only the higher quality position estimates from the Argos satellite system, and the red dots indicate the most recent position. We haven’t received any transmissions from one of the whales in the last 3 days, so it is likely that its tag has either fallen off or the electronics have failed.

for the rest of the story: http://www.sitkascience.org/research/sperm_whale_avoidance/ 

Tagged Sperm Whale Movements as of June 10 at 9:30 AM

Here’s a map of the movements of all five tagged sperm whales that the SEASWAP team tagged, for the last 24 hours, up to 9:00 am on June 5th, 2013. It includes only the higher quality position estimates from the Argos satellite system, and the red dots indicate the most recent position.

This summer, the SEASWAP team is continuing whale predation work, focusing on satellite tagging and tracking of sperm whales. Researchers Jan Straley and Russ Andrews were out on the water the week of May 27th-31st, and tagged sperm whales, in order to better understand their behaviors and feeding patterns.

Since 2009, ALFA’s Fishery Conservation Network has participated in cooperative research between scientists and fishery managers to identify strategies that reduce or eliminate sperm whale interactions with the longline fishery. FCN fishermen have assisted scientists with testing passive acoustic deterrents by recording acoustic data from sperm whales. This helped scientists to assess the success of the deterrents. Tested deterrents include decoy buoys and bead gear designed to acoustically confuse whales who utilize echolocation for navigation and detecting underwater objects. Scientists also used visual photographic identification and genetic tissue samples to identify individual whales. These combined efforts helped define the scope of the problem, identify stock structure and the ecology of this endangered species.

For more information: http://www.alfafish.org/2013-tracking-results.html

Researchers: Jan Straley UA Southeast, Sitka Sound Science Center and Russ Andrews UA Fairbanks, Alaska SeaLife Center

Industry Partner: Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association

Funding provided by: Central Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association and The Oak Foundation

The Sitka Sound Science Center, through funding from the National Science Foundation, has established a Scientist in Residency Fellowship (SIRF) at the Center in Sitka.  Each year fellowships will be awarded to preeminent marine scientists from across the country. The SIRF program brings scientists to Sitka for one month sabbaticals to allow scientists time to work undisturbed by their usual daily routine. The program will also provide community engagement opportunities for scientists to share their research and to help improve ocean literacy in our community. This year’s SIRF fellows are an impressive group of scientists from some of the nation’s premier scientific establishments.

Jacqueline Grebmeier is Research Professor and a biological oceanographer at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.  Dr. Grebmeier earned a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology from the University of California, Davis in 1977 and went on to receive Masters Degrees in Biology from Stanford University in 1978, and in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington in 1983, specializing in applications of Arctic science to Arctic policy.  Dr. Grebmeier earned a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1987.  She has played a leadership role in coordinating and promoting national and international arctic research. She is the U.S. delegate to, and a vice-president of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), a current member of the U.S. Polar Research Board of the National Academies, and served formerly as a Commissioner of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission following appointment by President Clinton.  She has contributed to other coordinated international and national science planning efforts including service on the steering committee for U.S. efforts during International Polar Year. Over the last thirty years she has participated in over 45 oceanographic expeditions on both US and foreign vessels, many as Chief Scientist, and she was the overall project lead scientist for the U.S. Western Arctic Shelf-Basin Interactions project, which was one of the largest U.S. funded global change studies undertaken in the Arctic. Her research includes studies of pelagic-benthic coupling in marine systems, benthic carbon cycling, benthic faunal population structure, and polar ecosystem health. She has published approximately 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has also served as editor of several books and journal special issues.  Her research is focused on understanding of how arctic marine ecosystems respond to environmental change, particularly efforts to illuminate the importance of benthic biological systems. Dr. Grebmeier is collaborating with Dr. Cooper (MARCH 2014)

Lee Cooper is a Research Professor at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He received his Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1987 following undergraduate and graduate work at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington. His research interests include biogeochemical cycling in high-latitude ecosystems through the use of isotopic and elemental tracers.  Applications of this work include understanding how arctic marine ecosystems are responding to climate change. Lee has extensive polar shipboard research experience on all three current U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers, including service as chief scientist coordinating several multidisciplinary research programs. He also served as a member of a National Academy of Sciences study committee on designing an Arctic Observing Network that has improved capabilities for detecting climate change in the Arctic. Lee has also been active in working to improve collaborative bi-national research in the Russian Arctic through participation as the U.S. representative in an International Arctic Science Committee specialist group that exchanges information with other arctic countries on multinational research activities in the Russian Arctic. He has been the lead or co-author of approximately100 peer-reviewed publications including high-impact journals such as Science, Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Ecology, Marine Ecology Progress Series and Geophysical Research Letters.  (MARCH 2014)

Joe Roman is a conservation biologist, writer, and researcher at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Whale and Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act, winner of the 2012 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. His research has appeared in Science, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and other journals. He has written for Audubon, New Scientist, The New York Times, Slate, and other publications. Editor ‘n’ Chef of eattheinvaders.org, a site dedicated to “fighting invasive species, one bite at a time,” Joe recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Brazil. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and his Master’s degree in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. He was born and raised in New York and counts King Kong as an early conservation influence. (MAY 2014)

Joe Cook is Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico where he also serves as Director, Curator of Mammals, and Curator of Genomic Resources at the Museum of Southwestern Biology. Previously, he was Professor of Biology and Chief Curator at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (1990-2001) and then was Chair of the Biology Department at Idaho State University (2000-2003). He is heavily involved in efforts to encourage greater participation of underrepresented students, especially Native Americans, in biology. His research has built large museum collections (traditional and genomic) that are digitally web-accessible. He now chairs the AIM-UP! Research Coordinating Network sponsored by the National Science Foundation, which is exploring new ways to incorporate museum collections and associated big data into education initiatives and curriculum reform. His research focuses on conservation, molecular evolution and systematics of mammals and associated parasites, producing over 125 peer-reviewed publications, including the book, Recent Mammals of Alaska. Over two decades, he led two international, specimen-based field projects aimed at understanding the biogeography of Beringia (Beringian Coevolution Project) and Alexander Archipelago (ISLES). Most recently, he co-founded Collaborative Integrated Investigations of Arctic Biomes to engage local communities, resource managers, and botanists, parasitologists and mammalogists from academia in building site-intensive and spatially-extensive Archival Observatories to explore the relationships between environmental change, natural resource management, and human health at high latitudes. (OCTOBER 2013)

The inaugural class of fellows are: Dr. Pete Raimondi (July 2012), University of California Santa Cruz; Dr. Nic Bloiun, University of  Rhode Island (September 2012); Dr. Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink (October 2012), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Dr. Alison Stimpert (April 2013), Naval Post Graduate School; Dr. Gary Greene, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (Aug 15-Sept 11, 2013), and collaborators Dr. Matt Bracken, Northeastern University, and Dr. Cascade Sorte, U Mass Boston (July 7-Aug 6, 2014).

For more information contact Victoria O’Connell voconnell@sitkascience.org

The Sitka Sound Science Center is proud to play a key role in marine debris education, outreach, and cleanup for our region and our state.  It is a perfect fit for our mission and allows us the opportunity to give back to our community.

Taylor White and Margot OConnell with bailing band and trawl web.