Tag: AMAPPS

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Kiersten Newtoff: Bird is the Word. January 27, 2025

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kiersten Newtoff
NOAA Ship Pisces
January 6 – January 27, 2025

Mission: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)
Geographic Area of Cruise: North Atlantic Coast
Date: January 27, 2025. Due to weather, we had to dock a couple days early, but I already had some posts planned out!

The last science crew spotlight is of the best1 crew: team birds! And to wrap it up, a spotlight on the Chief Scientist that put the science crew together: Debi.

Bird is the Word (Have You Heard?)

A photograph of the horizon with 50+ Northern Gannets diving into the water.
A huge flock of Northern Gannets dive bomb into the water for a snickety-snack. Credit: Allison

Okay, so why birds? I think this class of organisms is one of the best for future wildlife biologists to get started in because they are everywhere, both visually and auditorily findable, and their biodiversity is well documented. Birds also serve as an excellent bioindicator of ecosystem health because of their ubiquitous distribution. Many species are at the top of the food chain, so we can see how pollutants biomagnify to the highest trophic levels. Some species are habitat specialists, and their relative numbers can provide insight into our changing world. In the ocean, seabirds and whales share a common meal – so where there are birds, there’s a chance for marine mammals. Likewise, smaller breeding colonies can provide insight to fisheries health that affects both marine life and human sustenance. If there’s a consistent decline, redistribution, or mass mortality in birds, then scientists will investigate the environment to find clues for these changes. It’s likely affecting other organisms too, but we just don’t notice them as quickly. Another reason to study seabirds is:

Because they’re cool.
                          Nick

Meet the Bird Nerds

Allison and Nick pose for the camera and are wearing heavy duty cold weather gear on the flying bridge.
Allison and Nick bundled up on the flying bridge. Credit: Ryan

One of the seabird observers on this cruise is Allison. In undergrad she majored in Zoo and Wildlife Biology and worked as a zookeeper after graduation. A shoulder injury and subsequent surgery took her out of the field for a few months and it was during this time she decided to pursue birds as a full time career, as she had really enjoyed an ornithology course in college. After her recovery, Allison worked as a Coastal Steward for Tuckernuck Island, MA for a few years, working with gulls and shorebirds. She teamed up with a local professor and also did MAPS banding of songbirds on the island. She presented some of their gull research at the Waterbird Society meeting in New Bern, NC in 2016 and participated in a pelagic cruise field trip. That’s when she got hooked onto seabirds. Allison has been a contractor for NOAA since 2019 and usually spends over 120 days a year at sea doing seabird surveys out of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center with EcoMon and AMAPPS. Outside of these tours, she does lots of guest speaking for universities, libraries, birding clubs, and other conservation organizations about birding life on the high seas. Allison maintains many Excel sheets with all sorts of fun data, but the most impressive is her list of the 162 bird species seen on/from the ship!

Birds of the Sea, a haiku
Choppy seas today,
But the birds still fly and zoom.
Was that a puffin?

Indeed, it was a puffin.
Credit: Nick

The other seabird observer onboard is Nick whose journey to birds started after his freshman year in college; he spent the summer in the Bering Sea collecting phytoplankton. There just happened to be a seabird observer on board who taught him a lot between his phytoplankton duties. After graduating, he found a researcher who was working with Adelie penguins near Palmer Station, Antarctica (there’s a live webcam of the penguins!). He “cold-emailed” (comes from the idea of ‘cold calling’ where you reach out to someone who you don’t know) this researcher soon after graduating asking about opportunities to work with him. It took 2 years of Nick getting more experience and sending a few more emails to finally convince the researcher to let him join a research trip in 2008. Nick spends 6-8 months a year doing various field work: marine mammal aerial surveys, studying puffins in Maine, turtle work in North Padre Island, field projects for National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, and many more. In 2013, he was hired by a contracting agency to work on NOAA cruises which he has been doing since. He likes the seasonal work because he gets a lot of time to spend with family, traveling, and just doing what he wants to do.

Meet the Chief Scientist

Debi poses for the camera on the fly bridge.
Debi is bundled up on the fly bridge, likely fixing the tech!

The big science boss lady is Debi, a research fisheries biology at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, MA. She is the branch chief of the newly minted Conservation Ecology Branch within the Protected Species Division. Specifically, she focuses on the spatial and temporal abundance of marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds. These data are critical in understanding how many of these organisms there are and how many are accidentally taken by humans. She’s also involved with the International Whaling Commission and the head of the US delegation to the Scientific Committee. As branch chief, her duties are split between science and admin tasks. She may start her day working on a publication about harbor porpoise bycatch, and in the afternoon she’s organizing group travel to meet with International Whaling Commission scientists to discuss the status of whales and other related science. Debi started with NOAA as a Ph.D. student out of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in 1987 and began her professional role in 1991. She’s been working with protected species the entire time, but the species and goals change over the years as we learn more. On this cruise, she leads the teams with scheduling, monitoring weather conditions, double-checking and processing the data, and liaising with the ship. She also designed the tracklines we collect data on; then after the cruise she will analyze the data and hopefully publish the results.

How to Join the Flock

  • Be open to all sorts of jobs. There are so many jobs out there that you don’t even know are jobs.
  • Every job, internship, volunteer opportunity you can learn something. You’ll get as much out of it as you put into it.
  • Be flexible – this field is dependent on grant funding. One year a position may exist, but maybe not next year.
  • Check out the job boards for ornithology opportunities and wildlife biology opportunities
  • Work on building quantitative skills such as statistics, coding, and GIS. Those skills are more likely to get you hired than just having a biological background.
  • Speaking of skills, don’t pigeonhole (heh) yourself to just birds, the more you can do, the more likely you will land a position. Being able to ID mammals or turtles, maneuvering/repairing small boats, manning drones, collecting biopsies, and vessel and aerial surveys are all helpful.
  • Network, network, network. Any internship, job, seminar, or experience you do, get to know the people. They will be critical in finding positions.
  • Reflect on your career and life goals. This kind of work is almost exclusively short-term temporary positions without benefits. Consider how long you want to work in the field before moving to something else, such as graduate school (which having the field experience is really beneficial!).

1There is absolutely no bias in this statement.

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Kiersten Newtoff: Do You Hear What I Hear? January 15, 2025

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kiersten Newtoff
Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces
January 6 – January 29, 2025

Mission: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)
Geographic Area of Cruise: North Atlantic Coast
Date: January 15, 2025
Data from the Bridge: Currently standing still at 39°12’0″N, 74°24’0″W due to offshore weather. It’s 38°F with 26kt winds.

Team Spotlight: Hydrophone Heroes

It started as periodic clicking.
Click.
Click.
Click click.
Click click click.
Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
And then nothing.

These series of clicks tell the story of a sperm whale attacking prey and feasting on its prize. This is just one of the many cool stories coming from the Hydrophone Heroes.

In Tandem, Eyes and Ears on the Ocean

All marine mammals are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and some are dually protected under the Endangered Species Act. These laws dictate that marine mammals cannot be hunted, harassed, taken, or killed; although some exclusions exist for scientific research among other things. You may recall from an earlier post that there are two marine mammal teams on the Pisces: the bioacoustics team and the visual observation team. Both teams are working toward a common goal: where are marine mammals, how are they behaving, what is the diversity, and how many are there? These surveys help NOAA propose new rules or develop new technologies to reduce the accidental bycatch or injuries from boats to preserve the species. By doing surveys periodically, we can better understand how populations are changing in response to the environment.

The sampling protocol differs between the visual and bioacoustics teams, as well as what they can and can’t detect. By combining their data together, a complete picture of marine mammal abundance can be made.

 BioacousticsVisual Observation
Detection RangeLargerSmaller
Water Depth to Operate> 100mAny
Weather ConditionsAnyBetter the more clear
Species ID ConfidenceMediumHigh
Discerning Number of IndividualsOnly when there is 1 or 2Any
Statistical Methods for AnalyzingNot well developedWell developed and standardized

The world of marine mammal bioacoustics is relatively new, starting in the 1960s but taking off in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Also, each species of marine mammal has a large ‘vocabulary’ that we are still learning. Because of this, the library of sounds of each species is limited. While it may be great to hear a click or whistle through the hydrophone, it means very little if there isn’t a visual confirmation from the observation team.

Science is the art of inquiry.
Annamaria

How Do Hydrophones Work?

As the name implies, a hydrophone is a listening device that is in the water. It can pick up frequencies higher and lower than what humans can hear and it can hear sounds from miles away. On the Pisces, the hydrophone array consists of multiple sensors and equipment in a long tube. There are three omnidirectional hydrophones in the array, and all three will pick up the same signals. However, the hydrophone that hears a sound first can give the team an idea of the direction the sounds are coming from: in front, in line, or behind the ship. This setup can’t identify starboard or port side, and that’s where the visual observation team comes in. As the ship moves and the hydrophone continues to pick up sounds, they can be triangulated to get an idea of how far away the sound is from the ship. The array setup can’t tell you how deep the sound is coming from, but some patterns of clicks of different species can give clues to if a cetacean is diving or at the surface.

The array is towed behind the ship in waters that are at least 100m deep. Although the hydrophone doesn’t actually sit that close to the bottom, it’s a fail safe for if the ship has to slow down or stop. This can cause the hydrophone array to sink and it is imperative that it does not touch the bottom. The equipment in the array is very sensitive (and very expensive!), so it’s crucial that it’s impossible for it to touch the bottom. You may be thinking “well, just tow it closer to the boat so that you can work in shallower waters”, but the problem is that the boat itself is making noise that the hydrophone will pick up. If the array is too close to the ship, the sound would be deafening, and you would miss many marine sounds. The hydrophone is set about 350m out from the ship, which does dampen the noise quite a bit. The hydrophone has a high pass filter, meaning only high frequency sounds are picked up. The auditory range of ship noise is much lower, so it gets filtered out, but unfortunately that also means filtering out some marine mammal sounds, particularly baleen whale songs. 

Audio clip of short-beaked common dolphins as heard through a hydrophone. This comes from NOAA’s Marine Mammal Sound repository, but these have been common on this trip.

There are six (!!) screens that the Hydrophone Heroes are monitoring when the array is out. They are:

a man and a woman sit in a computer lab looking at an array of computer monitors. the woman, seated directly at the computer desk, wears headphones, though they are currently positioned behind and not over her ears. She holds two fingers of her right hand up to signal the number 2 as she watches the screen.
Rob and Annamaria actively listening and recording any marine mammal sounds.
  1. High frequency setup: this is focused on high frequencies such as from dwarf and pygmy sperm whales and is giving a bearing on where they are located.  
  2. Diagnostic plots that characterize the incoming signals.
  3. A spectrogram that displays tonal signals like whistles.
  4. Data entry form to record each incoming sound.
  5. Map displays of the bearings of sounds as a way to localize and track them.
  6. Client computer which is synced with the visual team to match up sounds with visuals.

Perhaps some time in the future, machine learning can be used to automatically classify sounds picked up by a hydrophone. But in order for that to happen, we need a lot of matched acoustic and visual data to be used for training the machine learning models.

Do You Hear What I Hear? (by Bing Crosby and Kiersten)

Do you hear what I hear?
Said Rob to Annamaria

Do you see what I see?
(Do you see what I see?)
Visuals said to acoustics

Do you see what I see?
(Do you see what I see?)
A whale, a whale, leaping through the waves
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Meet the Hydrophone Heroes

Annamaria is a research biologist from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Massachusetts. Her love of the ocean started early, and she pursued it more intently in her high school’s oceanography club and in the Quahog Bowl . From there she got a bachelor’s degree in marine biology, during which she did an internship with the U.S. Navy in their marine mammal monitoring program. It is through this internship that Annamaria learned about bioacoustics and left with the experience of managing 93 hydrophones! She really liked the internship, especially because she was able to apply the science with real time responses (and it was paid!). Post-graduation, she worked at the Bioacoustic Research Program at Cornell University and then went to Scotland to get her master’s degree. She volunteered with the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution working in fish bioacoustics before landing a position at NOAA in 2014.

four crewmembers stand in a row along a railing at the ship's stern. they all wear float coats or life vests and warm hats or headgear; most have gloves. together they are guiding what looks like a long black cable along the ship and then down into the ocean.
Tanya and Tasha, from the deck crew, help Annamaria and Rob set out the hydrophone array off the stern.

Rob is a biological science technician who has been working with NOAA for the past 4 years at the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center in Honolulu. In college he studied marine and environmental science and afterwards he looked into fisheries science so he could be outside. He ended up at the California Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) working with salmon and delta smelt and then moved to the Federal FWS. He finally moved into the Protected Species Division at NOAA where he learned about bioacoustics in cetaceans. Baby Rob’s dream was to do a cetacean cruise, and he made it!

Advice & Words of Wisdom

  1. Be curious – science is a never-ending process of asking more questions.
  2. When applying for jobs on USAJobs, cast a wide net (pun intended). There are lots more fisheries positions which can still be valuable to your career by developing transferable skills to cetaceans.
  3. If you are working with data, try to seek opportunities to see how that data is collected in the field. It can help you better understand the data which will be advantageous when running analyses.
  4. Internships are crucial and can really define your career. They also help with connections to other people in the industry.
  5. Be open to lots of career paths and gain skills to enable you to be a jack of all trades. If you have skills from multiple fields, you are more likely to find positions.

Here’s some additional pictures from setting out the array and working in the acoustics lab.

A man sits at a computer desk working on a laptop surrounded by additional computer monitors. He wears a pair of headphones over his ears. A woman watches over his shoulder.
two people (and a third mostly out of frame) stand on the back deck; a man holds a coiled rope, and a woman holds a coiled plastic tube (the hydrophone array). the sky is very blue, with white whispy clouds.
a view of two crewmembers standing at the rail holding what looks like a long plastic hose and looking down into the ocean as they lower or retrieve it
crewmembers stand around the A-frame at the aft deck of the ship. they are all wearing float coats or life jackets. one person grasps a taut cable that extends from out of frame on deck into the water. two other people hold guidelines stretched underneath the A-frame.
a woman wearing a warm jacket, a beanie, gloves, and a life vest stands at the aft of the shp, holding up a cable with two hands, and looking out into the ocean.
a view under the A-frame of the ship's aft deck. two pieces of rope extend from either side of the frame out toward a middle connection point, where they hold up a knot for the cable of the hydrophone array to slide through.
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Kiersten Newtoff: It Takes Two to Bongo, January 10, 2025

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kiersten Newtoff
Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces
January 6 – January 29, 2025

Mission: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)
Geographic Area of Cruise: North Atlantic Coast
Date: January 10, 2025
Current Location: 37° 35.83 N, 73° 39.83 W (you can follow us at Windy in real time!)
Weather from the Bridge: Waves are 3-5ft, 42°F, wind speed of 15.8kn, and we are traveling 9.9knph.

What is Zooplankton?

If you ask someone what their favorite marine animal is, I guarantee it’s either dolphins, whales, turtles, or sharks. And honestly, you can’t really blame them. The term charismatic megafauna exists for a reason. Fortunately, these animals have used their charisma to inspire us to protect them and their habitat. While they have been great stewards for conservation, they don’t tell the whole story of what’s happening in the ecosystem.

a close-up view of the bottom of a sample jar filled with krill in water; the tiny crustaceans, resemble small white shrimps, have piled up at the bottom
One example of zooplankton is small krill, as seen in this sample container.

While some of the research groups on the Pisces are focused on marine mammals and seabirds, The Bongonauts focus on zooplankton. Plankton just refers to any organism in the water that can’t swim against a current and ‘floats’ in the water column. You can then further split plankton into animal-like (zooplankton) or plant-like (phytoplankton). The marine food chain starts with phytoplankton, which get consumed by zooplankton, which might get directly eaten by a baleen whale, like humpbacks. Zooplankton may also get eaten by small fishes then larger fish that eventually are consumed by toothed whales. Identifying and quantifying the abundance of zooplankton helps us to understand the health of the food chain. There really aren’t any “Save the Zooplankton” movements happening because let’s be honest, it’s hard to get people to like microscopic organisms. But their downfall due to changes in ocean temperature, salinity, and currents will permeate to the top of the food chain of whales, dolphins, and other megafauna. If we wish to protect the ‘cute’ species, we need to protect their food too!

Let’s Get Ready to Bongo!

Here enters the bongo. If you’ve played Donkey Kong, then you already know what a bongo is.  A bongo is a set of two drums that are connected in the middle. In the marine world, what we do is beat on this drum set on the side of the boat and collect all the zooplankton that jump out of the water into collection buckets.

………………………..

Just kidding! But that would be cool.

Although we don’t have the musical bongo, we do have a plankton bongo! It was so named because there are two frames connected in the middle supporting the two plankton nets, kind of like a bongo drum. The nets are made of a mesh with openings that are 1/3 mm. As the nets travel in the water, the water can move through the mesh but larger organisms like zooplankton can’t. Part of the bongo apparatus is the CTD, which uses a series of sensors to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth. These oceanographic variables can help to explain the zooplankton communities we see.

a crewmember wearing an orange float coat and white hard hat looks over the rail of the ship as the paired bongo nets rise out of the water. It is nighttime, and we can only see a patch of the dark water illuminated by the ship's lights. A scientific probe is attached to the cable hoisting the paired nets.
Four women in float coats or life vests, reflective gear, tall boots, and hard hats pose for a photo on the aft deck of the ship. The paired bongo nets lay spread out on the deck. It is nighttime.
(Left) A bongo net is coming out of the water. The device you see on the rope is the CTD, (Right) The zooplankton team gets lots of support in deploying the bongo nets from the deck crew. Pictured (left to right): Amanda, Tanya, Tasha, and Kiersten.

Bongo time is during the evening and is deployed in the same general areas as the cetacean observations earlier in the day. This allows the scientists to make correlations between plankton communities and the cetaceans spotted earlier. We release the bongos in the evening as the speed needed for a successful deployment is around 3 knots, whereas the observation teams need to be at a minimum of 8 knots. Also, many zooplankton undergo a diel vertical migration (move upwards) in the evening, making it more likely to get a representative sample of zooplankton from the entire water column.

Bongos, a Haiku
gliding through water
collect plankton by bongo
hopefully, cool things

Meet the Bongonauts

a woman wearing an orange float coat and a white hard hat sits at a computer desk and looks at an array of monitors.
Amanda monitors the depth of the bongo so she can communicate with the boatswain when to start hauling it back to the boat.

On this cruise, Amanda and Lily make up the zooplankton team. Amanda is a Biological Science Technician and has been working with NOAA since 2018. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a semester abroad focused on marine science. As soon as she finished, she immediately began looking for marine jobs. Her first position was with NOAA focusing on commercial fisheries. A few years later in 2021, her contracting company had another position within NOAA that she switched to and started focusing on zooplankton.  One of the coolest things she’s seen in a bongo net was a strawberry squid, but don’t worry, it was promptly returned to the seas. She enjoys working with other groups on the science team to see what they are finding, and every time the nets come up there is excitement over what they may contain.

a woman lifts one sample jar out of a divided cardboard box and gazes down at the contents. Other jars in the boxes are topped with black lids and printed, detailed labels.
Lily examines the plankton spoils. Some are preserved in ethanol and others in formalin.

Lily is currently a sophomore at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. The professor in one of her classes shared with her the opportunity to sail with the Pisces to volunteer on the zooplankton team and she took it up! Her future career goal is to understand the environmental impacts of cruise ships in port. Further along the line, she would like to get a Master’s in Library Science and be a children’s librarian. She chose Mass Maritime for their marine science program; other schools with similar programs were out of state or prohibitively expensive, but she feels like she’s made the right choice. Of all the things she’s told me, Mass Maritime seems really cool and gives lots of hands-on experience to their students.

Advice for Students

Amanda and Lily shared some of their insights for students who may want to work for NOAA some day.

  1. Look for jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn. If you are already working with a company, see if they have other positions that you might like.
  2. If you’re interested in marine science, go to a school that specializes in it. Avoid institutions that have it as a small program or just a minor, as you likely won’t be getting nearly as much hands-on experience as a school dedicated to it.
  3. Keep your opportunities open – you might think you like Marine Science now but that may change as you do field work.
  4. Even if an opportunity comes up that is not related to marine science, do things to give you any sort of field experience.
  5. You can volunteer with NOAA! There are lots of programs to explore.
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Kiersten Newtoff: Let’s Try This Again! December 18, 2024

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Kiersten Newtoff

Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces

January 6 – January 29, 2025

Mission: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)
Geographic Area of Cruise: North Atlantic Coast
Departure Port: Newport, RI
Arrival Port: Newport, RI

Date: December 18, 2024

I’m back! You may remember all the mishaps that happened that prevented me from sailing on the Oregon II in summer 2023. I’ve been incredibly fortunate that the Teacher at Sea program has been flexible and was able to place me on a new cruise with the NOAA Pisces, so named by a group of 7th grade students in a naming contest.

This cruise is focused on the AMAPPS protocol, or the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species. By collecting data on the species of marine mammals, turtles, and seabirds observed, scientists can create abundance maps that show where these species can be found year-round. We will also be using a hydrophone to record the calls and songs of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). In addition to the surveys, scientists will collect data to see how factors in the environment affect abundance and distribution. While there are many products from the research, one easily available tool to the public is the Marine Mammal Model Viewer. On this viewer, you can choose a marine mammal species and a time of year to see density maps of the species over time. This is a powerful tool as we learn about oceanic species and how a changing climate impacts their distribution.

screenshot of a lightly topographical map of the eastern U.S. seaboard. Along the coast, the waters have been color-coded to show animal density (animals / square kilometer), ranging from cold colors (low density) to hot colors (high density.) In this example, density of sperm whiles is higher a bit farther from the coast, except along North Carolina's outer banks and a bit off the coast of New Jersey/ New York.
A screenshot from the Marine Mammal Model Viewer. This map shows the abundance of Sperm Whales in the fall.

While I gave a lot of background in my first introductory post, there have been some fun updates. I am on sabbatical from Montgomery College to gain more experience in biological research to bring back to the classroom. Specifically, I have been focused on bird banding, which involves capturing birds and adding a metal identifying ‘bracelet’ to their leg. Each band has a unique identifier, so if someone else catches it they will be able to learn a lot about the bird’s ecology. In the banding process, we collect data such as age, sex, reproductive stage, wing length, tail length, amount of fat, and more. All this data can help us assess the health of the bird and draw conclusions about the species, bird migration, and changes over time. Banding birds requires a federal permit that I have applied for, so now I’m sitting and waiting to hear back — fingers crossed!

Kiersten (right) holds a Ruffed Grouse during banding operations in Montana. Another bander is taking a picture of the tail to analyze further after the bird is released. a third person looks on, hands behind his back. Everyone wears beanie caps and sweaters.
Kiersten (right) holds a Ruffed Grouse during banding operations in Montana. Another bander is taking a picture of the tail to analyze further after the bird is released. Bird banding can tell scientists about bird ecology and conservation.

Thank you again to the Teacher at Sea team and the crew of the Pisces for welcoming me aboard!

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Kimberly Gogan: Science Spot Light – Marine Mammal Observing, April 12, 2014

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kim Gogan
Aboard NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter
April 7 – May 1, 2014

Mission: AMAPPS & Turtle Abundance Survey,  Ecosystem Monitoring
Geographical Area of Cruise:  North Atlantic Ocean
Date: April 12, 2014

Weather Data from the Bridge
Air Temp: 10.3 degrees Celsius
Wind Speed: 10.5 knots
Water Temp: 8,2 degrees Celsius
Water Depth: 145.65 meters

 

Jen Gatzke, Chief Scientist of AMAPPS Leg 2 aboard the NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter.
Jen Gatzke, Chief Scientist of AMAPPS Leg 2 aboard the NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter.

Science and Technology Log

In the last blog I talked about all the different scientists who are working on Gordon Gunter. Today I am going to explain why. First, all of the scientists are here working under a program called the  Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species, or AMAPPS for short. It is a multi-year project that has a large number of scientists from a variety of organizations whose main goal is “to document the relationship between the distribution and abundance of cetaceans, sea turtles and sea birds with the study area relative to their physical and biological environment.” The scientists are here working under the AMAPPS because of several government acts: the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act require scientists to do periodic checks of the populations of the protected species and the ecosystems they live in to make sure there have been no major human activities that have affected these species.

The National Environmental Policy Act also requires scientists to evaluate human impacts and come up with new plans to help the protected and endangered species. Finally the Migratory Bird Treaty requires that counties work together to monitor and protect migratory birds.  The project has a variety of activities that need to be conducted which is why all the different scientists are needed from the different groups like NOAA, Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Navy, and NOAA Northeast  and Southeast Fisheries Science Centers.  The variety of activities that are being done over multiple years under the AMAPPS include: aerial surveys, shipboard surveys, tag data, acoustic data, ecological and habitat data,  developing population size and distribution estimates, development of technology tools and modes, as well as development of a database that can provide all the collected data to different users. The AMAPPS project is also collecting  in depth data at a couple of areas of  special interest to NOAA & BOEM where there are proposed Offshore Wind Farms  to be built in the ocean.

 

Two of the Observer Team working their shifts on the Fly Bridge in on the "
Two of the Observer Team members working their shifts on the Fly Bridge in on the “Big Eyes”

Science Spot Light

Let me introduce the Chief Scientist, Jen Gatzke and the Marine Mammal Observer Team. Chief Scientist Jen works with the Protected Species Branch at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). She primarily studies right whales.

Her main job here on the ship is to coordinate the teams of scientists so that each team is able to accomplish what it needs most efficiently while meeting the goals of the research mission. In this case the goal is to survey a large number of transect lines in a variety of marine habitats, both inshore and offshore.

She started sailing on NOAA ships 24 years ago in Pascagoula, Mississippi! Even thought Jen oversees all the science going on here on the Gordon Gunter, she is also part of the Marine Mammal Observer Team that does a rotating watch for mammals. The observer team starts its day at 7AM and works until 7PM except  for the 1 hour break at lunch when the daytime Oceanography team can conduct some of their sampling.

When they start their day observing it is called “on effort.” This means that the observer team and NOAA Corps are all ready to conduct the shipboard surveys the way they have determined would be best. This means a group of scientists that are all at their stations are ready to go and the NOAA Corps makes sure the ship stays on a particular designated course for a particular amount of time. When the team is “on effort” they have 4 rotating stations. There are two on the very upper deck, called the fly deck that watches with 2 very large (25×150) binoculars they call the “big eyes” on each side, port (left) and starboard (right) of the ship  Then there is another station on the lower starboard (right)  side deck that also use the “big eyes”  to scan for marine mammals as well. The last  station is the recorder who is located on the Bridge, or wheelhouse, where the NOAA Corps man the ship. The recorder is entering valuable data into a computer program designed specifically for this activity. Not only is the recorder keeping track of the different mammals that are spotted on the “big eyes,” they are also keeping track of important information about the weather, glare of the sun, and conditions of the ocean.

I learned the teams use some cool nautical terms during their observations and recordings. The first one is  the Beaufort Scale for sea state, or basically how calm or rough the seas are. Beaufort is measured by a numerical system with 0 being very calm and with no ripples to a 5 which is lots of white caps with foamy spray. Beaufort numbers go higher but it is very difficult to spot any sort of mammal evidence in seas that are rougher than a Beaufort 5. The team also measures the distance of the sighting using another measurement tool called a Reticle. The reticle is a mark on the inside of the “big”eye” binoculars. Its scale goes from 0 -20 and the 0 is always lined up with the horizon and allows the observer to give a quick reference number that can be used in a hurry to provide distance with a simple geometry equation.

The head shot of' "Thorny" the Right a whale taken by observer Todd Pusser on the Gordon Gunter AMAPPS Leg 2.
The head shot of’ “Thorny” the Right Whale taken by observer Todd Pusser on the Gordon Gunter AMAPPS Leg 2.

Although there are several other pieces of information the observers are looking for and giving to the recorder, the positive identification of the particular species of mammal is the most important. There are some species like the North Atlantic Right Whale, that is of particular interest to the team because they are the most endangered large whale in the North Atlantic Ocean. Not only is it exciting for the team and the rest of the ship as well to see sightings of them, their detected presence in particular areas could mean the implementation of tighter rules, like speed limits for ships that might be in the areas these animals are seen frequently. When the teams sights one of these whales, the ship is allowed to go “off effort” and follow the swim direction of the whales in order to get pictures with very large cameras that will allow the scientist to positively identify the particular whale.  Some of the other species seen frequently are humpback whales, fin whales, sei whales, minke whales, pilot whales, striped dolphins, common dolphins, Risso’s dolphins, gray seals, harbor seals, loggerhead sea turtles, sharks and ocean sunfish.

Me on the Fly Bridge watching for whales and seals.
Me on the Fly Bridge watching for whales and seals.

Personal Log

So far for the first leg of the trip we have taken one very rough trip offshore and because of the weather we have been doing a string of transect lines that are close to the shore off Martha’s Vineyard, which is one of the areas of special interest to NOAA due to the projected offshore wind farm.

The day before yesterday, at just about dusk, the Chief Scientist Jen was the first to spot one of the North Atlantic Right Whales. I was in the lab at the time that Jen came running through yelling “we have right whales!”

She very quickly came back with a huge case which held the team’s camera used for close-ups of the whales. By the time I was on deck, so were many of the off duty scientists and the ship’s crew. Everyone was very excited and joined the frenzy of following, tracking and getting some good shots of the group of right whales. There ended up being 4 whales in all, which mean that there are enough to trigger a Dynamic Management Area (DMA), a management zone designed to provide two weeks of protection to three or more right whales from ship collisions. Ships larger than 65 ft are requested to proceed through the designated area at no more than 10 knots of speed.

One of the observers, Todd Pusser also had a large camera and was able to get a good head shot of one of the whales to send back to the lab. Allison Henry, another right whale biologist at NEFSC, was able to positively identify the whale as an adult male known as “Thorny”, aka EGNO (Eubalaena glacialis number) 1032, who has been seen only in the northeast since the 1980s! (click on “Thorny” to see the New England Aquarium Right Whale Catalog which houses and handles the identifications for all North Atlantic right whales.) It’s pretty cool that I actually got to see him too. Even thought it’s not the warmest job, it makes it all worth it just to see something as amazing as that!

Genevieve & I up on the Fly Bridge on the "Big Eyes!"
Genevieve & I up on the Fly Bridge on the “Big Eyes!”

Did you know?

Did you know you can listen to Right Whale sounds and see where Right Whales are on the East Coast? Check out this page!  Click on this link for The Right Whale Listening Network.  NEFSC even has an Apple APP for seeing where the Right Whales are on the east coast and explains how to avoid them 🙂 Go to the app store – its free!

Me all dressed up in the "Mustang' suit helping the team keeping an eye out for whales.
Me all dressed up in the “Mustang” suit helping the team keep an eye out for whales.