marine mammal observer – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

January 22, 2025January 22, 2025

Kiersten Newtoff: Thar She Blows! January 22, 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 22, 2025
Data from the Bridge: N38°12’0″, W74°47’0″. It’s currently 38°F outside — it snowed on deck last night! We have about 24kn of wind but it’s dying down quickly.

Team Spotlight: Marine Mammal Observers
(I was doing cute names previously, but realized it’s probably more important to use the actual job names…)

From Fins to Feet and Back Again

A bird’s eye view of a group of common
dolphins swimming along the bow of
the Pisces. It’s hard to see, but there is a
striped dolphin mixed in. Credit: Kelsey.
NEFSC permit #27066.

Cetaceans are a group of marine mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. There are other groups of marine mammals too such as seals, otters, and manatees, but this cruise is mostly focusing on cetaceans. Upon first look, it’s not a far reach to think that cetaceans are fish, but they are indeed mammals – they are born with fine sensory hairs and they have mammary glands to support their young. I teach evolution in one of my classes and the story of cetaceans is quite fascinating. Life began in the seas as the land was toxic. As algae oxygenated the world, evolution on land became a race. Land was a frontier where no other organism lived, which meant nothing was around to eat you. The land plants dominated and vertebrates like Tiktaalik soon followed. What was once a barren wasteland now supported dinosaurs. Evidence points that the common ancestor of cetaceans were land-based, even-toed ungulates (hooved animals), with hippos being their closest present-day ancestor. As with most questions in science, answering “why” is nearly impossible, but understanding natural selection can get us a good hypothesis about this transition. Some ancestral ungulates probably lived closer to shores and may have even waded into the water to eat fish. Those that just happened to have limbs that made them swim or dive a little bit more than others had access to more food, so they are the ones who survived and reproduced. Add in another 5-10 million years and you have the whales – organisms that can move gracefully through water and have an abundant food source.

Whale art thou?

What the Marine Mammal Observers do is pretty much in their name: they observe marine mammals. On this trip, they are most interested in cetaceans but also record other species of note (sharks, sunfish, seals, etc.). These simple observations have a big impact. We can create models using the data to estimate the distribution and abundance of species. This AMAPPS winter cruise is to better understand distribution at a time of the year that we have limited data. Unfortunately, winter means less than ideal conditions, but some data are better than no data!

On the flying bridge. Michelle is in the foreground looking through a large standing binoculars called the big eyes. Behind her is Cheryl who is standing, and Kelsey who is seated. Other observers can be seen in the background. — Michelle operates the “big eyes” on the port side while another observer is on the starboard side. Cheryl is behind her, about to switch with Kelsey to do naked eye detections and data recording.

While marine mammal surveys can be conducted by small boats and aerial surveys, they are usually limited to close to shore. These trips offshore fill in missing gaps about cetacean abundance and distribution. Of particular note are beaked whales, which can be found in deep water. The number of vessels or land points that are able to confidently spot them is limited. Most of the data that comes from beaked whales are from washed up carcasses. By following transect lines, the Pisces science team can do a wide swath of surveying in the ocean and record a large variety of species with trained observers using big eyes (see picture; really large mounted binoculars) with support from bioacoustics. If the conditions are just right, the science team can also collect a DNA sample from an organism, which can help us determine their sex, subpopulation, trophic level of diet, pregnancy, and more. This is especially important for the Gervais beaked whale because we know very little about them. If on this trip we were to get a visual sighting, an acoustic signature, AND a biopsy of one – we all may just wipe our hands and say we can go home now. No cap. (I think I used that right…)

These species maps are critical in conservation – you can’t really protect the species if you don’t know much about them. By doing these observational studies over long periods of time, we can assess how climate change and habitat availability are impacting the species. In conjunction with the zooplankton team, they help us to understand what’s happening lower in the food chain and changes in these organisms can percolate to the top. These data can help to establish timelines on when it is safe to be drilling or doing construction or shift shipping lanes so that humans have less interactions with marine mammals. Fishing bycatch is a major cause of death in whales, so understanding whale migration patterns, breeding, and wintering grounds can help establish safe fishing zones.

Our data gets used by the Navy, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and NOAA. It’s really important to get it right.
Yin

Let’s Be Real about the Wildlife Biology World

As a warning, this section is not full of rainbows and sunshine. There is a real problem in wildlife biology (whether it’s marine mammals or birds or megafauna) that is really important for folks to know that are trying to get into this field.

When you think about a job, you likely are imagining a job that is generating revenue for a company. Your role is helping the company make money, and they pay you to help them make money. But the conservation world lacks this mechanism. Funds for conservation are limited to grants from other organizations, or funds from the state or federal level so they can meet environmental regulations. While those funds exist, very few are regular – there may be enough money this year to sponsor 5 researchers, but next year maybe for only 2. It’s feast or famine.

A common dolphin that has jumped out of the water. The side of the dolphin is much darker than other common dolphins due to melanism, which is an overproduction of melanin. — A melanistic (produces the dark pigment melanin more than typical) common dolphin spotted on the trip. Credit: Michelle. NEFSC permit #27066.

Because of this lack of funding, many organizations simply cannot afford to pay for people to complete the work, or they can only supply income for short contracts. If you want to get experience in a wildlife field, you likely will have to volunteer or take unpaid internships. Perhaps you find a paid position, but the working conditions are not compensated appropriately, or you take a ‘volunteer position’ but you have to pay a fee to get involved. And these companies aren’t trying to exploit people, it’s just the unfortunate reality of funding in the conservation world. And let’s be real, the wildlife biology field is fun and there are lots of people who want to volunteer. While that may be a great thing for these organizations, it means the diversity in the workforce is limited to those who have the financial ability to be there. Wildlife biology jobs are also in short supply, so you need a lot of experience or education to be competitive.

There’s not much that we can do about it, but the conversations are starting. It’s important to know what you are getting yourself into, especially when considering where you may go to college and the tuition, as it may be quite a while before you are able to pay off student loans. Keep your prospects open and don’t pigeonhole yourself into one path. Perhaps consider specializing in statistics, as all fields of biology (and just careers in general) have a strong need for statisticians.

Statistics will get you anywhere in the world, in any field.
Sam

Meet the Marine Mammal Observer Team

Kelsey is on the left ans Sam is on the right on the flying bridge. Kelsey is seated and Sam is standing next to her. Both are wearing mustang suits, which are bulky clothing to keep warm. — Kelsey (left) and Sam (right) on the flying bridge, where observations take place when the weather is good enough.

As a quick note, many folks in environmental fields in the government (like NOAA) are contractors. Contracts can be short term (such as a single cruise) or longer term depending on project goals and needs. You’ll learn about the jobs that the marine mammal team hold when not working with NOAA.

Meet Michelle, who works as a protected species observer for TetraTech (which is also the company my mom worked at for many years!). In this position, she mitigates for potential impacts on protected species and does environmental compliance for the offshore energy industry (wind mostly, but also oil and gas). Her master’s degree focused on Indo-Pacific dolphins in Hong Kong and Taiwan, particularly looking at the impact of boat traffic and construction on their populations. She volunteered for Allied Whale and was a commercial fisheries observer for NOAA.

As an undergrad, Kelsey specialized in marine mammal biology through field courses, internships, and research in Alaska, New Zealand, and Texas. These experiences led to roles as a protected species observer, supporting marine mammal research, industry mitigation, and conservation efforts from land, sea, and air. Her master’s research focused on community-based conservation to reduce human impacts on cetaceans; her ongoing PhD in Australia furthers this by developing acoustic techniques to reduce humpback whale entanglements. She also enjoys sharing her passion for the ocean through environmental education when the opportunity arises!

Coming from the Greater Atlantic Fisheries office is Cheryl, a marine resources management specialist. Having gone to school in central NY, marine mammals weren’t really on her radar. Afterwards she worked for a company in Hawaii narrating whale watches and dolphin tours which jump started her love for marine mammals. From there she did a master’s and Ph.D. with marine mammals. While her position is usually at the office, she is able to take advantage of research cruises to see where the data is coming from to better inform her management work.

Close-up view of Yin in an insulated mustang suit on the flying bridge. The large binoculars, called the big eyes, are directly behind her. — Yin poses with the big eyes because we are excited about science! Credit: Yin.

Sam has been working with the AMAPPS mission for about 10 years with both observations and data analyses to support reports and scientific papers. He has a Ph.D. in Marine Science and has worked with fish and marine mammals. He also taught at Northern Virginia Community College for five years, which isn’t too far from where I teach!

And last, but certainly not least, is Yin who got started in the NOAA research cruise world after graduate school. Her research focused on how tourism impacts dusky dolphins in New Zealand, as well as describing their acoustic behavior. She had a friend who did Eastern Tropical Pacific cruises with NOAA and recommended that Yin apply for the next one. Yin worked for NOAA for 10 years but is now in a contracting role, which grants her the flexibility for more adventures.

A Day in the Life of a Marine Mammal Observer
Watching for dolphins.
Bad weather, go to the bridge.
We see nothing, sigh.

As I’m putting in the finishing touches on this post, the sea has changed substantially and warrants a new haiku.

Are Those Calm Seas?
Finally, calm sea.
No white caps, slow wind, warm air.
Of course, it’s foggy.

Breaking into the Marine Mammal World
The team shared a lot of different tips for people who are interested in marine mammals.

When in college, do as much hands-on work, volunteering, and internships as you can.
Meet and network at the Marine Mammalogy Conference. Their website also has a lot of great resources for students who want to get started in the marine mammal world. The Cascadia Research Collective has good advice too.
Develop as many additional skills as you can: statistics, GIS, math, invertebrates, oceanography, small engines, soldering, coding, and photography all are helpful.
Positions exist at the bachelor’s level, but you likely will need at least a master’s, if not a Ph.D. because of how competitive the field is getting. More education may also lead to more networking opportunities.
It’s a small world, meaning everyone talks to everyone. Your work ethic will get out there.
Try many things in the marine world, not just marine mammals. You will gain a lot of experience that is transferrable to the marine mammal world.
Similarly, if this path is daunting, you can work other positions on the ship (see my other blogs for highlights!) that gets you involved with the science.
And finally….

It’s really important to be kind.
Yin

A view of two computer screens side by side. The background is a closeup of Kiersten looking through the big eyes. The image is oriented like a mirror across the screens, so that Kiersten is "looking" at herself. — Here’s a bonus image! I came into the dry lab this morning to find this on the computer monitors. Just so artsy. Photo cred: Kelsey. Layout cred: Annamaria

August 30, 2023September 1, 2023

Gail Tang: One Day Older in an Instant, August 21, 2023

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Gail Tang

Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette

August 4, 2023 – September 1, 2023

Mission: Hawaiian Islands Cetacean and Ecosystem Assessment Survey (HICEAS)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Hawaiian archipelago

Date: Aug 21, 2023

Ship Layout

view of an upper bunk bed (berth) — Leg 1 Bunk. Cozy!

a lounge area with a large couch, some other chairs, pictures of ships hanging on the walls — Leg 1 Bunk. Cozy!

It’s hard to capture the feeling of the ship with pictures or words, but alas, here is an attempt! The ship essentially has 5 levels. The lowest is mostly the engine room plus a small space for the gym and laundry. The next level (my favorite) is the Main Deck, which has some staterooms but more importantly, the Mess, the Galley (kitchen), and the Forward Mess. The next level is the 01 Deck which houses Acoustics, the E-lab, the survey technician’s office (where I teach), and many of the staterooms (including mine!). Above the 01 deck is the 02 deck where most of the NOAA Corps Officers and some engineers sleep. Then there’s the Bridge where the officers drive the ship in the company of a deck crew member on watch. Finally, the Flying Bridge is the cherry on top! The birders and marine mammal observers do all their sightings from up there.

Science and Technology Log with Career Highlights

striking photo of a bird in flight, seen from underneath: mostly white, with a sharp orange bill, little webbed black feet tucked backward, and a very skinny red tail — Red-tailed Tropicbird. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Ernesto Vasquez

Michael Force (birder) and Ernesto Vázquez (marine mammal observer – MMO) are two amazing photographers on board. They helped me with the settings on my camera to capture the wildlife (shutter priority, auto ISO, center focus, continuous shots, fine detail). The first photo is a photo of a tropicbird taken by Ernesto.

Ernesto started with one semester at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) where he was an honors student in his math classes, but failed in other classes. Drawn by his love of diving and the sea, he left to go to La Paz, and started at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur, located next to the waters of the Gulf of California. He majored in marine biology, and took ecology applied statistics, general physics, Calculus 1 and Calculus 2. By his 3rd semester, he started doing community engagement at the university at an AMNIOTS lab, where his interest in cetaceans began.

While he joined multiple projects, the humpback whale ecology was his favorite. It is there in Cabo San Lucas where he learned photography for species identification and how to use the crossbow for sampling. He also became acquainted with specialized software to interpret data, which became a very useful skill for his future.

After graduation, Ernesto went to Ensenada to start his Master’s program. However, the scholarship and program in which he was enrolled disappeared, so he started looking for jobs. His first NOAA project was focused on the vaquita (a porpoise on the brink of extinction). It was a binational expedition in the Gulf of California for 2 months. In 2000, he joined a 3-year project on the eastern tropical Pacific, which was basically surveying a water mass the size of the African continent. On board, he estimated dolphin group sizes associated with tuna fishing operations. Since then he’s been joining similar expeditions that take him to places like the Galapagos and Alaska as part of the biopsy team.

I have such fondness for Ernesto because we shared many meals and many conversations during our leg 1 in-port. He has a calming and reassuring nature to his leadership style. In a subsequent leg of the HICEAS, he’ll be moving to NOAA SHIP Reuben Lasker to be a senior observer! Well-deserved, Ernesto!

photo, mostly in silhouette at sunrise, of Ernesto working at a computer station on the deck; the big eyes binoculars are mounted to the right the photo; the sky is dark blue with light just beginning to enter from the horizon — Ernesto Vásquez (MMO) setting up WinCruz as the sun rises. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Gail Tang

I sat with Michael Force to learn more about the Red-tailed Tropicbird. I found out that the mariner’s name for tropicbirds is bosun bird, because their whistle resembles the call of the bosun’s whistle, formerly used to muster the deck crew. The Red-tailed Tropicbird is the largest of the three tropicbird species and is most common in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. It’s a ground nester, placing its nest under bushes to help shade them from the intense tropical sun. They love to eat flying fish and will travel far for food to bring back to their chicks. They dive from great heights with a spectacular vertical plunge. They are commonly attracted to ships and often fly around the highest point of the vessel; a goose-like croak will announce that one has snuck up behind us. Adult survival is very high because predation pressure at sea is very low. Rats, mice, and cats are predators ashore, especially for the young since they are unprotected in their ground nests.

Their two elongated red tail feathers were highly valued by native Hawaiians, especially in crafting kāhili. These intricate feather posts accompanied royalty during events like battles, or large ceremonies. Dawn Breese (birder) gave me an extensive tour of the different kāhili at the Bishop Museum while we were in-port awaiting Leg 1. To learn more, visit the links in the reference list below.

view of elaborate feathered posts (10-15 feet tall?) mounted in a glass case in a museum — Kāhili Room at the Bishop Museum. Photo Credit: https://casabouquet.com/bishop-museum-oahu/

Michael’s interest in birding started at the young age of 7 or 8! Completely self-taught, he boarded his first commercial vessel at 16 for a pelagic seabird trip out of Westport, Washington, organized by the late Terry Wahl, a professor and esteemed seabird biologist at Western Washington University, Bellingham. The Westport pelagic trips were famous in the birding community. Using sport fishing charters to take landlubbers to Grays Canyon, an area rich in marine diversity, these trips were always well-attended. As a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, Westport, only five hours south, was a convenient location to reach the open sea and Michael was hooked.

Through Terry, he heard that Southwest Fisheries Science Center (one of six NOAA’s science centers) was looking for a volunteer observer for a 4-month voyage of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, thus began his NOAA journey. He interspersed seabird and NOAA trips with his studies at the University of British Columbia, where he majored in geography. The Snow Petrel is Michael’s favorite bird because it’s a unique Antarctic seabird, closely associated with ice, and is the world’s only pure white petrel.

Michael Force (Birder) using an improvised rangefinder (device to estimate distances to objects). Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Suzanne Yin.

I appreciate Michael’s quirkiness. I once told him that because of my eyesight, I only want to see the cetaceans if they are really close to the ship. He teased, “close enough you can poke them with a stick!” Thanks for the laughs, Michael!

amazing photo of a bird, seen from above flying away from the camera, as it catches a flying fish in its bill. the bird is mostly white with black tipped wings and a gray bill. — Red-footed Booby catching a flying fish. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Michael Force

a bird, photographed from above flying low over the ocean surface and away from the camera, closely pursues a flying fish in "flight" entirely out of the water, its pectoral fins extended outward like an airplane — Brown Red-footed Booby polymorph pursuing a flying fish. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Michael Force

The Red-footed Booby is the only polymorphic (having different color morphs) booby. The brown polymorph dominates the eastern Pacific. Their red feet are a breeding adaptation; the redder the feet, the more likely they’ll find a mate—ooo la la. Unlike other birds, Red-footed Boobies do not use their breasts to incubate their chicks; they use their webbed feet! They also have a secondary set of nostrils to keep water out when they’re fishing and a clear membrane over their eyes that act like goggles. I personally enjoy watching them attempt to land on the jackstaff on the ship because sometimes they put out their landing gear and can’t quite bring it to fruition, so their little red webbed feet just dangle around in the wind, splayed open.

Juan Carlos (marine mammal observer-MMO) likes to see Fraser’s dolphins because they are a rare sight. On the shy side, they tend to run from the boat. Though Juan Carlos has not often seen Fraser’s dolphins with other groups (he’s seen them with melon-headed whales), according to whalefacts.org, they are fairly social and will often hang with false killer whales (a HICEAS priority species), melon-headed whales, Risso’s dolphins and short-finned pilot whales. The other MMOs like to tease the Fraser’s dolphins for their T-rex-like pectoral fins.

a Fraser's dolphin on the down-arc of a leap out of the water. its rostrum is at the ocean's surface. with effort we can see its small (supposedly t-rex like) pectoral fins. its tail is obscured in ocean spray. — Fraser’s dolphin. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Gail Tang (Permit #25754)

Coincidentally, Juan Carlos (JC) went to the same college as Ernesto in La Paz! He started observing marine mammals while still in school at a tourist company running dolphin tours. His boats would take tourists out to see the sea lion colony at the north end of Isla Partida, and to snorkel in the Bay of La Paz where there is an abundance of sea life. He got involved with a US program that takes students to La Paz to learn about marine science, specifically marine mammals and sea lions.

JC first learned about NOAA through a UNAM professor and started working on the same Gulf project Ernesto would work on later. JC shared the process of calibrating the marine mammal observers’ counts. In the past, helicopters took photos from above and counted all the individuals in the pods. These actual counts were compared to each MMO’s estimated counts providing a margin of error for each MMO. For example, JC may be consistently 8% below the actual count. These margins of error are considered during abundance estimates. Since calibrations don’t happen with helicopters anymore, there are very few MMOs with their margins of error recorded, making JC a very valuable MMO.

JC has a quiet sense of care. At lunch recently, I put my mug of tea down at his table before grabbing lunch. When I returned, he put a napkin under my mug. When I lifted the mug to drink, I held down the napkin with my free hand to stop the fan from blowing it away. JC gently picked up the napkin and flipped it over so the open side did not catch the wind. I am going to miss my new family!

Juan Carlos, on deck, holds up a plastic ziploc bag containing about seven flying fish, examining it intently — Juan Carlos Salinas (MMO) packs up flying fish that have landed on the ship. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Suzanne Yin

Reference list:

Personal Log

I’ve grown accustomed to ship life. I can now tell when there is a sighting without being informed because the ship’s movement feels different and the lighting/shadows often change. To break out of routine, I try to do something different everyday that I didn’t do the day before. This week’s excitement was crossing the international date line (aka 180°E/W) from east to west!

Apparently new crew members who cross the date line for the first time by way of sea are initiated into the domain of the golden dragon. I couldn’t find much on the inception of this sailor tradition, but it seems like it’s rooted in China’s reverence for dragons. As such, some of us got to crafting dragon-themed costumes for the occasion! The pipe cleaners Jennifer McCullough (Lead Acoustician) brought onboard have been crucial for not only keeping our hands busy, but also provided a means to make dragons, dragon wings, and dragon scales.

Group photo of 16 people, including Gail, on deck with a whiteboard reading: HICEAS 2023 Leg 2, August 18, Dateline Crossing 180 degrees, 30 degrees 27.36', into the realm of the Golden Dragon — Science team crossing into the realm of the golden dragon. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Gail Tang

Jessie, Gail, Dre stand in a line on deck, hands on hips, wearing pipe cleaner decorations, posing for a glamour shot — Plankton Team Sandwich! Jessie Perelman (Plankton Researcher), Gail Tang (Teacher at Sea), Dre Schmidt (Plankton Researcher). Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Jennifer McCullough

Five scientists (Gail included, all the way to the right) with their pipe cleaner decorations and star garlands pose for a photo against a rail of NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette — Scientists crossing the International Date line by sea for the first time. Left to right: Paul Nagelkirk (MMO), Dre Schmidt (Plankton Researcher), Jessie Perelman (Plankton Researcher), Alexa Gonzalez (Acoustician), Gail Tang (Teacher at Sea). Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Yvonne Barkley

Food Log

Well, it’s happening. The fresh vegetables are starting to diminish! When I talked with my mom, she reminded me to eat more fruit! Though there is no fruit featured in the images below, I have indeed increased my fruit consumption. Thanks, mom!

photo of plated meal — Avocado, Beef Noodles, Bang Bang Shrimp

view down into a chest freezer filled with individually wrapped ice cream treats of all kinds — Can you believe it? An ice cream fridge!

In the Forward Mess, there is an ice cream fridge! I’m more fascinated by the ice cream fridge conceptually rather than gastronomically. I usually sit in the Forward Mess on the counter just next to the fridge so I’ve become acquainted with the ice cream habits of those on board. Some like to just pay a visual visit to the fridge while others are daily indulgers. Fat Boys and Greek Yogurt popsicles (those went FAST) are the most popular. Ben and Jerry’s is also well-liked, but there usually is an abundance so everyone can have what they want. I personally only tried Octavio De Mena’s (General Vessel Assistant) Li Hing Miu popsicle. Though the li hing miu is what made the popsicle good, it was still too sweet for me.

Did you know?

During lunch with Fionna Matheson (Commanding Officer), I learned that the mother-calf pair swim in what’s called the echelon formation. As seen in the photo below, the calf is swimming in close proximity to the mother, between the dorsal fin and tail. This formation is crucial to infant survival as it provides the calf with hydrodynamic benefits and energy conservation during periods of travel (Noren et al., 2007). Now, isn’t that the sweetest?

two pilot whales, a mother and calf, swim very close to one another, cresting above the surface in this view; the calf's head is about even with the start of the mother's dorsal fin — Calf and adult pilot whales swimming in echelon formation. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Andrea Bendlin (Permit #25754)

Reference:

Noren, S.R., Biedenbach, G., Redfern, J.V. and Edwards, E.F. (2008), Hitching a ride: the formation locomotion strategy of dolphin calves. Functional Ecology, 22: 278-283. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2435.2007.01353.x

August 29, 2019August 30, 2019

Ragupathy Kannan: Petrels to Pilot Whales, August 30, 2019

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Ragupathy Kannan

Aboard NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter

August 15-30, 2019

Mission: Summer Ecosystem Monitoring

Geographic Area of Cruise: Northeast U.S. Atlantic Ocean

Date: August 30, 2019

Weather Data from the Bridge

Latitude: 40.72218
Longitude: -69.45301
Water temperature: 19.8 degrees Celsius
Wind Speed: 5.25 knots
Wind Direction: 87.06 degrees
Air temperature: 23.2 degrees Celsius
Atmospheric pressure: 1006.85 millibars
Sky: Cloudy

Science and Technology Log

We’ve had a flurry of whale sightings as we passed over the famous Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. It’s a small underwater plateau in Massachusetts Bay flanked by steep drop offs. Nutrients from the depths rise up by upwelling along the sides, feeding phytoplankton in the shallow light-abundant waters, and this creates perfect feeding habitat for whales.

Much of my time aboard this ship has been on the flying bridge (the highest point of access for us on the ship) scanning the seas for marine vertebrates. I have basically been an extra pair of eyes to assist my colleagues Chris Vogel and Allison Black, the seabird observers on board. From nearly 50 feet high above the water, the flying bridge gives nearly unimpeded 360° views of the horizon all around. I call out any vertebrate animal seen—fish, birds, reptiles, or mammals. Chris and Allison enter all of our data in a specific format in a software program called SeaScribe.

To calculate densities of each species, we need an estimate of how far the animal is from the ship for each sighting. For that we use a rather low tech but effective piece of equipment. The pencil!

This is how it works. The observer holds the pencil (photo above) upright with arm outstretched, aligning the eyes and tip of the eraser to the horizon (see photo below), and simply reads the distance band (Beyond 300m, 300-200, 200-100, or 100-50m) in which the animal is seen. Thanks to some fancy trigonometry, scientists found a way to estimate distance by using the height of the observer’s eyes from the water surface, the distance from the observer’s eyes to the eraser tip of the pencil when it’s held upright with arm outstretched, and the distance to the horizon from the height of observer’s eyes above water. I’ll spare you the trigonometric details but those curious to learn more can find the paper that introduced the technique here.

Kannan and range finder — Here I am using the range finder

Seabirds are a challenge for a rain forest biologist like me. They move fast and vanish by the time you focus the binoculars! And the fact that the deck heaves up and down unexpectedly adds to the challenge. But slowly I got the hang of it, at least the very basics. I’ve recorded hundreds of shearwaters, storm-petrels, boobies, gannets, jaegers, and skuas. Whales (sea mammals) seen include Finbacks, Humpbacks, Minkes, and Pilots. I am hoping to see a Right Whale but I know that the odds are against me. Time is running out, both for our voyage, and for them. Unfortunately, only a few 100 are left and the ocean is huge—the proverbial needle in the haystack. Chief Scientist Harvey Walsh tells me that this year so far, 8 Right Whales have died due to accidental collisions or net entanglements. Sadly, the future looks bleak for this magnificent animal. (More on Right Whales at the end of this blog).

Great Shearwater ebird — Great Shearwater is one of the most common seabirds we have recorded. This bird nests only in a few islands in the South Atlantic Ocean and wanders widely. Photo by Derek Rogers, from ebird.org

I note that marine vertebrate biologists are good at extrapolating what little they can see. Much of their subjects are underwater and out of sight. So they have become good at identifying species based on bits and pieces they see above water. All they need often is a mere fleeting glimpse. Sharks are told by the size, shape, and distance between the fins that stick out, sea turtles by the shape and pattern on their carapace (top shell–see photos below); whales based on their silhouette and shape of back; and Molas based simply on the fact that they lazily wave one large fin in and out of the water as they drift by. (I thought it was the pectoral fin they waved, but it’s actually the massive dorsal fin. I’ve noted that the pectoral is rather small and kept folded close to the body).

leatherback sea turtle A. Black — A fleeting glimpse is all that is needed to identify a Leatherback Sea Turtle, thanks to its diagnostic longitudinal ridges (Photo by Allison Black).

shark fins — We’ve had several shark sightings such as this. The size, shape, and the relative locations of the fins indicate that this could be a whale shark (Photo by Allison Black)

Scientists can identify individual humpbacks based solely on the indentations and color patterns on their tail flukes. In effect, each individual animal’s tail fluke is its unique fingerprint. Since the tail fluke is often seen when the animal dives from the surface, scientists have a huge photographic database of humpback tail flukes (see photo below). And they track individuals based on this. My ecology students should know that scientists also estimate populations based on a modification of the capture-recapture method because each time an individual’s fluke is photographed, it is in effect, “tagged”. We do a nice lab exercise of this method by using marked lima beans masquerading as whales in my ecology lab.

humpback tail flukes — Researchers use variation on humpback whale flukes to identify and track whales (from Wildwhales.org)

Finback whale — Finback Whales are easily identified by the fin on the back (From aboutanimals.com)

Career Corner

I spoke with Allison Black, one of our seabird observers on board.

Q. Tell us something about yourself

A. I really love seabirds. I’m fortunate to have been able to do my Master’s work on them and observe them in their natural habitat. I have an undergrad degree in zoo and wildlife biology from Malone University in Canton, Ohio.

Q. You’re a graduate student now in which university?

A. Central Connecticut State University

Q. What’s your research project?

A. I conducted a diet study of Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls on Tuckernuck and Muskeget Islands, Massachusetts.

Q. You have done these NOAA seabirds surveys before?

A. Yes, this is my third.

Q. What happens next, now that you are close to finishing your Masters?

A. I’m looking for full time employment, and would like to work for a non-profit doing conservation work. But until the right opportunity arises you can find me on a ship, looking for seabirds and marine mammals!

Q. What’s your advice to anyone interested in marine science?

A. I had a major career change after I did my undergrad. I thought I’d always be a zoo keeper, which I did for about two years until I decided that birds are really my passion, and I needed to explore the career possibilities with them. To focus on that avenue I decided to return to graduate school. So I would encourage undergrads to really find what drives them, what they’re really passionate about. I know it’s hard at the undergraduate level since there are so many fields and avenues under the Biology umbrella. And it’s OK if you haven’t figured that out for a while. I had a real change in direction from captive wildlife to ornithology, and I’m here at sea in a very different environment. I’m so glad I did though because following my passion has opened up some exciting avenues. I’m lucky to be getting paid to do what I really love right now. So grab any opportunity that comes by. It’s never too late to evaluate your career path.

Personal Log

My feelings are bitter-sweet as this wonderful 16-day voyage nears its end. My big thanks to NOAA, the ship’s wonderful command officers and staff, our Chief Scientist Harvey Walsh, and my colleagues and student volunteers aboard for making the past 2 weeks immensely absorbing. Above all, kudos to the ship’s designers, who have clearly gone out of their way to make life aboard as easy as possible. In addition to the unexpected luxuries covered in my previous blogs, there is even a movie lounge on board with an impressive DVD collection of over 700 movies! Yesterday I saw our student volunteers play bean bag toss on the winch deck. Yes, you can throw darts too. The ship’s command even organized a fun sea animals-bingo game one evening, with winners getting goodies from the ship store (see below).

The engine rooms tour

As part of our grand finale, we were given a tour of the engine rooms (which are usually off bounds for non-crew members) by our genial First Engineer, Kyle Fredricks.

sensors and monitors — Sensors and monitors keep tabs on engine function 24/7

1st E Kyle Fredricks — First Engineer Kyle Fredricks explains the desalination system on board. It works by reverse osmosis. All explanations are done by gestures or written notes because of noise in the background. Note ear plugs on all of us!

Did You Know?

NOAA has strict policies to avoid collision with whales, especially the highly endangered Right Whale.

right whale ship strick reduciton rule — This poster is prominently displayed on board. Vessels have to comply with rules to avoid accidental strikes with Right Whales

Interesting Animals Seen Lately

South Polar Skua

Great Skua

Pomarine Jaeger

Black Tern

Manx Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Leach’s Storm-petrel

Northern Gannet

Brown Booby

Great Black-backed Gull

Humpback Whale

Pilot Whale

Ocean Sunfish

July 25, 2019

Catherine Fuller: From Microplankton to Megafauna, July 13, 2019

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Catherine Fuller

Aboard R/V Sikuliaq

June 29 – July 18, 2019

Mission: Northern Gulf of Alaska (NGA) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Northern Gulf of Alaska

Date: July 13, 2019

Science and Technology Log:

Through the Microscope

Gwenn with microscope — Gwenn using one of the microscopes to look at phytoplankton.

Gwenn and labels — The Lady of a Thousand Labels, hard at work.

Dr. Gwenn Hennon will be starting as an Assistant Professor with the University of Alaska in the fall. Her interest is in the types of microbes, especially phytoplankton, that are in the water and what they are doing. She is studying what limits them, whether it is nutrients, light or other factors. She finds it interesting to try to find interactions between phytoplankton and other organisms, such as ciliates that are filled with chloroplasts that they steal, termed “kleptoplasts.” She investigates what microbes they stole them from, how the ciliate steals the plastid and how they maintain it. While a lot of algae have photosynthetic genes and controls in the nucleus, ciliates wouldn’t be expected to have those controls, but they must have some in order to keep plastids alive, and these need to have specific genes in order to control specific plastids. There is a trade-off between specificity of genes for certain plastids and being able to keep the plastids alive for a long time. Ciliates can also live by just eating other organisms, so another field of investigation would be to look at which genetics are used when organisms are switching between strategies. One goal of this research would be that, when looking at samples from various stations, someone would be able to say what the ciliates are doing without having to do experiments.

The NGA is a very complex ecosystem, and this cruise has shown me that any scientific investigation needs to have a very specific focus rather than a shotgun approach, in order to have productive results. There is so much to be studied that the potential amount of data that can be gathered is staggering.

Because the LTER has been funded for many years, there are great sets of time series to look at for some studies, but molecular data is fairly new and adds a lot to the picture. Gwenn’s work, and the work of others at the molecular level are just the beginning of an understanding of life at the microscopic end of the scale.

Dan and Gwenn on the observation deck. Dan’s always on the lookout!

Through the Binoculars:

Fin whales come fairly close to us out in the deeper Gulf waters.

Dan Cushing is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife seabird and mammal specialist and is here to investigate organisms at the large end of the size spectrum, compared to everyone else on board. His workstation is primarily the bridge of the ship, where he is on the lookout for birds and mammals. He records the species and number spotted, and the time and the GPS location of each sighting. He also logs environmental conditions such as fog and wave height that can affect visibility.

Dan comes from a small fishing town with a population of 3000. He wasn’t necessarily interested in birds specifically when he was young, but developed a gradual interest in them. He likes that working with seabirds combines aspects of being a wildlife biologist with aspects of being a marine biologist. Dan has done both land-based projects at seabird breeding sites and ocean-based surveys on small boats and large research ships. One project that he worked on included attaching sensors to diving birds to record water temperature, depth, and location. This provided information about water conditions as well as about the behaviors of the birds and their feeding patterns in those conditions.

The variation in distribution and feeding strategies of bird species make them a good indicator of what is happening to the environment at different levels in the ecosystem. For example, Dan used small-boat surveys to look at changes in marine bird populations in Prince William Sound. He found that, over a period of two decades, declines had occurred in almost half of the species he looked at. In general, species that occurred farther from shore and fed on zooplankton and fish had greater declines than those that fed on prey along the shoreline and the nearby seafloor.

Studying the changes in a bird population leads to investigations that connect down the food chain through fish species to plankton (which, of course, is the focus of this cruise) and finally to climate change. Dan sees changes in the availability of fish species having a direct effect on the economic health of Alaskan communities that depend on fishing to survive. Coming from a fishing community, this hits home for him. As smaller species respond to climate change, a ripple effect works its way up the food web and so human populations must also alter their survival strategies as well.

One of Dan’s feathered friends coming in for a landing off the working deck.

Gulls watch the working deck with interest in hopes of food (not going to happen).

Personal Log:

The longer I’m on board, the more the pieces of the puzzle seem to come together. On thing that really strikes me about the teams on board is the intensity of their research and the drive they have. Each person here is making the most of their opportunity for data gathering. Gwenn, for instance, I have nicknamed “the lady of a thousand labels” because her work ethic and preparedness are so impeccable. She is just one example of the discipline and passion I see on board.

There is enough potential data to be gathered here to provide for years of research. Each of these researchers is not only singularly focused on their specialty but also well aware of the underlying premise of their research, i.e. that what they’re studying will serve to document climate change. Already, this year has brought anomalous weather to the Gulf, which, in a sense, makes conclusions about how and why changes occur a bit difficult. Another thing that is noteworthy on this cruise is that, because there are PIs (Principal Investigators) on board, there is a lot of discussion of ideas and plans for collaboration. Already, Gwenn, Suzanne, Hana and Clay have been talking about a potential project where their ideas intersect. The amount of time we’re out allows for more interaction between people and more room for ideas to develop.

Finally, as I ask each person what they want kids or the public to know from their research, the answers I am getting all focus on the same thing: change is happening and every organism on the planet is affected by it.

map of the shelf — An image of the shelf; the data station lines cross over this to get a complete range of samples from shallow to deep in order to understand the complexity of the ecosystem and the changes happening within it.

What do you want kids to know about your research?

Gwenn: All things are related to each other. All species on earth developed from the same ancestral single-celled organisms.

Dan: If you don’t pay attention to what’s around you, you won’t see how it changes.

August 10, 2018August 10, 2018

Roy Moffitt: Observing Whales Today and for the Next Year, August 8, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 8, 2018

Current location:/conditions Evening of August 8th: Near King Island, AK the most southern part of the trip – Air temp 49F, sea depth 50 ft, surface water temp 52F

Mammal and Bird Observations

Up on the observation deck formal bird and mammal observations are taking place for the extent of the trip. When recording sighting of birds, observers observe an approximate 300m square area in the front of the ship. Any seabird that flies or swims through that zone is counted and recorded. Doing these observations over time can give approximations on bird population trends. Here is a picture I took of a Crested Auklet who floated close by to the ship. Crested Auklets eat primarily plankton and breed in the number of millions in nearby islands of the Bering Sea.

The same can be done for whales. In this case the visible range is used. With the low angle sunlight, it is easy to see the whale spout from a whale on the horizon, however closer range views of whales is needed for identification. That’s most effectively done on the long range by taking pictures of the whale’s tail. Here is a picture I took today of a gray whale’s tail.

Gray whales frequent the area for its shallow sea and dive to the bottom to eat bottom dwelling sea life such as crustaceans by scooping up the bottom of the sea and filtering out the seabed leaving the food. But how do you observe whales when you are not in the Arctic? You eavesdrop on them…..

Observing whales acoustically for the next year.

Today I was observing with help of binoculars and a camera to see whales that were in view of the ship. But how do you know if a whale visited when you where gone? Record their voices.

Primary investigator Katherine Berchok assisted by Stephanie Grassia are retrieving and replacing acoustic (sound) monitoring devices suspended above the sea floor. Today one of these instruments that was placed on the sea floor a year ago is now being retrieved. Within the retrieved equipment is a recording of acoustics that have occurred in the last year. The sound waves were recorded in a pattern of 80 minutes every 5 hours for an entire year. That is a lot to listen to, so recordings will go through processing through different software to see if any sound wave patterns are close to those created by different whale species. Though this data cannot give an accurate count of how many whales are in an area at a particular time, it does allow scientist to verify what species of whales and also walruses visit the study area.

This picture here shows the new underwater microphone or hydrophone (the white tube) being prepared to be lowered into the sea to be retrieved next year. Once lowered in the area pictured here it will be covered in about 30 meters of ocean. So how will it be found next year? There is transmitter (the small gray tube) that will allow scientist to find it, send a signal and have the instruments released from the weight and float to the surface. This year’s instrument will be cleaned up and reused next year.

Looking forward

As we move northward the species of mammals (whales, walruses) and birds being observed will change, look for updates in the coming weeks!