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Coastal oceanography takes patience

Joe Haxel, Acoustician, Assistant Professor, CIMRS/OSU

Greetings GEMM Lab blog readers. My name is Joe Haxel and I’m a close collaborator with Leigh and other GEMM lab members on the gray whale ecology, physiology and noise project off the Oregon coast. Leigh invited me for a guest blog appearance to share some of the acoustics work we’ve been up to and as you’ve probably guessed by now, my specialty is in ocean acoustics. I’m a PI in NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory’s Acoustics Program and OSU’s Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies where I use underwater sound to study a variety of earth and ocean processes.

As a component of the gray whale noise project, during the field seasons of 2016 and 2017 we recorded some of the first measurements of ambient sound in the shallow coastal waters off Oregon between 7 and 20 meters depth. In the passive ocean acoustics world this is really shallow, and with that comes all kinds of instrument and logistical challenges, which is probably one of the main reasons there is little or no acoustic baseline information in this environment.

For instance, one of the significant challenges is rooted in the hydrodynamics surrounding mobile recording systems like the drifting hydrophone we used during the summer field season in 2016 (Fig 1). Decoupling motion of the surface buoy (e.g., caused by swell and waves) from the submerged hydrophone sensor is critical, and here’s why. Hydrophones convert pressure fluctuations at the sensor/ water interface to a calibrated voltage recorded by a logging system. Turbulence resulting from moving the sensor up and down in the water column with surface waves introduces non-acoustic pressure changes that severely contaminate the data for noise level measurements. Vertical and horizontal wave motions are constantly acting on the float, so we needed to engineer compliance between the surface float and the suspended hydrophone sensor to decouple these accelerations. To overcome this, we employed a couple of concepts in our drifting hydrophone design. 1) A 10 cm diameter by 3 m long spar buoy provided floatation for the system. Spar buoys are less affected by wave motion accelerations compared to most other types of surface floatation with larger horizontal profiles and drag. 2) A dynamic shock cord that could stretch up to double its resting length to accommodate vertical motion of the spar buoy; 3) a heave plate that significantly reduced any vertical motion of the hydrophone suspended below it. This was a very effective design, and although somewhat cumbersome in transport with the RHIB between deployment sites, the acoustic data we collected over 40 different drifts around Newport and Port Orford in 2016 was clean, high quality and devoid of system induced contamination.

Figure 1. The drifting hydrophone system used for 40 different drifts recording ambient noise levels in 7-20 m depths in the Newport and Port Orford, OR coastal areas.

Spatial information from the project’s first year acoustic recordings using the drifting hydrophone system helped us choose sites for the fixed hydrophone stations in 2017. Now that we had some basic information on the spatial variability of noise within the study areas we could focus on the temporal objectives of characterizing the range of acoustic conditions experienced by gray whales over the course of the entire foraging season at these sites in Oregon. In 2017 we deployed “lander” style instrument frames, each equipped with a single, omni-directional hydrophone custom built by Haru Matsumoto at our NOAA/OSU Acoustics lab (Fig. 2). The four hydrophone stations were positioned near each of the ports (Yaquina Bay and Port Orford) and in partnership with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Reserves program in the Otter Rock Marine Reserve and the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve. The hydrophones were programmed on a 20% duty cycle, recording 12 minutes of every hour at 32 kHz sample rate, providing spectral information in the frequency band from 10 Hz up to a 13 kHz.

Figure 2. The hydrophone (black cylinder) on its lander frame ready for deployment.

Here’s where the story gets interesting. In my experience so far putting out gear off the Oregon coast, anything that has a surface expression and is left out for more than a couple of weeks is going to have issues. Due to funding constraints, I had to challenge that theory this year and deploy 2 of the units with a surface buoy. This is not typically what we do with our equipment since it usually stays out for up to 2 years at a time, is sensitive, and expensive. The 2 frames with a surface float were going to be deployed in Marine Reserves far enough from the traffic lanes of the ports and in areas with significantly less traffic and presumably no fishing pressure. The surface buoy consisted of an 18 inch diameter hard plastic float connected to an anchor that was offset from the instrument frame by a 150 foot weighted groundline. The gear was deployed off Newport in June and Port Orford in July. What could go wrong?

After monthly buoy checks by the project team, including GPS positions, and buoy cleanings my hopes were pretty high that the surface buoy systems might actually make it through the season with recoveries scheduled in mid-October. Had I gambled and won? Nope. The call came in September from Leigh that one of the whale watching outfits in Depoe Bay recovered a free floating buoy matching ours. Bummer. Alternative recovery plans initiated and this is where things began to get hairy. Fortunately, we had an ace in our back pocket. We have collaborators at the Oregon Coast Aquarium (OCA) who have a top-notch research diving team led by Jim Burke. In the last week of October, they performed a successful search dive on the missing unit near Gull Rock and attached a new set of floats directly to the instrument frame. The divers were in the water for a short 20 minutes thanks to the good series of marks recorded during the buoy checks throughout the summer (Fig. 3).

Figure 3. OCA divers, Jenna and Doug, heading out for a search dive to locate and mark the Gull Rock hydrophone lander.

We had surface marker floats on the frame, but there was a new problem. Video taken by Jenna and Doug from the OCA dive team revealed the landers were pretty sanded in from a couple of recent October storms (Fig. 4). Ugghhh!

Figure 4. Sanded in lander at Gull Rock. Notice the sand dollars and bull kelp wrapped on the frame.

Alternative recovery plan adjustment: we’re gonna need a diver assisted recovery with 2 boats. One to bring a dive team to air jet the sand out away from the legs of the frame and another larger vessel with pulling power to recover the freed lander. Enter the R/V Pacific Surveyor and Capt. Al Pazar. Al, Jim and I came up with a new recovery plan and only needed a decent weather window of a few hours to get the job done. Piece of cake in November off the Oregon coast, right?

The weather finally cooperated in early December in-line with the OCA dive team and R/V Pacific Surveyor’s availability. The 2 vessels and crew headed up to Gull Rock for the first recovery operation of the day. At first we couldn’t locate the surface floats. Oh no. It seemed the rough fall/ winter weather and high seas since late October were too much for the crab floats? As it turns out, we eventually found the floats eastward about 200 m but couldn’t initially see them in the glare and whitecapping conditions that morning. The lander frame had broken loose from its weakened anchor legs in the heavy weather (as it was designed to do through an Aluminum/ Stainless Steel galvanic reaction over time) and rolled or hopped eastward by about 200 m (Fig. 5). Oh dear!

Figure 5. A hydrophone lander after recovery. Notice all but 1 of the concrete anchor legs missing from the recovered lander and the amount of bio-fouling on the hydrophone (compared to Figure 2).

Thankfully, the hydrophone was well protected, and no air jetting was required. With OCA divers out of the water and clear, the Pacific Surveyor headed over to the floats and easily pulled the lander frame and hydrophone on board (Fig. 6). Yipee!

On to the next hydrophone station. This station, deployed ~ 800 m west of the south reef off of South Beach near the Yaquina Bay port entrance. It was deployed entirely subsurface and was outfitted with an acoustic release transponder that I could communicate with from the surface and command to release a pop-up messenger float and line for eventual recovery of the instrument frame. Once on station, communication with the release was established easily (a good start) and we began ranging and moving the OCA vessel Gracie Lynn in to a position within about 2 water depths of the unit (~40 m). I gave the command to the transponder and the submerged release confirmed it was free of its anchor and heading for the surface, but it never made it. Uh oh. Turns out this lander had also broke free of its anchored legs and rolled/ hopped 800 m eastward until it was pinned up against the boulder structure of the south reef. Amazingly, OCA divers Jenna and Doug located the messenger float ~ 5 m below the surface and the messenger line had been fouled by the rolling frame so it could not reach the surface. They dove down the messenger line and attached a new recovery line to the lander frame and the Pacific Surveyor hauled up the frame and hydrophone in-tact (Fig. 6). Double recovery success!

Figure 6. R/V Pacific Surveyor recovering hydrophone landers off Gull Rock and South Beach.

The hydrophone data from both systems looks outstanding and analysis is underway. This recovery effort took a huge amount of patience and the coordination of 3 busy groups (NOAA/OSU, OCA, Capt. Al). Thanks to these incredible collaborations and some heroic diving from Jim Burke and his OCA dive team, we now have a unique and unprecedented shallow water passive acoustic data set from the energetic waters off the Oregon coast.

So that’s some of the story from the 2016 and 2017 field season acoustic point of view. I’ll save the less exciting, but equally successful instrument recoveries from Port Orford for another time.

What REALLY is a Wildlife Biologist?

By Alexa Kownacki, Ph.D. Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

The first lecture slide. Source: Lecture1_Population Dynamics_Lou Botsford

This was the very first lecture slide in my population dynamics course at UC Davis. Population dynamics was infamous in our department for being an ultimate rite of passage due to its notoriously challenging curriculum. So, when Professor Lou Botsford pointed to his slide, all 120 of us Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology majors, didn’t know how to react. Finally, he announced, “This [pointing to the slide] is all of you”. The class laughed. Lou smirked. Lou knew.

Lou knew that there is more truth to this meme than words could express. I can’t tell you how many times friends and acquaintances have asked me if I was going to be a park ranger. Incredibly, not all—or even most—wildlife biologists are park rangers. I’m sure that at one point, my parents had hoped I’d be holding a tiger cub as part of a conservation project—that has never happened. Society may think that all wildlife biologists want to walk in the footsteps of the famous Steven Irwin and say thinks like “Crikey!”—but I can’t remember the last time I uttered that exclamation with the exception of doing a Steve Irwin impression. Hollywood may think we hug trees—and, don’t get me wrong, I love a good tie-dyed shirt—but most of us believe in the principles of conservation and wise-use A.K.A. we know that some trees must be cut down to support our needs. Helicoptering into a remote location to dart and take samples from wild bear populations…HA. Good one. I tell myself this is what I do sometimes, and then the chopper crashes and I wake up from my dream. But, actually, a scientist staring at a computer with stacks of papers spread across every surface, is me and almost every wildlife biologist that I know.

The “dry lab” on the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer en route to Antarctica. This room full of technology is where the majority of the science takes place. Drake Passage, International Waters in August 2015. Source: Alexa Kownacki

There is an illusion that wildlife biologists are constantly in the field doing all the cool, science-y, outdoors-y things while being followed by a National Geographic photojournalist. Well, let me break it to you, we’re not. Yes, we do have some incredible opportunities. For example, I happen to know that one lab member (eh-hem, Todd), has gotten up close and personal with wild polar bear cubs in the Arctic, and that all of us have taken part in some work that is worthy of a cover image on NatGeo. We love that stuff. For many of us, it’s those few, memorable moments when we are out in the field, wearing pants that we haven’t washed in days, and we finally see our study species AND gather the necessary data, that the stars align. Those are the shining lights in a dark sea of papers, grant-writing, teaching, data management, data analysis, and coding. I’m not saying that we don’t find our desk work enjoyable; we jump for joy when our R script finally runs and we do a little dance when our paper is accepted and we definitely shed a tear of relief when funding comes through (or maybe that’s just me).

A picturesque moment of being a wildlife biologist: Alexa and her coworker, Jim, surveying migrating gray whales. Piedras Blancas Light Station, San Simeon, CA in May 2017. Source: Alexa Kownacki.

What I’m trying to get at is that we accepted our fates as the “scientists in front of computers surrounded by papers” long ago and we embrace it. It’s been almost five years since I was a senior in undergrad and saw this meme for the first time. Five years ago, I wanted to be that scientist surrounded by papers, because I knew that’s where the difference is made. Most people have heard the quote by Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” In my mind, it is that scientist combing through relevant, peer-reviewed scientific papers while writing a compelling and well-researched article, that has the potential to make positive changes. For me, that scientist at the desk is being the change that he/she wish to see in the world.

Scientists aboard the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer using the time in between net tows to draft papers and analyze data…note the facial expressions. Antarctic Peninsula in August 2015. Source: Alexa Kownacki.

One of my favorite people to colloquially reference in the wildlife biology field is Milton Love, a research biologist at the University of California Santa Barbara, because he tells it how it is. In his oh-so-true-it-hurts website, he has a page titled, “So You Want To Be A Marine Biologist?” that highlights what he refers to as, “Three really, really bad reasons to want to be a marine biologist” and “Two really, really good reasons to want to be a marine biologist”. I HIGHLY suggest you read them verbatim on his site, whether you think you want to be a marine biologist or not because they’re downright hilarious. However, I will paraphrase if you just can’t be bothered to open up a new tab and go down a laugh-filled wormhole.

Really, Really Bad Reasons to Want to be a Marine Biologist:

To talk to dolphins. Hint: They don’t want to talk to you…and you probably like your face.
You like Jacques Cousteau. Hint: I like cheese…doesn’t mean I want to be cheese.
Hint: Lack thereof.

Really, Really Good Reasons to Want to be a Marine Biologist:

Work attire/attitude. Hint: Dress for the job you want finally translates to board shorts and tank tops.
You like it. *BINGO*

Alexa with colleagues showing the “cool” part of the job is working the zooplankton net tows. This DOES have required attire: steel-toed boots, hard hat, and float coat. R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, Antarctic Peninsula in August 2015. Source: Alexa Kownacki.

In summary, as wildlife or marine biologists we’ve taken a vow of poverty, and in doing so, we’ve committed ourselves to fulfilling lives with incredible experiences and being the change we wish to see in the world. To those of you who want to pursue a career in wildlife or marine biology—even after reading this—then do it. And to those who don’t, hopefully you have a better understanding of why wearing jeans is our version of “business formal”.

A fieldwork version of a lab meeting with Leigh Torres, Tom Calvanese (Field Station Manager), Florence Sullivan, and Leila Lemos. Port Orford, OR in August 2017. Source: Alexa Kownacki.

Who am I?

By Leila Lemos, PhD Student
(hopefully PhD candidate soon)

Here I am with the first GEMM Lab blog post of 2018.

Many people begin a New Year thinking about the future and planning goals to achieve in the following year, and that’s exactly how I am starting my year. After two and a half years of my PhD program, my classes and thesis project are nearing the end. However, a large hurdle stands between me and my finish line: my preliminary exams (as opposed to final exams that happen when I defend my thesis).

Oregon State University requires two sets of preliminary examinations (a.k.a. “prelims”) in order to become a PhD candidate. Thus, planning my next steps is essential in order to accomplish my main objective: a successful completion of these two exams.

The first set of exams comprises written comprehensive examinations to be taken over the course of a week (Monday to Friday), where each day belongs to a different member of my committee. The second type of exam is an oral preliminary examination, conducted by my doctoral committee. The written and oral prelims may cover any part of my proposed research topic as described in the proposal I submitted during my first PhD year.

In order to better understand this entire process, I met with Dr. Carl Schreck, a Fisheries and Wildlife Department professor and one of the members of my committee. He has been through this prelim process many times with other students and had good advice for me regarding preparation. He told me to meet with all of my committee members individually to discuss study material and topics. However, he said that I should first define and introduce myself with a title to each committee member, so they know how to base and frame exam questions. But, how do I define myself?

How do you define yourself?
Source: www.johngarvens.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/02/how_do_you_ define_yourself.jpeg

As part of my PhD committee, Dr. Schreck is familiar with my project and what I am studying, so he suggested the title “Conservation Physiologist”. But, do I see myself as a Conservation Physiologist? Will this set-up have implications for my future, such as the type of job I am prepared for and able to get?

I can see it is important to get this title right, as it will influence my exam process as well as my scientific career. However, it can be hard and somewhat tricky when trying to determine what is comprised by your work and what are the directions you want to take in your future. I believe that defining the terms conservationist and physiologist, and what they encompass, is a good first step.

To me, a conservation specialist works for the protection of the species, their habitats, and its natural resources from extinction and biodiversity loss, by identifying and mitigating the possible threats. A conservation specialist’s work can help in establishing new regulations, conservation actions, and management interventions. As for an animal physiology specialist, their research may focus on how animals respond to internal and external elements. This specialist often studies an animal’s vital functions like reproduction, movement, growth, metabolism and nutrition.

According to Cooke et al. (2013), conservation specialists focus on population characteristics (e.g., abundance and structure) and indicators of responses to environmental perturbations and human activities. Thus, merging conservation and physiology disciplines enables fundamental understanding of the animal response mechanisms to such threats. Using animal physiology as a tool is valuable for developing cause-and-effect relationships, identifying stressor thresholds, and improving ecological model predictions of animal responses. Thus, conservation physiology is an inter-disciplinary field that provides physiological evidence to promote advances in conservation and resource management.

My PhD project is multidisciplinary, where the overall aim is to understand how gray whales are physiologically responding to variability in ambient noise, and how their hormone levels vary across individual, time, body condition, location, and noise levels. I enjoy many aspects of the project, but what I find myself most excited about is linking information about sex, age, body condition, and cortisol levels to specific individuals we observe multiple times in the field. As we monitor their change in body condition and hormones, I am highly motivated to build these whale ‘life-history stories’ in order to better understand patterns and drivers of variability. Although we have not yet tied the noise data into our analyses of whale health, I am very interested to see how this piece of the puzzle fits into these whale ‘life-history stories’.

In this study, animal physiology facilitates our stories. Scientific understanding is the root of all good conservation, so I believe that this project is an important step toward improved conservation of baleen whales. Once we are able to understand how gray whales respond physiologically to impacts of ocean noise, we can promote management actions that will enhance species conservation.

Thus, I can confidently say, I am a Conservation Physiologist.

Me, in Newport, OR, during fieldwork in 2017.
Source: Sharon Nieukirk, 2017.

Over the next three months I will be meeting with my committee members and studying for my prelims. I hope that this process will prepare me to become a PhD candidate by the time my exams come around in March. Then, I will have accomplished my first goal of 2018, so I can go on to plan for the next ones!

References:

Cooke SJ, Sack L, Franklin CE, Farrell AP, Beardall J, Wikelski M, and Chown SL. What is conservation physiology? Perspectives on an increasingly integrated and essential science. Conserv Physiol. 2013; 1(1): cot001. Published online 2013 Mar 13. doi: 10.1093/conphys/cot001.

Observing humpback whales through the clear New Caledonian waters

Solène Derville, Entropie Lab, French National Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD – UMR Entropie), Nouméa, New Caledonia

Ph.D. student under the co-supervision of Dr. Leigh Torres

Drone technology has illustrated itself as particularly useful to the study of cetacean in the GEMM Lab (see previous post by Dawn and Leila) and in the marine mammal research community in general. The last Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Halifax staged several talks and posters describing the great potential of drones for observing animal behaviors, collecting blow samples, estimating the size and health of animals, or estimating densities. The GEMM Lab has been conducting leading research in this field, from capturing exceptional footages of lunge feeding blue whales in New Zealand, to measuring gray whale health on the Oregon coast.

Using drones in New Caledonia

In September 2017 I participated in a scientific cruise undertaken by Opération Cétacés /IRD to study New Caledonian humpback whales, and we were lucky to be joined by Nicolas Job, a professional diver, photographer and drone pilot. It was one of those last minute decisions: one of our crewmates canceled the week before the survey and we thought “who could we bring on instead?”. We barely knew the man but figured it would be good to get a few humpback whale drone images… We invited him to join us on the research expedition only a few days before the trip but this is not the kind of opportunity that a photographer would pass on!

Far from trying to acquire scientific data in the way the GEMM Lab does with blue whales and gray whales, we were only hoping to take “pretty pictures”… we were not disappointed.

Once we got past a few unexpected issues (YES you need to wear gloves to protect your fingers when trying to catch a flying drone (Fig 1), and NO frigate birds will not attack drones as long as they don’t smell like fish), Nicolas managed to fly the drone above our small research boat and capture footage of several humpback whale groups, including mothers with calf and competitive groups.

Figure 1: Frigate birds are known to attack birds in flight to steal their meal straight from their beak…luckily they did not attack our drone! On the contrary, it seems like they could help scientists one day as it has been suggested that UAV builders could learn from their exceptional soaring behavior that allows months-long transoceanic flights (photo credit: Henri Zemerskirch CEBC CNRS) .

As I said, no groundbreaking science here, but this experience convinced me that drones can bring a new perspective to the way we observe and interpret animal behavior. As a known statistics/R-lover in the lab, I often get so excited by the intricacies of data analysis that I forget I am studying these giant, elegant, agile, and intelligent sea creatures (Fig 2). And the video clips that Nicolas put together just reminded me of that.

The clear waters of the Natural Park of the Coral Sea allowed us to see whales as far as 30 meters deep in some areas! This perspective turned our usual surface observations into 3D. We could see escorts guarding maternal females and preventing other males from approaching by producing bubble trails. Escorts also extended their pectoral fins on either side of their body, a behavior supposed to make them look more imposing in the presence of a challenger. Competitive groups were also very impressive from above. During the breeding season, competitive groups form when several males aggregate around a female and compete for it. These groups typically travel at high speed and are characterized by active surface behaviors such as tail slaps, head lunges, and bubble trails.

Figure 2: This female humpback whale was encountered in 2016 and 2017. Her white flanks make her particularly easy to recognize. On both occasions it put on a show and kept circling the Amborella oceanographic vessel for more than an hour. To provide a sense of scale, the vessel on this drone footage is 24 m long (photo credit: Nicolas Job).

Drones and seamounts

Since the discovery of humpback whale offshore breeding areas in Antigonia seamount in 2007 and Orne bank in 2016, a lot of research has been conducted to better understand habitat preferences, distributions and connectivity in oceanic waters of New Caledonia (see previous post). Surveys have always been strongly multidisciplinary, including boat-based observation, biopsy sampling, and photo-identification, satellite tracking, in situ oceanographic measurements and acoustics. Will drones soon become an essential component of this toolbox?

One potential application I could imagine for my personal research questions would be to use aerial photogrammetry to measure the size of newborn calves. Indeed, we have found that offshore seamounts are used by a relatively great number of mothers with calf (Derville, Torres & Garrigue, In Press JMAMM). This finding is counter intuitive to the paradigm that maternal females prefer sheltered, shallow and coastal waters as shown in many breeding grounds around the world. Yet, we believe unsheltered oceanic areas might become more attractive to maternal females as the calf grows bigger and more robust to harsh sea states and encounters with competitive adult males. Drone photogrammetry of calves could likely help us confirm this hypothesis.

But for now, I will leave the science behind for a bit and let you enjoy the sheer beauty of this footage!

Film directed by Nicolas Job (Heos Marine) with images collected during the MARACAS3 survey (Marine Mammals of the Coral Sea: IRD/ UMR Entropie/Opération Cétacés/ Gouv.nc/ WWF/ Ministère de la Transition écologique et solidaire).

A Marine Mammal Odyssey, Eh!

By Leila Lemos, PhD student

Dawn Barlow, MS student

Florence Sullivan, MS

The Society for Marine Mammalogy’s Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals happens every two years and this year the conference took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Logo of the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s 22nd Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, 2017: A Marine Mammal Odyssey, eh!

The conference started with a welcome reception on Sunday, October 22^nd, followed by a week of plenaries, oral presentations, speed talks and posters, and two more days with different workshops to attend.

This conference is an important event for us, as marine mammalogists. This is the moment where we get to share our projects (how exciting!), get important feedback, and hear about different studies that are being conducted around the world. It is also an opportunity to network and find opportunities for collaboration with other researchers, and of course to learn from our colleagues who are presenting their work.

The GEMM Lab attending the opening plenaries of the conference!

The first day of conference started with an excellent talk from Asha de Vos, from Sri Lanka, where she discussed the need for increased diversity (in all aspects including race, gender, nationality, etc.) in our field, and advocated for the end of “parachute scientists” who come into a foreign (to them) location, complete their research, and then leave without communicating results, or empowering the local community to care or act in response to local conservation issues. She also talked about the difficulty that researchers in developing countries face accessing research that is hidden behind journal pay walls, and encouraged everyone to get creative with communication! This means using blogs and social media, talking to science communicators and others in order to get our stories out, and no longer hiding our results behind the ivory tower of academia. Overall, it was an inspirational way to begin the week.

On Thursday morning we heard Julie van der Hoop, who was this year’s recipient of the F.G. Wood Memorial Scholarship Award, present her work on “Drag from fishing gear entangling right whales: a major extinction risk factor”. Julie observed a decrease in lipid reserves in entangled whales and questioned if entanglements are as costly as events such as migration, pregnancy or lactation. Tags were also deployed on whales that had been disentangled from fishing gear, and researchers were able to see an increase in whale speed and dive depth.

Julie van der Hoop talks about different drag forces of fishing gears
on North Atlantic Right Whales.

There were many other interesting talks over the course of the week. Some of the talks that inspired us were:

— Stephen Trumble’s talk “Earplugs reveal a century of stress in baleen whales and the impact of industrial whaling” presented a time-series of cortisol profiles of different species of baleen whales using earplugs. The temporal data was compared to whaling data information and they were able to see a high correlation between datasets. However, during a low whaling season concurrent to the World War II in the 40’s, high cortisol levels were potentially associated to an increase in noise from ship traffic.

— Jane Khudyakov (“Elephant seal blubber transcriptome and proteome responses to single and repeated stress”) and Cory Champagne (“Metabolomic response to acute and repeated stress in the northern elephant seal”) presented different aspects of the same project. Jane looked at down/upregulation of genes (downregulation is when a cell decreases the quantity of a cellular component, such as RNA or protein, in response to an external stimulus; upregulation is the opposite: when the cell increases the quantity of cellular components) to check for stress. She was able to confirm an upregulation of genes after repeated stressor exposure. Cory checked for influences on the metabolism after administering ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone: a stimulating hormone that causes the release of glucocorticoid hormones by the adrenal cortex. i.e., cortisol, a stress related hormone) to elephant seals. By looking only at the stress-related hormone, he was not able to differentiate acute from chronic stress responses. However, he showed that many other metabolic processes varied according to the stress-exposure time. This included a decrease in amino acids, mobilization of lipids and upregulation of carbohydrates.

— Jouni Koskela (“Fishing restrictions is an essential protection method of the Saimaa ringed seal”) talked about the various conservation efforts being undertaken for the endangered Lake Saimaa ringed seal. Gill nets account for 90% of seal pup mortality, but if new pups can reach 20kg, only 14% of them will drown in these fishing net entanglements. Working with local industry and recreational interests, increased fishing restrictions have been enacted during the weaning season. In addition to other year-round restrictions, this has led to a small, but noticeable upward trend in pup production and population growth! A conservation success story is always gratifying to hear, and we wish these collaborative efforts continued future success.

— Charmain Hamilton (“Impacts of sea-ice declines on a pinnacle Arctic predator-prey relationship: Habitat, behaviour, and spatial overlap between coastal polar bears and ringed seals”) gave a fascinating presentation looking at how changing ice regimes in the arctic are affecting spatial habitat use patterns of polar bears. As ice decreases in the summer months, the polar bears move more, resulting in less spatial overlap with ringed seal habitat, and so the bears have turned to targeting ground nesting seabirds. This spatio-temporal mismatch of traditional predator/prey has drastic implications for arctic food web dynamics.

— Nicholas Farmer’s presentation on a Population Consequences of Disturbance (PCoD) model for assessing theoretical impacts of seismic survey on sperm whale population health had some interesting parallels with new questions in our New Zealand blue whale project. By simulating whale movement through modeled three-dimensional sound fields, he found that the frequency of the disturbance (i.e., how many days in a row the seismic survey activity persisted) was very important in determining effects on the whales. If the seismic noise persists for many days in a row, the sperm whales may not be able to replenish their caloric reserves because of ongoing disturbance. As you can imagine, this pattern gets worse with more sequential days of disturbance.

— Jeremy Goldbogen used suction cup tags equipped with video cameras to peer into an unusual ecological niche: the boundary layer of large whales, where drag is minimized and remoras and small invertebrates compete and thrive. Who would have thought that at a marine mammal conference, a room full of people would be smiling and laughing at remoras sliding around the back of a blue whale, or barnacles filter feeding as they go for a ride with a humpback whale? Insights from animals that occupy this rare niche can inform improvements to current tag technologies.

The GEMM Lab was well represented this year with six different talks: four oral presentations and two speed talks! It is evident that all of our hard work and preparation, such as practicing our talks in front of our lab mates two weeks in advance, paid off. All of the talks were extremely well received by the audience, and a few generated intelligent questions and discussion afterwards – exactly as we hoped. It was certainly gratifying to see how packed the room was for Sharon’s announcement of our new method of standardizing photogrammetry from drones, and how long the people stayed to talk to Dawn after her presentation about an unique population of New Zealand blue whales – it took us over an hour to be able to take her away for food and the celebratory drinks she deserved!

GEMM Lab members on their talks. From left to right, top to bottom: Amanda Holdman, Leila Lemos, Solène Derville, Dawn Barlow, Sharon Nieukirk, and Florence Sullivan.

GEMM Lab members at the closing celebration. From left to right: Florence Sullivan, Leila Lemos, Amanda Holdman, Solène Derville, and Dawn Barlow.

We are not always serious, we can get silly sometimes!

The weekend after the conference many courageous researchers who wanted to stuff their brains with even more specialized knowledge participated in different targeted workshops. From 32 different workshops that were offered, Leila chose to participate in “Measuring hormones in marine mammals: Current methods, alternative sample matrices, and future directions” in order to learn more about the new methods, hormones and matrices that are being used by different research groups and also to make connections with other endocrinologist researchers. Solène participated in the workshop “Reproducible Research with R, Git, and GitHub” led by Robert Shick. She learned how to better organize her research workflow and looks forward to teaching us all how to be better collaborative coders, and ensure our analysis is reproducible by others and by our future selves!

On Sunday none of us from the GEMM Lab participated in workshops and we were able to explore a little bit of the Bay of Fundy, an important area for many marine mammal species. Even though we didn’t spot any marine mammals, we enjoyed witnessing the enormous tidal exchange of the bay (the largest tides in the world), and the fall colors of the Annaoplis valley were stunning as well. Our little trip was fun and relaxing after a whole week of learning.

GEMM Lab at the Bay of Fundy; from left to right: Kelly Sullivan (Florence’s husband and a GEMM Lab fan), Florence Sullivan, Dawn Barlow, Solène Derville, and Leila Lemos.

It is amazing how refreshing it is to participate in a conference. So many ideas popping up in our heads and an increasing desire to continue doing research and work for conservation of marine mammals. Now it’s time to put all of our ideas and energy into practice back home! See you all in two years at the next conference in Barcelona!

We Are Family

By Alexa Kownacki, Ph.D. Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

The GEMM Lab celebrating Leigh’s birthday with homemade baked goods and discussions about science.

A lab is a family. I know there is the common saying about how you cannot choose your family and you can only choose your friends. But, I’d beg to differ. In the case of graduate school, especially in departments similar to OSU’s Fisheries and Wildlife, your lab is your chosen family. These are the people who encourage you when you’ve hit a roadblock, who push you when you need extra motivation, who will laugh with you when you’ve reached the point of hysteria after hours of data analysis, who will feed you when you’re too busy to buy groceries, and who will always be there for you. That sure sounds a lot like a family to me.

GEMM Lab members at the Society for Marine Mammalogy 2017 Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the masquerade ball. Photo source: Florence Sullivan

Many of us spend weeks—if not months—conducting field research for our various projects. None of us do this work from the main campus…seeing as the main campus for Oregon State University is located Corvallis, Oregon which is approximately 50 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. The GEMM Lab isn’t actually based on the main campus; instead, you’ll find the lab at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, within a two-minute stroll of the picturesque Yaquina Bay. However, many of the core classes we need are only offered on main campus. This results in the GEMM Lab members being spread across Corvallis, Newport, and the dominant fieldwork site for their project (which could be locally in Oregon, or in the waters off of New Zealand). So rather than your typical, weekly, hour-long lab meetings, the GEMM Lab meetings are monthly and last on the order of 3-5 hours. Others hear this and think that must be overwhelming to have such a long lab meeting. On the contrary, these are scheduled to fit into all of our chaotic schedules. One day a month, all of us gather together as a family unit, share what’s new about our lives, be sounding boards for each other, solve problems, and do so in a supportive environment. Hopefully you’re getting the picture that just because we’re all part of the same lab, it doesn’t mean we’re geographically close. This is exactly why we cultivate meaningful relationships while we are together. The Harvard Business Review published an article 2015 based on multiple peer-reviewed journals, summarizing the six dominant characteristics necessary to foster a positive workplace:

Caring for colleagues as friends
Supporting each other
Avoiding blame and forgiving mistakes
Inspiring each other at work
Emphasizing the meaningfulness of the work
Treating each other with respect

And I can attest that every member within the GEMM Lab embraces all of these characteristics and I have a feeling that none of them have read that article prior to today. Family naturally follows those basic guidelines. And, our lab, is a family.

Case and Point: when I was applying for graduate programs, I made a point of traveling to meet the GEMM Lab members at the monthly lab meeting. Sure, I also wanted to make sure that both Newport and Corvallis would be good fits in terms of locations. But, mostly, I needed to see if this Lab would be a strong family unit for my graduate school career and beyond. The moment I arrived at Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, it was clear, this was a family that I could see myself being a part of. Not only had all the members brought some kind of food item to share at the lab meeting (this was important to me), but Florence had baked homemade bread, Dawn had offered to show me around Hatfield, and Leila had set up a time to take me around main campus with other grad students. During the lab meeting discussions, I was welcomed to contribute and I felt comfortable doing so. That was another big moment where something “clicked” and I knew I had found a great group of amazing scientists who were also amazing human beings.

GEMM Lab members at the Port Orford Field Station in August 2017.

Flash forward a few months, and now I am one of those lab members who is bringing food to lab meetings. More than that, we have GEMM Lab dinners and game nights. I may be based in Corvallis, but I commute out to Newport just for these fun activities because this is my family. I want to be with them—not only when we’re talking about our research—but when we’re laughing about the silly things that happen in our daily lives, comically screaming at each other in an effort to win whatever game is on the table, and enjoying home-cooked meals. This is my family.

GEMM Lab members helping some friends at South Coast Tours build a dirt-bag house in August 2017.

I guess I’d like to plug this message to any potential graduate student regardless of discipline(s): find a lab with people that you truly want to surround yourselves with—day and night—in good times and in bad times—because undoubtedly, you’ll need those kinds of people. And, to current lab constituents in any lab: it’s up to us to create a supportive family which will make everyone successful.

Sister Sledge knew just this when the group sang this verse of their hit, “We Are Family”:

Living life is fun and we’ve just begun
To get our share of this world’s delights
High, high hopes we have for the future
And our goal’s in sight
We, no we don’t get depressed
Here’s what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won’t go wrong, oh-no
This is our family Jewel

I’m grateful to have found a lab that embodies the lyrics of one of my favorite childhood karaoke songs. The GEMM Lab is not only a lab that produces cutting-edge science; it is a family that encourages one another in all facets of life—creating an environment where people can have high-quality lives and generate high-quality science.

GEMM Lab Family Dinner complete with the board game, Evolution, and homemade pizza. October 2017.

Hearing is believing

Dr. Leigh Torres, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab, Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University

Dr. Holger Klinck, Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University

For too long the oil and gas industry has polluted the ocean with seismic airgun noise with little consequence. The industry uses seismic airguns in order to find their next lucrative reserve under the seafloor, and because their operations are out of sight and the noise is underwater many have not noticed this deafening (literally¹) noise. As terrestrial and vision-dependent animals, we humans have a hard time appreciating the importance of sound in the marine environment. Most of the ocean is a dark place, where vision does not work well, so many animals are dependent on sound to survive. Especially marine mammals like whales and dolphins.

But, hearing is believing, so let’s have a listen to a recording of seismic airguns firing in the South Taranaki Bight (STB) of New Zealand, a known blue whale feeding area. This is a short audio clip of a seismic airgun firing every ~8 seconds (a typical pattern). Before you hit play, close your eyes and imagine you are a blue whale living in this environment.

Now, put that clip on loop and play it for three months straight. Yes, three months. This consistent, repetitive boom is what whales living in a region of oil and gas exploration hear, as seismic surveys often last 1-4 months.

So, how loud is that, really? Your computer or phone speaker is probably not good enough to convey the power of that sound (unless you have a good bass or sub-woofer hooked up). Industrial seismic airgun arrays are among the loudest man-made sources² and the noise emitted by these arrays can travel thousands of kilometers³. Noise from a single seismic airgun survey can blanket an area of over 300,000 km², raising local background noise levels 100-fold⁴.

Now, oil and gas representatives frequently defend their seismic airgun activities with two arguments, both of which are false. You can hear both these arguments made recently in this interview by a representative of the oil and gas industry in New Zealand defending a proposal to conduct a 3 month-long seismic survey in the STB while blue whales will be feeding there.

First, the oil and gas industry claim that whales and dolphins can just leave the area if they choose. But this is their home, where they live, where they feed and breed. These habitats are not just anywhere. Blue whales come to the STB to feed, to sustain their bodies and reproductive capacity. This habitat is special and is not available anywhere else nearby, so if a whale leaves the STB because of noise disturbance it may starve. Similarly, oil and gas representatives have falsely claimed that because whales stay in the area during seismic airgun activity this indicates they are not being disturbed. If you had the choice of starving or listening to seismic booming you might also choose the latter, but this does not mean you are not disturbed (or annoyed and stressed). Let’s think about this another way: imagine someone operating a nail gun for three months in your kitchen and you have nowhere else to eat. You would stay to feed yourself, but your stress level would elevate, health deteriorate, and potentially have hearing damage. During your next home renovation project you should be happy you have restaurants as alternative eateries. Whales don’t.

Second, the oil and gas industry have claimed that the frequency of seismic airguns is out of the hearing range of most whales and dolphins. This statement is just wrong. Let’s look at the spectrogram of the above played seismic airgun audio clip recorded in the STB. A spectrogram is a visual representation of sound (to help us vision-dependent animals interpret sound). Time is on the horizontal axis, frequency (pitch) is on the vertical axis, and the different colors on the image indicate the intensity of sound (loudness) with bright colors illustrating areas of higher noise. Easily seen is that as the seismic airgun blasts every ~8 seconds, there is elevated noise intensity across all frequencies (bright yellow, orange and green bands). This noise intensity is especially high in the 10 – 80 Hz frequency range, which is exactly where many large baleen whales – like the blue whale – hear and communicate.

A spectrogram of the above played seismic airgun audio clip recorded in the South Taranaki Bight, New Zealand. Airgun pulses every ~8 seconds are evident by elevated noise intensity across all frequencies (bright yellow, orange and green bands), which are especially intense in the 10 – 80 Hz frequency range.

In the big, dark ocean, whales use sound to communicate, find food, and navigate. So, let’s try to imagine what it’s like for a whale trying to communicate in an environment with seismic airgun activity. First, let’s listen to a New Zealand blue whale call (vocalization) recorded in the STB. [This audio clip is played at 10X the original speed so that it is more audible to the human hearing frequency range. You can see the real time scale in the top plot.]

Now, let’s look at a spectrogram of seismic airgun pulses and a blue whale call happening at the same time. The seismic airgun blasts are still evident every ~8 seconds, and the blue whale call is also evident at about the 25 Hz frequency (within the pink box). Because blue whales call at such a low frequency humans cannot hear their call when played at normal speed, so you will only hear the airgun pulses if you hit play. But you can see in the spectrogram that five airgun blasts overlapped with the blue whale call.

No doubt this blue whale heard the repetitive seismic airgun blasts, and vocalized in the same frequency range at the same time. Yet, the blue whale’s call was partially drowned out by the intense seismic airgun blasts. Did any other whale hear it? Could this whale hear other whales? Did it get the message across? Maybe, but probably not very well.

Some oil and gas representatives point toward their adherence to seismic survey guidelines and use of marine mammal observers to reduce their impacts on marine life. In New Zealand these guidelines only stop airgun blasting when animals are within 1000 m of the vessel (1.5 km if a calf is present), yet seismic airgun blasts are so intense that the noise travels much farther. So, while these guidelines may be a start, they only prevent hearing damage to whales and dolphins by stopping airguns from blasting right on top of animals.

So, what does this mean for whales and other marine animals living in habitat where seismic airguns are operating? It means their lives are disturbed and dramatically altered. Multiple scientific studies have shown that whales change behavior⁵, distribution⁶, and vocalization patterns⁷ when seismic airguns are active. Other marine life like squid⁸, spiny lobster⁹, scallops¹⁰, and plankton¹¹ also suffer when exposed to airgun noise. The evidence has mounted. There is no longer a scientific debate: seismic airguns are harmful to marine animals and ecosystems.

What we are just starting to study and understand is the long-term and population level effects of seismic airguns on whales and other marine life. How do short term behavioral changes, movement to different areas, and different calling patterns impact an individual’s ability to survive or a population’s ability to persist? These are the important questions that need to be addressed now.

Seismic airgun surveys to find new oil and gas reserves are so pervasive in our global oceans, that airgun blasts are now heard year round in the equatorial Atlantic³^,¹². As reserves shrink on land, the industry expands their search in our oceans, causing severe and persistent consequences to whales, dolphins and other marine life. The oil and gas industry must take ownership of the impacts of their seismic airgun activities. It’s imperative that political, management, scientific, and public pressure force a more complete assessment of each proposed seismic airgun survey, with an honest evaluation of the tradeoff between economic benefits and costs to marine life.

Here are a few ways we can reduce the impact of seismic airguns on marine life and ecosystems:

Restrict seismic airgun operation in and near sensitive environmental areas, such as marine mammal feeding and breeding areas.
Prohibit redundant seismic surveys in the same area. If one group has already surveyed an area, that data should be shared with other groups, perhaps after an embargo period.
Cap the number and duration of seismic surveys allowed each year by region.
Promote the use of renewable energy sources.
Develop new and quieter survey methods.

Even though we cannot hear the relentless booming, this does not mean it’s not happening and harming animals. Please listen one more time to 1 minute of what whales hear for months during seismic airgun operations.

More information on seismic airgun surveys and their impact on marine life:

Boom, Baby, Boom: The Environmental Impacts of Seismic Surveys

A Review of the Impacts of Seismic Airgun Surveys on Marine Life

Sonic Sea: Emmy award winning film about ocean noise pollution and its impact on marine mammals.

Atlantic seismic will impact marine mammals and fisheries

References:

Gordon, J., et al., A review of the effects of seismic surveys on marine mammals. Marine Technology Society Journal, 2003. 37(4): p. 16-34.
National Research Council (NRC), Ocean Noise and Marine Mammals. 2003, National Academy Press: Washington. p. 204.
Nieukirk, S.L., et al., Sounds from airguns and fin whales recorded in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, 1999–2009. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2012. 131(2): p. 1102-1112.
Weilgart, L., A review of the impacts of seismic airgun surveys on marine life. 2013, Submitted to the CBD Expert Workshop on Underwater Noise and its Impacts on Marine and Coastal Biodiversity 25-27 February 2014: London, UK. .
Miller, P.J., et al., Using at-sea experiments to study the effects of airguns on the foraging behavior of sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 2009. 56(7): p. 1168-1181.
Castellote, M., C.W. Clark, and M.O. Lammers, Acoustic and behavioural changes by fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in response to shipping and airgun noise. Biological Conservation, 2012. 147(1): p. 115-122.
Di lorio, L. and C.W. Clark, Exposure to seismic survey alters blue whale acoustic communication. Biology Letters, 2010. 6(1): p. 51-54.
Fewtrell, J. and R. McCauley, Impact of air gun noise on the behaviour of marine fish and squid. Marine pollution bulletin, 2012. 64(5): p. 984-993.
Fitzgibbon, Q.P., et al., The impact of seismic air gun exposure on the haemolymph physiology and nutritional condition of spiny lobster, Jasus edwardsii. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2017.
Day, R.D., et al., Exposure to seismic air gun signals causes physiological harm and alters behavior in the scallop Pecten fumatus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017. 114(40): p. E8537-E8546.
McCauley, R.D., et al., Widely used marine seismic survey air gun operations negatively impact zooplankton. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2017. 1(7): p. s41559-017-0195.
Haver, S.M., et al., The not-so-silent world: Measuring Arctic, Equatorial, and Antarctic soundscapes in the Atlantic Ocean. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 2017. 122: p. 95-104.

Finding the hot spot: incorporating thermal imagery into our whale research

By Leila Lemos and Leigh Torres

A couple weeks ago the GEMM Lab trialed something new in our gray whale research: the addition of a thermal imaging camera to our drone.

For those who do not know what a thermal imaging camera is, it is a device that uses infrared radiation to form an object, and operates in wavelengths as long as 14,000 nm (14 µm). A thermal camera uses a similar procedure as a normal camera, but responds to infrared radiation rather than visible light. It is also known as an infrared or thermographic camera.

All objects with a temperature above absolute zero emit infrared radiation, and thermography makes it possible to see with or without visible light. The amount of radiation emitted by an object intensifies with temperature, thus thermography allows for perception of temperature variations. Humans and other warm-blooded animals are easily detectable via infrared radiation, during the day or the night.

Infrared radiation was first discovered in 1800, by the astronomer Frederick William Herschel. He discovered infrared light by using a prism and a thermometer (Fig.1). He called it the infrared spectrum “dark heat”, which falls between the visible and microwave bands on the electromagnetic spectrum (Hitch 2016).

Figure 1: Astronomer Frederick William Herschel discovers infrared light by using a prism and a thermometer.
Source: NASA, 2012.

Around 30 years later it was possible to detect a person using infrared radiation within ten meters distance, and around 50 years later it was possible to detect radiation from a cow at 400 meters distance, as technology became gradually more sensitive (Langley, 1880).

Thermography nowadays is applied in research and development in a variety of different fields in industry (Vollmer and Möllmann 2017). Thermal imaging is currently applied in many applications, such as night vision, predictive maintenance, reducing energy costs of processes and buildings, building and roof inspection, moisture detection in walls and roofs, energy auditing, refrigerant leaks and detection of gas, law enforcement and anti-terrorism, medicinal and veterinary thermal imaging, astronomy, chemical imaging, pollution effluent detection, archaeology, paranormal investigation, and meteorology.

Some of the most interesting examples of its application are:

Detection of the presence of icebergs, increasing safety for navigators.
Detection of bombs
Non-invasive detection of breast cancer (Fig.2)
Detection of fire, and detection of fire victims in smoke-filled rooms or hidden under plywood, by the fire departments (Fig.3)

Figure 2: Thermography approved in 1982 to detect breast cancer. Method is able to detect 95% of early stages cancers.
Source: Hitch, 2016.

Figure 3: The use of thermal imaging cameras by the fire departments.
Source: MASC, 2017.

In environmental research, the thermal imaging camera is an interesting tool used to detect wildlife presence (especially for nocturnal species), to monitor wildlife and detect disease (Fig.4), and to better understand thermal patterns in animals (Fig.5), among others.

Figure 4: Wildlife monitoring: detection of mange infection in wolves of Yellowstone National Park. During winter, wolves infected with mange can suffer a substantial amount of heat loss compared to those without the disease, according to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey and its partners.
Source: Wildlife Research News 2012; USGS 2016.

Figure 5: Study on thermal patterns and thermoregulation abilities of emperor penguins in Antarctica.
Source: BBC 2013.

Now that thermal cameras are small enough for attachment to drones, we are eager to monitor whales with this device to potentially identify injuries and infections. This non-invasive method could contribute another aspect to our on-going blue and gray whale health assessment work. However, dealing with new technology is never easy and we are working to optimize settings to collect the data needed. Our test flights with the thermal camera were successful – we captured images and retrieved the expensive camera (always a good thing!) – but the whale images were less clear than desired. The camera was able to detect thermal variation between our research vessel and the ocean (Fig. 6: boat and people are displayed as hot coloration (yellow, orange and red tones), while the ocean exhibited a cold coloration (purple). Yet, the camera’s ability to differentiate thermal content of the whale while surfacing from the ocean was less evident (Fig. 7). We believe this problem is due to automatic gain control settings by the camera that essentially continually shifts the baseline temperature in the image so that thermal contrast between the whale and ocean was not very strong, except for those hot blow holes shinning like devil eyes (Fig. 7). We are working to adjust these gain settings so that our next trial will be more successful, and next time we will see our whales in all their colorful thermal glory.

Figure 6: Thermal image of the R/V Ruby captured by a thermal camera flown on a drone by the GEMM Lab on September 09th, 2017.
Source: GEMMLab 2017.

Figure 7. Thermal image of a gray whale captured by a thermal camera flown on a drone by the GEMM Lab on September 09th, 2017. Notice the ‘hot’ color (yellow-orange) of the blow holes indicating the heat within the whale’s body. (Image captured under NOAA/NMFS permit #16111).

References

BBC. 2013. In pictures: Emperor penguins’ ‘cold coat’ discovered. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21669963

Hitch J. 2016. A Brief History of Thermal Cameras. Available at: http://www.newequipment.com/technology-innovations/brief-history-thermal-cameras /gallery?slide=1

Langley SP. 1880. The bolometer. Vallegheny Observatory, The Society Gregory, New York, NY, USA.

MASC. 2017. Thermal Imaging Camera. Available at: https://duckduckgo.com/ ?q=detection+of+victim+fire+department+thermal+camera&atb=v76-7_u&iax=1&ia= images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.masc.sc%2FSiteCollectionImages%2Fuptown%2F Super_Red_Hot.jpg

NASA. 2012. Beyond the Visible Light. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/ technology/features/webb-beyond-vis.html

USGS. 2016. Study Shows Cold and Windy Nights Physically Drain Mangy Wolves. Available at: https://www.usgs.gov/news/study-shows-cold-and-windy-nights-physically-drain-mangy-wolves

Vollmer M. and Möllmann KP. 2018. Infrared Thermal Imaging: Fundamentals, research and Applications. Second Edition. Wiley-VCH: Weinheim, Germany.

Wildlife Research News, 2012. Tool: Infrared Monitoring. Available at: https://wildliferesearchnews.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/tool-infrared-monitoring/

Diving Deeper

By Taylor Mock, GEMM Lab intern

Greetings, all!

My name is Taylor Mock. Since February I have been volunteering in the GEMM Lab and am ecstatic to make my online debut as part of the team!

For many years, I had a shallow relationship with Hatfield Marine Science Center. As a Newport native, I would spend mornings and evenings glancing over at the Hatfield buildings while driving over the bridge to and from school. I was always intrigued. Sure, I would hear snippets of research from my peers about what projects their parents were involved in, but the inner workings of the complex mystified me.

Toward the end of my Freshman year in 2012 at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, my mom asked me what my summer plans were. I replied with the typical “I don’t know… Get a job?” She insisted that instead of a job I think about getting an internship; experience that will last more than a summer. I inquired through a family friend (because every person in this little community is woven together some way or another) if any internships or volunteer opportunities were available at Hatfield. She pointed me in the direction of the Environmental Protection Agency and thus began my Hatfield volunteering saga. I worked that summer, and the next, at the EPA under the direction of Ted DeWitt and Jody Stecher on denitrification studies in estuarine marshes. That summer provided me a glorious front row seat to field research and a greater understanding of my potential as a person and as a scientist. Now, this experience was marvelous, but I knew shortly after starting that my heart was elsewhere.

It was during my study abroad semester in Belize as part of my internship at the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) that I realized I wanted to work with marine macroorganisms. At TIDE, I engaged in radio telemetry conservation efforts tracking Hicatee (Dermatemys mawii) aquatic turtles. We would spend days on a small boat floating through canals and setting nets in hopes of capturing individuals of this small population to outfit them with radio tracking devices. These would be later used to track foraging, mating, and travel patterns in the region. It was an amazing time, to say the least. I remember waking up on my 21st birthday from my camping hammock and staring up at the lush rainforest above my head with a warm breeze across my face, followed by spending the day in the presence of these glorious creatures. It was heaven. I returned to Westmont the following term and took a Marine Mammal Eco-Physiology course and absolutely fell in love with Cetacea. Yes, I had always been captivated by this clade of beings (and truthfully when I was eight years old had a book on “How to Become a Marine Mammal Trainer”), but this was deeper. Of course, pinnipeds and otters and polar bears and manatees were enjoyable to learn about. There was something about the Cetacea though and how they migrated up and down the coast (just like me!) that I really connected with. My time learning about these animals created an intimate understanding of another group of species that developed into a rich, indescribable empathetic connection. I had to take a couple years away from scholastics and away from biology for health and wellness reasons. One day, though, a couple years after graduating and returning to Newport I rekindled with Jody from the EPA. He asked me if I would like to volunteer under Leigh Torres in the Marine Mammal Institute at HMSC. I do not think I could have possibly said no. I have been enjoying my time in the GEMM Lab ever since!

Though I am available to help anyone with any task they need, the work I do mostly centers around photogrammetry.

Using photogrammetry skills to measure gray whales in the GEMM Lab.

Photogrammetry, essentially, means geo-spatially measuring objects using photographs. What that looks like for me is taking an aerial photograph (extracted from overhead drone video footage) of a whale, running the image through a computer program called “Matlab”, taking a series of measurements from the whale (e.g., tip of the mandible to the notch of the fluke, distance between each tip of the fluke, and several measurements across the midsection of the whale). Several images of individuals are processed in order to find an average set of measurements for each whale.

Final result of the photogrammetry method on a gray whale

You might be wondering, “How can one measure the distance accurately from just a photograph?” I am glad you asked! The drones are outfitted with a barometer to measure the atmospheric pressure and, in turn, altitude. The changing altitudes are recorded in a separate program that is run simultaneously with the video footage. Thus, we have the altitudinal measurements for every millisecond of the drone’s flight. To monitor the accuracy and functionality of the barometer, calibrations are completed upon deployment and retrieval of each drone flight. To calibrate: the initial takeoff height is measured, a board of known length is thrown into the water, the drone will then rise or lower slowly above the board between 10 and 40 m, photographs of the board are then taken from varying altitudes, and are processed in Matlab.

During my time in the GEMM Lab, I have had the pleasure of completing photogrammetry assignments for both Leila on the Oregon Coast gray whale and for Dawn on the New Zealand blue whale projects. These ladies, and the other members of the GEMM Lab, have been so patient and gracious in educating me on the workings of Matlab and the video processing systems. It is a distinct honor working with them and to delight in the astounding nature of these creatures together. Each day I am struck in sheer awe of how beautiful and powerful these whales truly are. Their graceful presence and movement through the water rivals even the most skillful dancer.

Over the last 6 years, I am delighted to say that my relationship with Hatfield has become much deeper. The people and the experiences I have encountered during my time here, especially in the GEMM Lab, have been nothing short of incredible. I am sincerely grateful for this continued opportunity. It fills my soul with joy to engage in work that contributes to the well being of the ocean and its inhabitants.

Thank you, Leigh and all of the GEMM Lab members. I hope to continue volunteering with you for as long as you will have me.

Where are the eggs? Studying red-legged kittiwakes in a time of change

By Rachael Orben, Research Associate, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University

In late May, I returned to St. George Island, Alaska to study the foraging ecology of red-legged kittiwakes using a mix of high-tech biologging tags, physiology measurements, and observations. The study was designed to identify differences in behavior and physiology between birds that reproduce successfully and birds that don’t and then to see how this might carry over to the winter season (and vice versa). Things didn’t go as planned.

A red-legged kittiwake on St. George Island. Photo C. Kroeger

This was my fourth spring on the island, and like prior seasons we arrived in late May, when birds should be building nests. However, unlike previous seasons, red-legged kittiwake’s didn’t look like they had done much nest building. I was accompanied by Abram Fleishman, a superstar MS student from San Jose State who is studying the winter spatial ecology of red-legged kittiwakes in relationship to mercury concentration in their feathers.

We immediately set about recapturing birds that had carried geolocation data loggers over the winter. We wanted to catch as many as possible before eggs were laid, so that their blood samples would represent the pre-lay period. The weather was wonderful, so it wasn’t until three weeks after we arrived that we had our first day-off. It was at about this time that I finally lost my optimism and realized the majority of red-legged kittiwakes were not going to lay eggs. By late June kittiwakes are usually incubating eggs. We only saw a handful of eggs and very few of these were being incubated. Most birds didn’t even build nests, or if they did, the nest was dismantled by other birds when the nest building pair didn’t stick around to guard their pile of mud and moss.

Nests in 2016. Laying success was also low in 2016, but even if birds didn’t lay many pairs built nests.

Same cliff (and birds) without nests in 2017.

When I designed the study, I thought collecting enough data to answer my questions about successful versus failed breeders would be hard, since failed breeders would be challenging to work with and red-legged kittiwakes typically have high breeding success, meaning that sample sizes of failed breeders would be small. Instead our three seasons occurred with progressively worse breeding success and we will now have to shift the focus of our analysis to see if we can find differences between birds that laid eggs and birds that didn’t, if we have the sample sizes! With ~80% laying success in the 9 years preceding the beginning of our study in 2015, this is something I would never have expected! The egg laying failure of 2017 is unprecedented in the productivity monitoring time series collected by the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge.

Seabirds are often touted as indicator species of marine health (Cairns 1988, Piatt et al 2007), and while there are always caveats and additional questions to be answered, seabirds are reliant on the ocean for food and observing their behavior and condition tells us something about how easy (or hard) it is for them to find food.

So, what do I think the red-legged kittiwakes told us this year? I think they were squawking loud and clear, that they were not able to find myctophid fishes within their foraging range to the south and west of the Pribilofs. Myctophids are small fatty mesopelagic bioluminescent fish that come to the surface at night where red-legged kittiwakes catch them.

Besides just observing the laying failure, we were able to GPS track a few birds, collect a few diet samples, catch birds for blood and feather samples, and resight banded individuals. It is these pieces of information that I will be analyzing in the coming months to try to understand why some individuals were able to lay eggs during our study years, while most were not. These years should also help us understand what capacity red-legged kittiwakes have to cope (or not) with changes in prey availability. However, after three years, I still don’t know what a ‘good’ year looks like for red-legged kittiwakes. Fingers crossed next season is finally a decent year for this sentinel seabird of the pelagic Bering Sea.

Pre-lay foraging trips of red-legged kittiwakes in 2015.

Pre-lay foraging trips of red-legged kittiwake in 2017. Two birds were heading north when their GPS loggers stopped recording.

You can read more about our red-legged kittiwake research in a series of blog posts written for the Seabird Youth Network, a partnership between the Pribilof School District, the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, the City of St. Paul, Tanadgusix Corporation, the St. George Traditional Council, St. George Island Institute, the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, and the wider scientific community. The network creates opportunities for youth to learn about seabirds with the aim of building local capacity for the collection of long-term seabird monitoring data on the Pribilof Islands.