{"id":4676,"date":"2022-05-30T14:39:48","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T21:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=4676"},"modified":"2022-05-30T14:39:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T21:39:48","slug":"yonder-whales-and-nearby-prey-a-new-look-at-a-familiar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2022\/05\/30\/yonder-whales-and-nearby-prey-a-new-look-at-a-familiar-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Yonder Whales and Nearby Prey: A New Look at a Familiar System<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rachel Kaplan<\/a>1<\/sup>, Dawn Barlow<\/a>2<\/sup>, Clara Bird<\/a>3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/sup>PhD student, Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/sup>Postdoctoral Scholar, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/sup>PhD Candidate, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do peanut butter m&ms, killer whales, affogatos, tired eyes, and puffins all have in common? They were all major features of the recent Northern California Current (NCC) ecosystem survey cruise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The science party of the May 2022 Northern California Current ecosystem cruise.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We spent May 6\u201317 aboard the NOAA vessel Bell M. Shimada<\/em> in northern California, Oregon, and Washington waters. This fabulously interdisciplinary cruise studies multiple aspects of the NCC ecosystem three times per year, and the GEMM lab has put marine mammal observers aboard since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This cruise was a bit different than usual for the GEMM lab: we had eyes on both the whales and their prey. While Dawn Barlow and Clara Bird observed from sunrise to sunset to sight and identify whales, Rachel Kaplan collected krill data via an echosounder and samples from net tows in order to learn about the preyscape the whales were experiencing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left, Rachel, Dawn, and Clara after enjoying some beautiful sunset sightings.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We sailed out of Richmond, California and went north, sampling as far north as La Push, Washington and up to 200 miles offshore. Despite several days of challenging conditions due to wind, rain, fog, and swell, the team conducted a successful marine mammal survey. When poor weather prevented work, we turned to our favorite hobbies of coding and snacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rachel attends \u201cClara\u2019s Beanbag Coding Academy\u201d.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Cruise highlights included several fin whales, sperm whales, killer whales, foraging gray whales, fluke slapping and breaching humpbacks, and a visit by 60 pacific white-sided dolphins. While being stopped at an oceanographic sampling station typically means that we take a break from observing, having more time to watch the whales around us turned out to be quite fortunate on this cruise. We were able to identify two unidentified whales as sei whales after watching them swim near us while paused on station. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marine mammal observation segments (black lines) and the sighting locations of marine mammal species observed during the cruise.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On one of our first survey days we also observed humpbacks surface lunge feeding close to the ship, which provided a valuable opportunity for our team to think about how to best collect concurrent prey and whale data. The opportunity to hone in on this predator-prey relationship presented itself in a new way when Dawn and Clara observed many apparently foraging humpbacks on the edge of Heceta Bank. At the same time, Rachel started observing concurrent prey aggregations on the echosounder. After a quick conversation with the chief scientist and the officers on the bridge, the ship turned around so that we could conduct a net tow in order to get a closer look at what exactly the whales were eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Success! Rachel collects krill samples collected in an area of foraging humpback whales.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This cruise captured an interesting moment in time: southerly winds were surprisingly common for this time of year, and the composition of the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities indicated that the seasonal process of upwelling had not yet been initiated. Upwelling brings deep, cold, nutrient-rich waters to the surface, generating a jolt of productivity that brings the ecosystem from winter into spring. It was fascinating to talk to all the other researchers on the ship about what they were seeing, and learn about the ways in which it was different from what they expected to see in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experiencing these different conditions in the Northern California Current has given us a new perspective on an ecosystem that we\u2019ve been observing and studying for years. We\u2019re looking forward to digging into the data and seeing how it can help us understand this ecosystem more deeply, especially during a period of continued climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The total number of each marine mammal species observed during the cruise.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Did you enjoy this blog? Want to learn more about marine life, research, and conservation? Subscribe to our blog and get a weekly message when we post a new blog. Just add your name<\/em> and email into the subscribe box below.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Rachel Kaplan1, Dawn Barlow2, Clara Bird3 1PhD student, Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab 2Postdoctoral Scholar, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab 3PhD Candidate, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, … Continue reading Yonder Whales and Nearby Prey: A New Look at a Familiar System<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1310535],"tags":[1310532,712899,195384,677522,712836,513,148762,1237844,1310687],"class_list":["post-4676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oregon-whale-distribution","tag-clara-bird","tag-dawn-barlow","tag-field-work","tag-foraging-ecology","tag-krill","tag-marine-mammals","tag-oregon-coast","tag-prey","tag-rachel-kaplan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4697,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions\/4697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}