{"id":5039,"date":"2023-02-13T18:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T01:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=5039"},"modified":"2023-02-13T18:03:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T01:03:42","slug":"how-do-we-study-the-impact-of-whale-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2023\/02\/13\/how-do-we-study-the-impact-of-whale-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"How do we study the impact of whale watching?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Since its start, the GEMM Lab has been interested in the effect of vessel disturbance on whales. From former student Florence\u2019s masters project<\/a> to Leila\u2019s PhD work<\/a>, this research has shown that gray whales on their foraging grounds have a behavioral response to vessel presence (Sullivan & Torres, 2018) and a physiological response to vessel noise (Lemos et al., 2022). Presently, our GRANITE<\/a> project is continuing to investigate the effect of ambient noise on gray whales, with an emphasis on understanding how these effects might scale up to impact the population as a whole<\/a> (Image 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, all this work has been focused on gray whales feeding off the coast of Oregon, but I\u2019m excited to share that this is about to change! In just a few weeks, Leigh and I will be heading south for a pilot study looking at the effects of whale watching vessels on gray whale mom\/calf pairs in the nursing lagoons of Baja California, Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image 1. Infographic for the GRANITE project. Credit: Carrie Ekeroth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We are collaborating with a Fernanda Urrutia Osorio, a PhD candidate at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, to spend a week conducting fieldwork in one of the nursing lagoons. For this project we will be collecting drone footage of mom\/calf pairs in both the presence and absence of whale watching vessels. Our goal is to see if we detect any differences in behavior when there are vessels around versus when there are not. Tourism regulations only allow the whale watching vessels to be on the water during specific hours, so we are hoping to use this regulated pattern of vessel presence and absence as a sort of experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image 2. A mom and calf pair.  NOAA\/NMFS permit #21678<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The lagoons are a crucial place for mom\/calf pairs, this is where calves nurse and grow before migration, and nursing is energetically costly for moms. So, it is important to study disturbance responses in this habitat since any change in behavior caused by vessels could affect both the calf\u2019s energy intake and the mom\u2019s energy expenditure. While this hasn\u2019t yet been investigated for gray whales in the lagoons, similar studies have been carried out on other species in their nursing grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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