{"id":5473,"date":"2023-11-27T11:37:11","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T18:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=5473"},"modified":"2023-11-27T11:37:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T18:37:11","slug":"migrating-back-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2023\/11\/27\/migrating-back-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Migrating back east"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By:\u00a0<\/em>Kate Colson<\/em><\/a>, MSc Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries,\u00a0<\/em>Marine Mammal Research Unit<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the changing of the season, gray whales are starting their southbound migration that will end in the lagoons off the Baja California Mexico. The migration of the gray whale is the longest migration of any mammal\u2014the round trip totals ~10,000 miles\u00a0(Pike, 1962)!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Map of the migration route taken by gray whales along the west coast of North America. (Image credit: Angle, Asplund, and Ostrander, 2017\u00a0<\/em>https:\/\/www.slocoe.org\/resources\/parent-and-public-resources\/what-is-a-california-gray-whale\/california-gray-whale-migration\/<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Like these gray whales, I am also undertaking my own \u201cmigration\u201d as I leave Newport to start my post-Master\u2019s journey. However, my migration will be a little shorter than the gray whale\u2019s journey\u2014only ~3,000 miles\u2014as I head back to the east coast. As I talked about in my\u00a0previous blog<\/a>, I have finished my thesis studying the energetics of gray whale foraging behaviors and I attended my commencement ceremony at the University of British Columbia last Wednesday. As my time with the GEMM Lab comes to a close, I want to take some time to reflect on my time in Newport.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Me in my graduation regalia (right) and my co-supervisor Andrew Trites holding the university mace (left) after my commencement ceremony at the University of British Columbia rose garden.\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Many depictions of scientists show them working in isolation but in my time with the GEMM Lab I got to fully experience the collaborative nature of science. My thesis was a part of the\u00a0GEMM Lab\u2019s Gray whale Response to Ambient Noise Informed by Technology and Ecology (GRANITE) project\u00a0<\/a>and I worked closely with the GRANITE team to help achieve the project\u2019s research goals. The GRANITE team has annual meetings where team members give updates on their contributions to the project and flush out ideas in a series of very busy days. I found these collaborative meetings very helpful to ensure that I was keeping the big picture of the gray whale study system in mind while working with the energetics data I explored for my thesis. The collaborative nature of the GRANITE project provided the opportunity to learn from people that have a different skill set from my own and expose me to many different types of analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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GRANITE team members hard at work thinking about gray whales and their physiological response to noise.\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This summer I also was able to participate in outreach with the partnership of the\u00a0Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Eugene Exploding Whales<\/a>\u00a0(the alternate identity of the Eugene Emeralds) minor league baseball team to promote the\u00a0Oregon Gray Whale License plates<\/a>. It was exciting to talk to baseball fans about marine mammals and be able to demonstrate that the Gray Whale License plate sales are truly making a difference for the gray whales off the Oregon coast. In fact, the\u00a0minimally invasive suction cup tags<\/a>\u00a0used in to collect the data I analyzed in my thesis were funded by the OSU Gray Whale License plate fund!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo of the GEMM Lab promoting Oregon Gray Whale License plates at the Eugene Exploding Whales baseball game. If you haven\u2019t already, be sure to \u201cPut a whale on your tail!\u201d to help support marine mammal research off the Oregon Coast.\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Outside of the amazing science opportunities, I have thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of exploring Newport and the Oregon coast. I was lucky enough to find lots of agates and enjoyed consistently spotting gray whale blows on my many beach walks. I experienced so many breathtaking views from hikes (God\u2019s thumb was my personal favorite). I got to attend an Oregon State Beavers football game where we crushed Stanford! And most of all, I am so thankful for all the friends I\u2019ve made in my time here. These warm memories, and the knowledge that I can always come back, will help make it a little easier to start my migration away from Newport.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Me and my friends outside of Reser Stadium for the Oregon State Beavers football game vs Stanford this season. Go Beavs!!!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Me and my friends celebrating after my defense.\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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conservation? Subscribe to our blog and get a weekly message when we post a new
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References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pike, G. C. (1962). Migration and feeding of the gray whale (Eschrichtius gibbosus<\/em>). Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada<\/em>, 19<\/em>(5), 815\u2013838. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1139\/f62-051<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0Kate Colson, MSc Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries,\u00a0Marine Mammal Research Unit With the changing of the season, gray whales are starting their southbound migration that will end in the lagoons off the Baja California Mexico. The migration of the gray whale is the longest migration of any … Continue reading Migrating back east<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9938,"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":[188686,712982,1310584],"tags":[140586,195384,677522,635445,1310806,634945,1310780,513,148762,155,5,1310741,215918],"class_list":["post-5473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-projects","category-impacts-of-ocean-noise-on-gray-whales","category-outreach","tag-conservation","tag-field-work","tag-foraging-ecology","tag-gemm-lab","tag-graduation","tag-gray-whales","tag-kate-colson","tag-marine-mammals","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-state-university","tag-science","tag-suction-cup-tagging","tag-tagging"],"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\/5473","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\/9938"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5481,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473\/revisions\/5481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}