{"id":6106,"date":"2025-08-20T13:52:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=6106"},"modified":"2025-08-20T13:52:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:52:37","slug":"zoop-gone-missing-a-whales-dinner-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2025\/08\/20\/zoop-gone-missing-a-whales-dinner-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoop Gone Missing: A Whale\u2019s Dinner Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dawson Mohney, TOPAZ\/JASPER HS Intern, Pacific High School Graduate<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My name is Dawson Mohney, I am a high school intern for the 2025 TOPAZ\/JASPER team this field season. I first heard about the TOPAZ\/JASPER internship from my friend Jonah Lewis, a previous intern from the 2023 field season. Coincidentally, Jonah and I both graduated this year from Pacific High School here on the coast\u2014small world. I have called Port Orford my home for most of my life, and in recent years I discovered that a gray whale research project has been happening in my own backyard. Growing up less than a mile from the Oregon Coast, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time looking out into the water. I always liked how, no matter what happened in my life, the ocean was always there. This interest is what encouraged me to apply for the internship with the hope of discovering more about the ocean, a substantial part of my home and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig 1: <\/strong>Picture fellow intern Maddie took of me (Dawson) during our trip to Natural Bridges.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A critical part of this project is understanding not only the magnificent gray whales but also the much less apparent zooplankton\u2013after all, the whales need to eat a lot of zooplankton! Many different species of zooplankton\u2014\u201czoop\u201d for short\u2014call the Oregon coast home. Each day, as we kayak to our 12 sample stations within the gray whale feeding grounds of Mill Rocks and Tichenor’s Cove, I find myself wondering which species of zoop I\u2019ll get to identify later under the microscope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the duration of this internship, our team has met to discuss a few research papers published by GEMM Lab members, including research produced from the TOPAZ\/JASPER projects. Recently, I read, \u201cDo Gray Whales Count Calories? Comparing Energetic Values of Gray Whale Prey Across Two Different Feeding Grounds in the Eastern North Pacific<\/strong>,\u201d by Hildebrand et al. who describe the caloric content of different zooplankton species. Before reading this paper, I didn\u2019t realize whale prey could vary in nutritional value \u2013 much like food for humans. This paper made it clear that each of the different species of zooplankton is just as important as the last, but consuming more of the higher caloric species such as the Neomysis rayii or the Dungeness crab larvae would certainly be a welcome meal. Seeing these \u201chealthy\u201d meals in the area makes me hopeful for the whales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig 2: <\/strong>Image of a crab larvae in their megalopae stage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From reading previous blog posts, the foraging habits of the whales this season appear to be unusual. In prior TOPAZ\/JASPER field seasons, gray whales have often been tracked foraging near or around our Mill Rocks and Tichenor Cove study sites. This season, we haven\u2019t tracked a single whale in Mill Rocks and only two in Tichenor Cove. Could there just not be enough good zoop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with this lack of whales, there does seem to be a lack of these \u201chigh calorie zoop species\u201d. Our team has most frequently collected samples primarily comprising of Atylus tridens, a lower calorie prey type. In fact, during one of our earlier kayak training days this field season we collected 2,019 individual A. tridens.\u00a0However, since this day we have collected sparse amounts of zooplankton in our samples, ranging from zero to 121 in a given sample. Our total zoop count thus far is 2,524 zooplankton, a third of the total zooplankton collected last field season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig 3: <\/strong>Image of an Atylus tridens <\/em>under a microscope.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As for whale presence, we have been observing many whales blows near Hell\u2019s Gate as mentioned in last week\u2019s blog<\/a> written by fellow intern Miranda Fowles. From our cliff site, it has been difficult to know whether these are gray whales or a different kind of whale, leading us to venture out to the Heads to get a better look. The persistence of whales in this area is certainly unusual, and perhaps it can be explained by a larger amount of higher calorie zooplankton species in the Hell\u2019s Gate area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig 4: <\/strong>Dawson tracking blows by Hell\u2019s Gate with the theodolite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Being part of the TOPAZ\/JASPER project, I have become exposed to what the true meaning is behind \u201cfieldwork,\u201d including learning how to be flexible and adapt to new challenges every day. What I have most enjoyed is the team\u2019s ability to overcome any new hurdle together as a unit. \u00a0My dad often says, \u201cYou learn something new every day,\u201d and this internship couldn\u2019t embody this quote more. In just these 5 weeks, it almost feels like my head is now a couple sizes bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before this experience, I never thought much about how one might track a whale or how different microscopic species could have such a profound impact on a whale\u2019s decision to forage. Now I feel I understand just how important these less than obvious factors are and the effort which goes behind understanding these relationships. I can only hope future opportunities teach me as much as joining the TOPAZ\/JASPER legacy has\u2014it\u2019s an experience that, even just a few days into the 2025 field season, I knew would be hard to match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig 4: <\/strong>Dawson (navigator) and Miranda (sampler) during kayak training on their way to Mill Rocks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hildebrand, L., Bernard, K. S., & Torres, L. G. (2021). Do Gray Whales Count Calories? Comparing Energetic Values of Gray Whale Prey Across Two Different Feeding Grounds in the Eastern North Pacific. Frontiers in Marine Science<\/em>, 8<\/em>, 683634. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fmars.2021.683634<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dawson Mohney, TOPAZ\/JASPER HS Intern, Pacific High School Graduate My name is Dawson Mohney, I am a high school intern for the 2025 TOPAZ\/JASPER team this field season. I first heard about the TOPAZ\/JASPER internship from my friend Jonah Lewis, a previous intern from the 2023 field season. Coincidentally, Jonah and I both graduated this … Continue reading Zoop Gone Missing: A Whale\u2019s Dinner Dilemma<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14414,"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":[1],"tags":[195384,677522,635445,634945,835,513,148762,1310839],"class_list":["post-6106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-field-work","tag-foraging-ecology","tag-gemm-lab","tag-gray-whales","tag-internship","tag-marine-mammals","tag-oregon-coast","tag-topaz-jasper"],"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\/6106","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\/14414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6106"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6147,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6106\/revisions\/6147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}