humpback whales | Southern Fried Science

Pirates, conch, and surfing scientists: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, July 19th, 2018

Posted on July 19, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow Erin Meyer, the director of conservation programs for the Seattle Aquarium, on twitter!
Piracy Incident Reported in First Half of 2018 at Lowest Level in 10 Years. From GCaptain news alerts.
She said she didn’t know it was illegal to take conchs. She’s heading to jail anyway. By Gwen Filosa, for the Miami Herald.
Canada Post releases new shark stamps! By me, for Gizmodo’s Earther.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Surfing For Science: A New Way To Gather Data For Ocean And Coastal Research. By Nathan Rott, for NPR news.
Are the fish in Florida’s polluted waters safe to eat? By Ed Killer, for the Treasure Coast Palm.
What Were Two Humpback Whales Doing with a Dead Gray Whale Calf? By Erica Cirino, for Hakai.
Warm water threatens what should be bumper year for Fraser River sockeye. From CBC news.
Canada’s high Arctic glaciers at risk of disappearing completely. By Ashifa Kassam, for the Guardian.
Taiwan Pushed to Confront Work Abuse in High Seas Fishing Fleet. By Nick Aspinwall, for OceansDeeply.
Bold initiative aims to protect coral reefs in the Dominican Republic. By Greg Asner, for MongaBay
Groupers on the Comeback in the Caymans. By Ben Shouse, for Scientific American.
Seashell Souvenirs Are Killing Protected Marine Life. By Tina Deines, for National Geographic

Please add your own cuttings and spoils in the comments!

If you appreciate my shark research and conservation outreach, please consider supporting me on Patreon! Any amount is appreciated, and supporters get exclusive rewards!

Walking fish and microbe warfare: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, February 15, 2018

Posted on February 15, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow Katelyn Heman, a marine conservation biologist working at the Georgia Aquarium, on twitter!
What this walking fish can teach us about evolution. By Sarah Gibbens, for National Geographic
Fish forego sleep thanks to this molecule in their brain. From Nature’s Animal Behavior news.
Microplastics pollute even the most remote parts of the ocean. By Sandra Laville, for the Guardian.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Protecting Panama’s humpback whales from ship collisions. By Mike Gaworecki, for MongaBay.
Polar bears need disappearing sea ice in more ways than one. By Randall Hyman, for Oceans Deeply
Marine microbes exchange fire with subcellular weapons. By Jennifer Frazer, for Scientific American.
We’re climate researchers, and our work was turned into fake news. From the Conversation.

Please add your own cuttings and spoils in the comments!

If you appreciate my shark research and conservation outreach, please consider supporting me on Patreon! Any amount is appreciated, and supporters get exclusive rewards!

Beware the walrus, explosion detected near missing submarine, diamond mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: November 27, 2017

Posted on November 27, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

In Port Moresby this Wednesday? The University of Papua New Guinea is hosting a public lecture and panel on experimental seabed mining in the Bismark Sea.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Text abbreviations for marine biologists. Courtesy of New Scientist. via Francis Villatoro.

How to help Houston, GameBoy SONAR, buy a lighthouse, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: August 28, 2017

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Hurricane Harvey is sitting over the city of Houston, dumping biblical amounts of rain and flooding nearly the entire metropolitan area. There’s lots of great organizations to donate to, but in the immediate aftermath, it’s often best to donate to local relief programs that already have a ground team in place, rather than national groups that will take weeks to build up their infrastructure. I’m a fan of the Texas Diaper Bank and Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies, both of which serve communities that tend to be particularly vulnerable during natural disasters.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe has become one of the most important voices in Climate Change over the last few years. Her latest, I was an Exxon-funded climate scientist, is a sober look at who where the money really goes and who pulls the strings in the climate change denial industry.
Bandai and Nintendo once made a SONAR that runs on a GameBoy Pocket, and I want one. Has anyone ever encountered one of these rare and wondrous techno chimeras?

“When we left the beach…” Monday Morning Salvage: March 20, 2017

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The poetry of Derek Walcott.

Walcott, from the Trinidad Guardian.

Nobel laureate, poet, and perhaps the finest English-language writer of any generation, died this weekend. His poetry, particularly the epic poem Omeros, which draws upon the themes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey to tell the story of colonization, imperialism, slavery, and humanity’;s relationship to the sea over more than 8000 lines.
If you’re new to the poetry of Derek Walcott, The Sea is History is a great place to start and the New York Times published a short selection of his poetry: The Pages of the Sea.

Monday Morning Salvage: February 6, 2017

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Bringing you the best of marine science and conservation from the last week.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The ridiculous, extensible jaw and neck joint of a Barbeled Dragonfish.

Deep-Sea Fishes That Are Built to Eat Big.

Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web) Read More

Update from Antarctica – What is MISHAP?

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Guest Writer

A pod of killer whales in Flandres Bay

Fresh from Antarctica, this update comes to us from Dr. Douglas Nowacek, one of the Principal Investigators for the MISHAP project, by way of our field correspondent, Reny Tyson. Follow along with their adventures at Tagging Whales in the Antarctic Seas.

MISHAP in Antarctica

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Guest Writer

Southern Fried Notice: Reny Tyson is a graduate student at the Duke University Marine Lab currently on location in Antarctica tracking Humpback Whales. The main expedition blog is Tagging Whales in the Antarctic Seas hosted at the Nicholas School of the Environment. Follow their adventure as they track Humpbacks through Antarctic Seas.

Today we begin a journey south towards the Western Antarctic Peninsula to begin year 2 of our program, Multi-scale Interdisciplinary Study of Humpback Whales and their Prey, aptly referred to as MISHAP. We are a team of scientists representing 8 institutions and organizations attempting to understand more fully humpback whale foraging ecology in Antarctic waters – how much are they eating, what are their behaviors associated with eating, and how does the behavior of their primary prey, Antarctic krill, affect their foraging behavior. During last years cruise we encountered some of the highest densities of whales ever recorded and many superswarms of krill (over 3 million tons) in several coves and bays along the Peninsula that the whales were happily foraging on. We are using the DTag (Digital acoustic recording tag) to observe the underwater behaviors of whales while concurrently measuring the behavior and density of krill with several acoustic samplers. This year we are adding a few dimensions to our study including putting a crittercam on the whales and obtaining biopsy samples of the animals. We are excited to see how the conditions will be this year – will we encounter such high densities of krill and whales this year? Will the coves be full of ice by the time we get there? We shall find out in a few short days..

Image courtesy Tagging Whales in the Antarctic Seas

From a personal note – I can’t express how grateful I am to be part of such an adventure. To be able to work with these scientists with these animals in this environment is indescribable.

If you want to follow along with us on our journey check out our blog Tagging Whales in the Antarctic Seas.

We will be posting as often as we can (with our very limited bandwith) and we will check back in with our friends here at Southern Fried Science a few times during our journey.

We’d love to hear from you!

~Reny

If you have questions for Reny or the Antarctic team, please leave them in the comments section and we will forward them on.