Upcoming Events!

Hi all!
There are some neat things happening in Victoria in March...

Wednesday, March 3 at 7:00pm
Alanna Mitchell, author of the amazing book "Sea Sick", will be speaking at UVic. Check out the Sierra Club website for all the information.
http://www.sierraclub.bc.ca/events/informative-and-passionate-look-at-the-ocean-with-alanna-mitchell

Saturday, March 6th at 11:00am (until 3:00pm)
FINAL Public viewing of the Blue Whale Project, 211 Harbour Road (Island Plate and Steel building). Project information can be found at: sites.google.com/site/bluewhaleproject

Monday, March 29 at 7:30pm
MARINE NIGHT
Using Seabird Diets to Track How Climate Change is Affecting Arctic Ecosystems
University of Victoria Masters student, Jennifer Provencher, studied the effects of climate change on seabirds in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. Using historical and current data, she examined changes in the diet of Thick-billed Murres in the low, mid, and high Arctic. She collected samples in the summer and spent winters in the lab sorting and identifying fish bones, zooplankton, squid beaks, and some unnatural objects such as plastic and bird shot. By comparing her results with similar studies done in the 70’s and 80’s, she has tracked how their diets have changed through the years as the ice cover has moved. Meet at 7:30 p.m. in Room 159 of the Fraser Building. Everyone is welcome.

Educating Students on the Blue Whale “Blues”

The Blue Whale project is near completion and will be the twenty first completed Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) skeleton in the world. The completed skeleton will be hanging the University of British Columbia (UBC) Beaty Biodiversity Museum, which will be opening early this year. The biodiversity museum will be displaying the “richness” of British Columbia’s natural environment, with the 26 meter Blue whale being one of the “big” exhibits.

The 26 meter female Blue whale was found beached in Prince Edward Island in 1987. She was buried and basically forgotten until twenty years later. In 2007, the Blue whale project was initiated with the removal, transportation, cleaning and articulation of the whale. The articulation is occurring in a building donated by Ellice Recycling, which has had multiple open houses and school tours. The early spring announces the completion of the Blue whale, which will be transported over to its permit housing in the museum. Therefore, the Blue whale project has a few more open houses scheduled for the evenings and weekends, and the remaining school tours are occurring every Thursday until March.

On January 14, I was able to assist fellow whale nerd Natalie Bowes in the first school tour of 2010. Cedar Hill sent two grade eight classes for a tour of the articulated Blue whale. The class was split into three groups (for Jesse, Natalie and I) to tour the three major articulated areas: the skull, the ribs and spinal column, and the pectoral fins. The physiological features for living in the water were discussed, such as the ability for the ribs to collapse to deal with the pressure as the whale dives under the water.

The Blue whale skull was casted by the Royal Tyrrell Museum because the whales skull was in fragmented pieces.

Nat talking about the "food falls in technique" of the baleen whales.

Students of Cedar Hill near the tail region of the articulated Blue whale.

The importance of the school tours is for students to get an opportunity to see the multiple stages of large project such as this for exhibits. In addition, the plight of the Blue whales’ marine environment is discussed, such as the increase in noise pollution, which makes it difficult for the loudest animal on our planet to find mates. This is significant for the Blue whale is listed as an endangered species due to over-whaling, with the population dropping to a couple of thousand from a pre-whaling population of 350,000. The current estimated population is 4,500 individuals, which indicates a slow increase. The increase in noise pollution indicates an raise in ship traffic, which can result in ship strikes and likely the death of this particular female Blue whale in P.E.I.

Jax’ Highlights of the 18th Biennial Marine Mammal Conference in Quebec City, Canada

The whale nerds were all able to attend the 18th Biennial Marine Mammal conference in Quebec City. The conference provided each whale nerds an opportunity to pursue workshops, presentations and view posters that interest them.

Here are a few of my highlighted moments from the marine mammal conference:

1) Global Warming and Arctic Marine Mammals Workshop - “Knowing how polar ecosystems change with global warming will help to develop strategies for conservation and species management. A reference collection of samples from the complete food web is being developed to build a model of trophic interactions from marine mammals down to nutrients and phytoplankton.

This symposium is relevant to the Society of Marine Mammal Mammalogy's 18th biannual conference. Participants will present and review research results and progress from 2007 and 2008 field activities and discuss how to organize research findings into collaborative science capable of providing an adaptive assessment of climate change effects on Arctic marine ecosystems.”

The interdisciplinary research from the International Polar Year (2007 – 2008) was presented during this workshop. The 2007 – 2008 International polar year (IPY) was the largest collaboration of scientific research based in the Arctic and Antarctic, with more than 60 nations participating around the globe. The Global Warming and Arctic Marine Mammals (GWAMM) research was to look at what “we” need to know to help conserve Arctic marine mammals (approximately 7 species). Therefore a variety of scientific methods were utilized to study the arctic marine ecosystems to create the platform information to examine the impacts of environmental change.

Key Point: Conservation of a unique marine ecosystem requires multiple scientific techniques and collaboration from both local Arctic communities and international nations.

2) Video Evening

The video evening provide a unique insight into the underwater environment of whales and dolphins or the frigid environment of the polar bears. The footage collected was filmed via divers with underwater video cameras or via the animals themselves with a National Geographic crittercam . Pieter Folkens footage of a humpback whale calf nursing and bubble net feeding provided an amazing window into the intimate interaction between a cow and calf.

3) Plenary Session – “The Calvin Project, Endangered Species Recovery Through Education”; William T. McWeeny, Meredith Houghton, Madison Koos

The Calvin Project of Adams School is a unique after school program that raises awareness on the plight of the Endangered Northern Right Whale. The Calvineers utilize their scientific knowledge to put together educational presentations for other students, politicians and even researchers to assist in the recovery of the Northern Right Whales. Education is proving to be a valuable to key in promotion of conservation and international policy decisions about the marine environment. The future of the marine environment relies heavily of the education of both children and adults.

Of course, the whale nerds made sure to take advantage of time together:

1) Tadoussac whale watching – each adding a new species or more to their
marine mammal list.

2) Ghost tour – why not when you are in one of the oldest cities in Canada.

3) Wine in the hostel via “paper cups.”

4) Opportunity to explore the city and for those with the later flights…a chance to go to the Aquarium du Quebec.

Note: I apologize for the lack of photos in this blog posting but I lost my pictures from the trip. Please refer to prior post to enjoy the photos from the trip.

October 12 to 16 The Whale Nerds go to the 18th Biennial conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Quebec City

Monday October 12 was the first official day of the 18th Biennial conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals at the Quebec conference centre…and the Whale Nerds were very excited to be attending. There were many pre-conference workshops over the weekend and we all participated. Kyla went to the workshop on Ecological Modelling for Marine Mammalogists and Mer, Nat and Jax went to the Global Warming and Arctic Marine Mammals workshop.

Welcome sign to the 18th Biennial conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals

At the Ecological Modelling workshop there were talks on topics including: the basics of the ecological modelling of marine mammals, modelling with presence only data i.e. from ‘platforms of opportunity’ such as whale watching boats and ferries, recent work on movement studies using tags and the challenges associated with ecological modelling of marine mammals.

The following describes the workshop from the SMM website:

“There is tremendous interest in applying statistical modeling techniques to the quantitative assessment of marine mammal distribution and habitat use, and our workshop seeks to explore both traditional and the latest methodologies. Our goal is to bring together practitioners that can share their experience with various approaches to ecological modeling by addressing topics ranging from collecting data, selecting the appropriate model, evaluating the model's results, and applying those results in a management scenario.”

 And Mer, Nat and Jax learned about the following at the Global Warming and Marine Mammals workshop:

“Knowing how polar ecosystems change with global warming will help to develop strategies for conservation and species management. A reference collection of samples from the complete food web is being developed to build a model of trophic interactions from marine mammals down to nutrients and phytoplankton.

This symposium is relevant to the Society of Marine Mammal Mammalogy's 18th biannual conference. Participants will present and review research results and progress from 2007 and 2008 field activities and discuss how to organize research findings into collaborative science capable of providing an adaptive assessment of climate change effects on Arctic marine ecosystems.”

The nerds at the conference: Me, Jax, Mer and Nat

After a weekend of workshops the conference began Monday October 12 and ran until Friday October 16th. There were many many talks on a variety of topics including: Biologging (tagging) and New Technology, Genetics, Communication, Ecology, Management and Law, Behavioral Ecology, Passive Acoustics, Evolution and Systematics, Conservation, Noise Effects, Physiology, Habitat preference, Genetics, Population Monitoring and Abundance, Distribution among many more.

Most days there were also plenary sessions which included the following talks:

• “A purview of marine mammal molecular ecology and the prospects for conservation genomics in the 21st century” – David W. Coltman
• “Combining evolutionary and ecological approaches to make sense of pelagic ecosystems from phytoplankton to whales” – by Victor Smatecek
• “Big habitats, big studies: Lessons learned from international cooperative studies of wide-ranging large whales” – David Mattila
• “The Calvin Project, Endangered Species Recovery Through Education” – William McWeeney, Meredith Houghton and Madison Koos
• “F.G. Wood Award Winner: Determination of steroid hormones in whale blow: It is possible” – Carolyn Hogg

In addition to a multitude of talks during the week the daily poster sessions included over 800 posters of marine mammal research all over the world. We were all very inspired by this week full of thought provoking and inspiring presentations and it gave us many ideas to take home with us!

During this week we also enjoyed some of the sights of Quebec City including a "ghost" tour of the Old Town (which is given by a ghost rather than being about ghosts!) a couple of nights at the pub (we enjoyed Saint Alexandre) and wandering around the Old Town.

Here are some pictures of highlights from our stay!

The lovely private room four of us shared at the Hostel International in Quebec City. It was only 500 m from the conference centre with great staff, facilities and breakfast included

Hotel in the Old City

The Fairmont Hotel 'Le Chateau Frontenac' where we had hot chocolates after the chilly 'ghost' tour

View over the Old City

Jacx, Mer and Nat on the 'ghost tour

Cannon on the wall surrounding the Old City

Playing with photos at night

The narrowest street in Canada...according to our guide

...and an even narrower alleyway

The alleyway was called Sous le Cap or the 'Passage de Chien' (the dog passage)

Ahh...fall decorations!

Quebec street by night

The church in the main square

At the end of our tour with our 'ghost' guide

And we had some pub time as well! (From left to right: Mer, Jax, Mallard and Kyla)

And then we got joined by some more...the Washington State crowd!

Mark and the ladies (from left to right: Kyla, Nat, Mark, Kari, Nick and Nic)

Kyla, Nat and Mark

Jax and Rhonda looking cute

One of the three conference rooms for all the talks

The main hall of the Quebec Conference Centre

The poster session room

Jax checking out a poster

Kyla learning from one of the 800 posters!

On the wall surrounding the Old City

A nice sunny Quebec day

The wall and view of the city

Old City buildings

Local troublemakers...or budding photographic artists?

Some nice Quebec architecture

The beautiful plant covered planters. Don't worry we didn't crush any flowers!

The beautiful architecture at night!

The outdoor skating rink just outside the gates to the Old City

October 10, 2009 Pre-conference whale watching in Tadoussac...gray seals, minke whales, fin whales, beluga whales and...a BLUE WHALE!

Prior to the start of the 18th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals the whale nerds went to Tadousssac (map) to check out whale watching in another part of Canada...along the St. Lawrence! It took us a couple of hours to drive there from Quebec City and we arrived just a few minutes before the 1330 big boat departure. We discussed going by zodiac but decided to go on the big boat with its heated cabin and hot food...especially the hot chocolate which is a necessity for whale watching anywhere in Canada in October!

Merina in the co-pilots seat (check out her website here)

Jax (see her profile here)

Kyla  (website is here...apologies as it needs to be updated. I've been too busy blogging!)

Our pilot Nat (see her site here)

Enjoying the fall colours on the road to Tadoussac

'Signs' of whale activity!

 Heading across on the ferry to Tadoussac

The ferry terminal on the Tadoussac side

 

 Super happy because there was already a sighting of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) from the ferry!

Now that's a different looking lighthouse!

One of many Gray seals (note the 'Roman nose', Halichoerus grypus) we saw on our way to the whales

 
We were very lucky during this trip because we saw so many animals! We saw beluga whales (but unforunately coudln't get photos), minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and...a BLUE WHALE (Balaenoptera musculus)! Blue whales are fairly common to see on a whale watching trip here but Jax and Kyla had never seen them before and Mer and Nat have only seen them once off the coast of California :-)

Above 3 photos: Blue whale surfacing

...and the blue whale swimming away from us

 Above 2 photos: a minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) kept popping up while we were waiting for the blue whale to surface

 

Above 4 photos: The scenery in the St Lawrence also makes it worth coming whale watching

 

Above 2 photos: nerds having fun on the bow of the boat...it was VERY COLD!

 

The wind picked up as we were heading back towards the harbour. Fortunately we saw belugas earlier as they would've been more difficult to pick out of all the whitecaps!

 

Above 2 photos: coming back to the Tadoussac shore and the beautiful little village itself

When we returned to the harbour we tried to go to the marine mammal interpretive center in Tadoussac but were too late we arrived just 10 minutes before closing. We did enjoy the artwork in the parking lot outside and the gift shop though.  

Whale painting on the parking lot outside GREMM

Nice painting at the entrance to the interpretive centre

 

OOOH and we did get one really good look at a beluga...just kidding! This was a photo of a beluga at the centre. Gorgeous!