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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
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
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
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!
Friday, October 23, 2009
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!
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!
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.
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!
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