May 17, 2022 — A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and New England Aquarium has found that smaller North Atlantic right whales give birth to fewer calves.
Teams studied aerial photos of 41 female right whales taken between 2000 and 2019, finding that smaller mothers produced fewer babies.
March 4, 2022 — The Slope Sea off the Northeast United States is a major spawning ground for Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), a new paper affirms. This finding likely has important implications for population dynamics and the survival of this fish, according to the paper, “Support for the Slope Sea as a major spawning ground for Atlantic bluefin tuna: evidence from larval abundance, growth rates, and particle-tracking simulations,” published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.
“Overall, our results provide important supporting evidence that the Slope Sea is a major spawning ground that is likely to be important for population dynamics,” the paper states. Spawning in the Slope Sea “may offer the species additional resilience in the face of both harvesting and climate change,” the paper adds.
The paper presents larval evidence supporting the recognition of the Slope Sea as a major spawning ground, including that larvae collected in the Slope Sea grew at the same rate as larvae collected in the Gulf of Mexico, indicating that this region is good larval habitat.
“In comparison to everything else we know about this species, the Slope Sea is a perfectly good place to be born as a larva,” said lead author Christina Hernández, who was a doctoral student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering at the time of the study.
Read the full story at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
February 22, 2022 — ResilientWoodsHole (RWH), a public-private initiative led by local science institutions, today released new, interactive website tools to further engage the local community in its collective goal of securing a climate-resilient future for the coastal village of Woods Hole. An updated website, ResilientWoodsHole.org, provides status updates, news coverage and reports on these efforts. A new stakeholder survey, for individuals to learn more about how they can offer input, is now on the website.
Also new are three interactive maps for public engagement. Each map highlights a different aspect of Woods Hole: Important Features, Adaptation and Vision, and Flooding Risk. People can click on any of these three maps and input comments and suggestions in each of these key areas.
Links to both the survey and interactive maps can be found on the RWH website.
A recent public workshop held by RWH engaged more than 100 local community members in a dialogue about coastal flooding risks, identified village flood pathways and vulnerabilities, and discussed long-term adaptation strategies.
“Building on the success of our first visioning workshop, it is clear that the future of Woods Hole as a seaside community, blue economy driver, and home to world renowned ocean research organizations, lies collectively in our hands,” said Leslie-Anne McGee, manager of ResilientWoodsHole and a project manager at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “Working with the community, it is our goal to prepare for sea-level rise and increasing extreme weather events, and jointly develop solutions.”
This effort is funded through the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM),’s Coastal Resilience Grant Program and matching funds from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Marine Biological Laboratory, and NOAA Fisheries.
Read the release from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
November 23, 2021 — The Biden administration has approved America’s first large-scale, offshore wind power project – Vineyard Wind off the coast of Massachusetts. But for every supporter of the project, there are detractors raising questions. Lisa Fletcher looked at the pros and cons of ‘reaping the wind’ on “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Ms. Fletcher examined what the project could mean for New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nation’s top grossing fishing port, and its valuable scallop harvest, which averages around $400 million a year in landings.
“The amount of wind farms they’re proposing will displace fisheries,” said Ron Smolowitz, the owner of Coonamessett Farm in East Falmouth, Massachusetts and a former fishing captain who worked with NOAA. “The fish will adapt, the fishermen can adapt, but they’ll need funding.”
Mr. Smolowitz said that current funding proposed by Vineyard Wind to compensate fishermen for their losses is “nowhere near enough.” The proposed funding would average roughly $1 million a year over the 30-year life span of the project, Mr. Smolowitz said, while one scallop vessel alone can gross $2 million annually, and there are 342 scallop vessels. “And that’s just one fishery,” he said.
Ms. Fletcher also examined other obstacles for the project, including the potential threat to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.
“The industrial activity will increase shipping markedly both during the construction phase as well as during the maintenance phase,” said Mark Baumgartner, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Mr. Baumgartner said he and his team are working on deploying acoustic monitoring, with funding from Vineyard Wind, to help prevent ship strikes with right whales.
August 26, 2021 — The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is one of the leading organizations focused on ocean research, exploration and education. Its vessels roam the world’s oceans, their researchers explore the deepest oceanic canyons and the shallows of a salt marsh.
For an institution that has experienced, researched and documented the impacts of climate change on the ocean, it follows that when it contemplated building a new $100 million dock and waterfront support facilities, WHOI would incorporate sea-level rise into their planning.
“This is critical infrastructure to what we do,” said Rob Munier, WHOI vice president for marine facilities and operations. “Others can contemplate alternatives, including retreat (from the waterfront), but we have to be there. It’s part of our ability to do our mission.”
August 5, 2021 — Each day, they appear as colorful blips on a black graph. The dispatches from a new buoy 23 miles off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland, could be nothing more than noise from passing ships or rough waves. But they could be whales.
It’s up to researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science to tell the difference.
In groups of three, the small sound waves might be sei whales. A symphonic pattern of notes could be humpbacks — the “songbirds of the sea,” said Amber Fandel, a faculty research assistant with the center’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory.
The buoy’s algorithm, developed by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, often thinks it’s discovered passing baleens. But the discerning eye of a researcher knows best. The hydrophone aboard the bright yellow and blue buoy, with brethren up and down the East Coast, hasn’t tracked a whale since it was plopped in the water in late May, though some are expected as the fall draws closer, Fandel said.
Lately, the scientists’ work has taken on fresh urgency. The buoy is located in the 80,000-acre lease area carved out for the MarWin wind farm. Construction on the win farm is likely to start sometime in 2024, officials said, and could present dangers to marine mammals.
July 22, 2021 — Nearly 90 percent of large vessels traveling in some conservation areas along the East Coast violated mandatory speed limits established to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, according to a new report.
The findings raised questions about the need for stricter enforcement of federal rules to protect right whales, whose numbers have fallen by about 25 percent over the past decade to roughly 360. Vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear have been the primary cause of death and serious injuries.
“Vessels are speeding, North Atlantic right whales are dying, and there’s not enough accountability,” said Whitney Webber, a campaign director at Oceana, an advocacy group, which released the report on Wednesday. “Oceana’s analysis shows that speeding vessels are rampant throughout North Atlantic right whales’ migration route, all along the East Coast, and in both mandatory and voluntary speed zones.”
Between 2017 and 2020, the report found that nearly 90 percent of vessels 65 feet or larger failed to reduce their speeds to 10 knots or less in the required speed zones along the coast from Wilmington, N.C., to Brunswick, Ga., near the whales’ calving grounds. Nearly 80 percent of the vessels also failed to comply with speed limits along the coasts of New York and New Jersey, while more than half of large vessels failed to comply near the entrance of Delaware Bay.
July 6, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries announces a new voluntary right whale Slow Zone. On July 2, 2021, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution acoustic buoy detected right whales southwest of Martha’s Vineyard. This Slow Zone is in effect through July 18, 2021.
Mariners are requested to route around this or transit through it at 10 knots or less.
Slow Zone Coordinates:
Southwest of Martha’s Vineyard, July 2-18, 2021
41 23 N
40 44 N
071 16 W
070 23 W
See the coordinates for all the slow zones currently in effect.
Active Seasonal Management Areas
Mandatory speed restrictions of 10 knots or less (50 CFR 224.105) are in effect in the following areas:
Great South Channel, April 1 – July 31
Find out more and get the coordinates for each mandatory slow speed zone.
Give Right Whales Room
North Atlantic right whales are on the move along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. NOAA is cautioning boaters and fishermen to give these endangered whales plenty of room. We are also asking all fishermen to be vigilant when maneuvering to avoid accidental collisions with whales and remove unused gear from the ocean to help avoid entanglements. Commercial fishermen should use vertical lines with required markings, weak links, and breaking strengths.
Right Whales in Trouble
North Atlantic right whales are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Scientists estimate there are only about 400 remaining, making them one of the rarest marine mammals in the world.
North Atlantic right whales are NOAA Fisheries’ newest Species in the Spotlight. This initiative is a concerted, agency-wide effort to spotlight and save marine species that are among the most at risk of extinction in the near future.
In August 2017, NOAA Fisheries declared the increase in right whale mortalities an “Unusual Mortality Event,” which helps the agency direct additional scientific and financial resources to investigating, understanding, and reducing the mortalities in partnership with the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and outside experts from the scientific research community.
June 18, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
What do you do at NOAA Fisheries?
I am a marine mammal biologist and have been at NOAA Fisheries for 26 years. I am currently the Deputy Chief for the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Conservation Division in the Office of Protected Resources. I work with an amazing team of colleagues on a suite of conservation issues for whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, sea lions, and sea turtles. I help supervise the scientists and managers in the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. The program coordinates and oversees the agency’s nationwide emergency response efforts to rescue marine mammals in distress, and investigates the health and health trends of marine mammal populations. I also work closely with our regional offices to develop and promote safe and responsible marine wildlife viewing practices. We encourage the public to learn about the animals in the wild without disturbing or harming them.
Tell us about your educational and career journey.
I was born and raised in Washington, D.C., so I am a city kid by birth but an ocean kid at heart. In my early years, I spent many weekends on the Chesapeake Bay and summer vacations at Atlantic coast beaches, which instilled a strong affinity for the ocean in me. I first became enamored with marine mammals at a very young age after visiting the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and experiencing the life-size models of whales and dolphins in the Ocean Hall. At the time, the museum had one of the few life-size models of a blue whale that existed in the world, and it was awe-inspiring to behold, especially as a small child.
I received my undergraduate degree from Boston University where I majored in Biology with a specialization in Marine Science and minored in Italian Studies. The Marine Science curriculum included a year at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It was amazing to live on Cape Cod in a community so dedicated to marine science and conservation. I began volunteering at the New England Aquarium on weekends during my junior year of college. I assisted the wonderful curators who worked with the marine mammals in human care and responded to stranded animals. I volunteered for many years at the Aquarium and that experience opened numerous doors for me. I worked for several years for the pioneering marine mammal scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). I then worked at the Chicago Zoological Society/Dolphin Biology Research Institute on a suite of research projects investigating marine mammal behavior, acoustics, life history, and natural history.
June 17, 2021 — The following was released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:
An innovative underwater robot known as Mesobot is providing researchers with deeper insight into the vast mid-ocean region known as the “twilight zone.” Capable of tracking and recording high-resolution images of slow-moving and fragile zooplankton, gelatinous animals, and particles, Mesobot greatly expands scientists’ ability to observe creatures in their mesopelagic habitat with minimal disturbance. This advance in engineering will enable greater understanding of the role these creatures play in transporting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the deep sea, as well as how commercial exploitation of twilight zone fisheries might affect the marine ecosystem.
In a paper published June 16 in Science Robotics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) senior scientist Dana Yoerger presents Mesobot as a versatile vehicle for achieving a number of science objectives in the twilight zone.
“Mesobot was conceived to complement and fill important gaps not served by existing technologies and platforms,” said Yoerger. “We expect that Mesobot will emerge as a vital tool for observing midwater organisms for extended periods, as well as rapidly identifying species observed from vessel biosonars. Because Mesobot can survey, track, and record compelling imagery, we hope to reveal previously unknown behaviors, species interactions, morphological structures, and the use of bioluminescence.”
Co-authored by research scientists and engineers from WHOI, MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), and Stanford University, the paper outlines the robot’s success in autonomously tracking two gelatinous marine creatures during a 2019 research cruise in Monterey Bay. High-definition video revealed a “dinner plate” jellyfish “ramming” a siphonophore, which narrowly escaped the jelly’s venomous tentacles. Mesobot also recorded a 30-minute video of a giant larvacean, which appears to be nearly motionless but is actually riding internal waves that rise and fall 6 meters (20 feet). These observations represent the first time that a self-guided robot has tracked these small, clear creatures as they move through the water column like a “parcel of water,” said Yoerger.
“Mesobot has the potential to change how we observe animals moving through space and time in a way that we’ve never been able to do before,” said Kakani Katija, MBARI principal engineer. “As we continue to develop and improve on the vehicle, we hope to observe many other mysterious and captivating animals in the midwaters of the ocean, including the construction and disposal of carbon-rich giant larvacean ‘snot palaces.’”