Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Taking to the High Seas on the R/V Point Sur

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By Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Last Monday, I bussed it to Santa Barbara then hopped a train to San Diego. One night in a hotel and an overpriced taxi ride later, and I was laying eyes on the R/V Point Sur for the first time since November 29, 2012, on it’s way back from its 17,000 mile round-trip journey to Palmer Station in Antarctica.

The majestic R/V Point Sur
The majestic R/V Point Sur.

By this time, what was once a full house was down to 11. The crew consisted of a mix of those who had spent the past five months on the boat and in Antarctica, and a few others who had boarded in Mexico two weeks prior to my arrival.

Much to my delight, I was not the only scientist on board. Ashley Wheeler, a master’s student in geological oceanography, had boarded in Mexico in April to work with the Naval Postgraduate School collecting oceanographic data.

Unlike the Antarctica crew, who were probably packed in, I had my own bedroom and bathroom. I was also privilege to three square meals a day, crafted by an amazing chef who had no problems making inventive and delicious vegetarian food.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather, which was great, as this was my first overnight trip on a ship. Land lubber no more! I had some nagging nausea the second day, but it passed after some time outside with the ocean breeze, a handful of ginger chews, and an iron will!

So why did I trek all this way to jump aboard the R/V Point Sur?

This trip was the kick-off of my thesis project, which, among other things, will include an assessment of the risk of ship-whale interactions in the shipping lanes off California. To do this I need to figure out where the whales are. And this of course is done with old-fashioned shipboard surveys.

Most of my time was spent standing in front of the bridge scanning the sea for whales with my trusty binoculars and Rite in the Rain data sheets. I stared patiently out into the expansive and seemingly empty blue ocean.

After about 16 hours of surveys, I saw 11 whales (mostly humpbacks), dozens of California sea lions, gangs of bow riding dolphins, and sea birds, which preferred wrack lounging to flying.

I was also lucky enough to have Ashley keep me company the whole time during my surveys. Thanks, Ashley!

Ocean life seems to agree with me. Of course I might get a little homesick after months at sea, but being on a ship in the middle of the ocean had a freeing feeling. And the crew made excellent conversationalists. (And did I mention the food!?!)

Next up: get on as many cruises as I can. Some one recently suggested cruise lines. Not a bad way to do thesis field work!

Humpys!
Humpys!

Chronicles of a Curious Beachcomber

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by Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

A few Sundays ago — Super Bowl Sunday, in fact — I took a three-hour walk along the beach at Fort Ord in Monterey, CA with Don Glasco, a systems engineer and former cartographer.

This wasn’t a leisurely pursuit, but my volunteer service to the Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network’s (SIMoN) Coastal Ocean Mammal and Bird Education and Research Surveys, also known as Beach COMBERS.

I meet Don at Fort Ord Dunes State Park in Marina around 9 a.m. After downing the last of my coffee, we head out into the foggy morning.

Don Glasco referring to the almighty bird book to identify an unknown species by its toes. Photo by Angela Szesciorka.
Don Glasco referring to the almighty bird book to identify an unknown species by its toes.

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And Now for Something Completely Different

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by Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Most of my posts tend to reflect my love of marine mammals, specifically the large, “charismatic whales” as they are oft referred to.

But I wanted to tell you about one of my day jobs. [As if grad students have all this time in-between taking classes and working on their thesis. But I digress … ]

I work for a marine engineering company in Santa Cruz, doing coastal engineering. Or, what we tell the general public: we play with mud.

Coastal engineering is a sector within civil engineering. This means companies hire us to help them with harbor design and construction; beach nourishment and erosion studies; wave modeling and forecasting, sediment transport modeling; and dredging and pile driving monitoring; among many others.

Dredgers in the Moss Landing harbor. Photo by Angela Szesciorka.
Monitoring the dredgers in the Moss Landing harbor.

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Dem bones, dem dry bones

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by Jackie Schwartzstein, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Most of us remember the song from childhood:

'Toe bone connected to the foot bone, Foot bone connected to the leg bone, Leg bone connected to the knee bone…'

But here at MLML the students in the Marine Birds and Mammals class (MS 112) are quickly finding that what we learned as kids just doesn’t seem to apply anymore! The skeletons of birds, marine mammals, and turtles are MUCH more complicated than the sweet little bones ditty implies. Have the animals changed since I was in fourth grade?! What exactly IS the ‘foot bone’, anyway?!

Rear limbs of the California Sea Lion.
Photo by Jackie Schwartzstein
Can you find the foot bone?

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Adventures in Madagascar or On The Importance of Doing a Pilot Study!

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by Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

This summer I hopped on a plane, flying 29 hours one way (via Paris — ooh la la) over a period of three days to spend nearly a month on the island of Madagascar working on my pilot study.

Madagascar, a former French colony until 1960, is the fourth largest island in the world. Don’t let it fool you. It looks so tiny next to Africa, but it has 44 percent more area than California, and boasts more than 4,800 km of coastline.

Rocky coastline in Madagascar. Photo by Angela Szesciorka.

Most of the country's export revenue comes from textiles, fish/shellfish, vanilla, and cloves. Newer sources of income include tourism, agriculture, and extracted materials (titanium ore, chromite, coal, iron, cobalt, copper and nickel). Madagascar provides half of the world's supply of sapphires! But with a GDP of around $20 billion, The Economist rated Madagascar as the worst economy in 2011. Most of Madagascar's inhabitants are subsistence livers, meaning they live off of what they can grow or catch.

Local fisherman spear hunting for crabs. Photo by Angela Szesciorka.

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NOAA Budget Cuts: MLML Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Response Vanishing?

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By Stephanie Hughes, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

 

 

 

If marine mammals are deemed the “canary in the coal mine” for our oceans, how can we predict threats to oceans and human health if funds that support long-term monitoring of these sentinels are eliminated?

The importance of monitoring the health of marine mammals goes beyond our “good Samaritan” duties of saving the cute and cuddly. Rescue and recovery attempts don’t always result in a happy ending, even though we hope for the best outcome. Regardless, our efforts are never in vain, for even failed attempts present us with the opportunity to discover clues for how the animal lived, so we may (hopefully) reveal how and why it died. Responding to diseased, injured, distressed, and even deceased marine mammals is our gateway to unveiling what these animals, and even humans, may be up against as environmental conditions are in flux.

The Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Response Network operates through the Vertebrate Ecology Laboratory (VEL) at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) and is a participant of the National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. The VEL-MLML stranding network has been in operation for over 20 years under the direction of Dr. Jim Harvey, professor and interim director of MLML. At its infancy, VEL-MLML stranding response, in collaboration with other stranding response organizations such as The Marine Mammal Center and Long Marine Laboratory, was conducted voluntarily.  Students, faculty, and members of the community would volunteer for rescuing, recovering, or collecting data on live and deceased stranded marine mammals. During the early years, equipment for stranding response was limited, thereby making the sample collection and storage to support long-term research difficult, though not impossible.  Volunteers often lacked proper transportation, sampling equipment, and protective gear, and many were without formal training on data or sample collection. Despite these shortcomings, dedicated volunteers would drag hundreds of pounds of dead, beached marine mammal heads, tails, flippers, etc. (yes, without latex gloves) through miles of sand dunes, then would strap their prized possession on top of their ’78 Toyota pick up, tails and flippers flapping in the wind on Highway 1 as they returned to the lab. During the early 1990s, the VEL-MLML stranding network had many willing, committed, and dedicated volunteers (still does). What it didn’t have were sufficient funds to support the infrastructure necessary for rapid, large scale, and long-term stranding response.

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It’s Whale Soup Out Here!

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Looking for whales in Monterey Bay

Ok, so it’s not literally whale soup out here, but Monterey Bay has been full of humpback whales for the past few weeks.  Casey Clark, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Labs, has been taking advantage of this opportunity to investigate migrations and feeding behavior humpback whales in this region.  Each whale’s tail (known as a fluke) has a unique pattern of black and white markings and scars, which can be used to identify individual whales, much like fingerprints are used to identify humans.  As part of his research, Casey has been photographing the flukes of whales encountered in the bay and referencing them to a catalog to determine when and where they have been seen in the past.  Spring and summer are great times to see humpback and blue whales in Monterey bay, so keep your eyes out for a glimpse of these huge marine mammals!

Last look at a humpback whale.

Habitat Restoration: One Bird at a Time

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by Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

“The latest tool in wildlife biology is a garden spade,” says Ryan Carle, as he happily describes his work with Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, a nonprofit working worldwide to improve biodiversity conservation and increase understanding of human impacts on marine ecosystems.

Ryan started this fall as one of Moss Landing’s newest students, but has been working with Oikonos as a project biologist for two years on seabird habitat restoration on Año Nuevo Island.

Ryan surveying the island. (photo: Oikonos)

Año Nuevo Island, part of Año Nuevo State Reserve, is located roughly half way between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. It is a critical breeding habitat for seabirds and marine mammals, including the Rhinoceros Auklet, burrow-nesting seabirds similar to puffins.

Auklet chick. (photo: Oikonos)

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You’re Wearing a Red Fur Coat?

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MLML student Elizabeth Mchuron is studying why some harbor seals develop rust in their coats.

By Elizabeth McHuron, Vertabrate Ecology Lab

This harbor seal was captured in San Francisco Bay as part of several students’ thesis projects.  One of these projects is looking at why harbor seals in San Francisco Bay are rusting (notice the red fur), and why some seals rust and others don’t.  Some of the samples collected for these projects include blood, hair, morphometric (body) measurements, and nasal/rectal swabs.  All seals involved receive two blue rear flipper tags and a PIT tag (microchip), so that they can be identified in the future.