The Whalenerd‘s Podcast

Slater is back! We caught up this winter in Maui and had a nice chat about our impressions and experience on the island for the first time in several years. Also we may or may not be bird nerds instead of whale nerds these days...

Katlyn and Chelsi chat about east coast humpbacks! Chelsi Napoli is currently a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University in the Thorne Lab. In the lab, she studies the health and conservation of humpback whales in the New York Bight. She uses drone photogrammetry to assess body condition of New York Bight humpback whales inter-annually and across foraging grounds, and to model the growth relationship between body length and age. Additionally, she's using AIS data to examine how the risk of vessel strike to humpback whales on the East Coast has changed in both space and time. 

Katlyn is back from Antarctica with more stories from her time as an expedition guide this season. Hear about sightings of penguins, seals and whales as well as some of the challenges Antarctica is facing.

Katlyn shares some of her encounters and adventures working in Svalbard this past summer.

We had special guest Kayah George, a Coast Salish matriarch in training, on this week to chat about some of her passions and knowledge about killer whales and the waters around what we now call British Columbia. 

This week's episode we had Alex Brash join us to talk about his new book: A Whaler at Twilight: A True Account of Whaling and Redemption in the South Pacific. We chatted about the family history that led up to writing the book, whaling history, conservation and more!

This is the last episode of Antarctica trip reports! Hear about Katlyn's adventures in Argentina during her break, and the last two trips of the season. Hundreds of whales, seals and penguins - even South of the Antarctic Circle! It's not the winter (summer?) she expected, but it is a winter to remember.

With some down time from the ship, Katlyn took an adventure in Chile with her family before embarking again for the Southern Ocean. Hear about her trips with a new species of penguin, seals, boat rides and more. Her last South Georgia combo trip was also quite challenging in the midst of site closures on the island due to avian flu.

Three Antarctic Peninsula trips in one month. Whew! It was a lot but there were so many whales and cool science! Hear more about Katlyn's time in the ice and what it's like to spend Christmas and New Year's in the Drake Passage.

As avian flu continued to spread on the island of South Georgia, trips became more challenging. Listen to Katlyn's stories of the next month worth of trips in this region and how things developed on the island for the summer season. She also had some awesome whale sightings - including killer whales twice!

After a small break - Katlyn is back with updates from the Southern Hemisphere. Hear about her first trip of the season to South Georgia and Antarctica. More to come!

Katlyn gives a review of the last part of her Alaska season and talks about a few bonus trips at the end.

Killer whales are winning the summer of 2023 online. In the midst of heavy news coverage of the Iberian orcas interacting with boats making headlines - memes and tiktoks have gone viral about the events. We have covered this topic several times in the past, but with new data we decided to revisit the topic. There are up to 15 Iberian orcas interacting with boaters near the coast of Spain and Portugal. Katlyn also gives an update on her season in Alaska and her visit to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) where there is a killer whale exhibit covering our history since time immemorial with these animals.

After a longer break Katlyn is back with a recap episode from the spring trips and her first month at sea in Alaska. Listen in for a detailed recap of the two Monterey Bay trips and an overview of the Alaska route she traveled in May and June. There is also a small tribute to the late Roger Payne at the end of the episode.

This week we checked in on the North Atlantic Right Whale breeding season. Meet the moms for this season and a little about their history!

There are multiple breeding areas off the Western North Pacific Ocean where humpback whales go to breed in the winter. We covered a recent paper that covers the use of Japanese waters by humpbacks in more detail.

We were so excited to talk to Belén for this episode about her work in Iceland. Belén is a marine biologist, wildlife guide, and sailor who works in the whale watching industry and runs a non profit focused on ocean conservation and education. She has also been an integral part of establishing the first Hope Spot in Iceland.

Slater is back from his safari trip to Kenya! After talking about whale sightings and safari sightings we chat about how hippos are indeed distant cousins of whales, how scientists figured that out, and what adaptations hippos and whales have to live their semi aquatic and marine lives.

This week Katlyn takes us through some information about humpback whale migration patterns in the Southern Hemisphere. After Slater came back from Tonga last summer we have been wanting to learn more about how the whales use Antarctica and travel between the feeding and breeding grounds.  Katlyn also added in a little snippet of whale song from Maui this season for you to enjoy during the sightings report.

Happy New Year! Several birthing events for large whales in the North Pacific have been documented this winter. So we did a recap of the latest events in Mexico and California. We also covered a paper that gathered up reports over the past few decades of humpback whale births around the world.

This is our last episode of 2022. We talked through an early season update for Maui with some data from NOAA, observations on the water, and some news updates on Moon the humpback whale.

This week we get caught up on a few updates for everyone, including sharing some gratitude for you all. We are so grateful to everyone that listens to and supports the podcast! Also we chat about some interesting patterns of humpback whales moving around the Eastern North Pacific using some data from Happywhale and our observations on the water.

This week we had guest Andy Rogan on from Ocean Alliance. Andy is the Science Manager for the Ocean Alliance SnotBot program. We chatted about new technologies in whale research, drones and of course whale snot!

Whale sightings have still been going strong as whales are working their way South for winter season in the Northern Hemisphere. Katlyn took a trip to New York last week to be a part of the Safina Center annual gala event. We are so grateful to them for supporting the podcast this year. While she was there she went whale watching out of Brooklyn, so we took a little time to learn more about the whales that use the New York Bight.

We chatted all things hydrophone this week with John Ryan from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). As you know, we are huge fans of the soundscape live stream and it was super fun to chat with one of the scientists who is central to the program. They recently published a paper using the hydrophone data to learn about how blue whales might be using acoustics to find large aggregations of krill in Monterey Bay.

We have had quite a few friendly humpback whale encounters over the past month. So we wanted to chat more about what makes an encounter "friendly" with a whale and what the experience is like. There hasn't been much science done to explain these encounters currently, but we did discuss what little information there is available.

Katlyn takes us through the basics of how sound moves in water. You can learn the definitions of how sound is characterized and how it's measured. Feel free to reference this episode later if you need a refresh on how this all works when we talk about whale acoustics in other episodes.

Slater is back from his trip to Tonga and we couldn't wait to talk about it! Hear about his experience swimming with humpbacks in a Southern Hemisphere breeding ground. 

This week Katlyn did a little follow up on the fin whale story from Antarctica that we have been talking about throughout the summer. For more background you can start with Episodes 117 and 119 as a primer.  New studies with satellite and scar pattern data are shedding light on where fin whales are going in the winter months. Are these waters safe to transit? That really is the question. 

Competitive behaviors are ramping up in the Northern Hemisphere! Humpback whales have started practicing and engaging in competitive behaviors while still on the feeding grounds, so Katlyn takes us through the basics of what is actually happening during these encounters. 

It's been awhile since we had the chance to catch up on summer sightings in Monterey. We also had some sad news about a well known whale in California, Fran. 

This week we chatted with Katherina Audley about humpback whales in Southern Mexico. For almost the last 10 years she has fostered an incredible community based effort to learn about and protect humpback whales and other marine life along the shores of Guererro. The Whales of Guererro Project has been a labor of love for her and the local community as they foster the next generation of people, whales, and tourism on the shorelines of the state of Guererro. 

Our sightings report was a little bit shocking and has some adult humor. We talked quite a bit about what we think the killer whales off the California coast have been up to this summer. We also had some follow up information about the status of the vaquita population in Mexico. This weekend is international save the vaquita day.   

After two rough winters in a row for the manatees in Florida around Indian River - we wanted to chat about the state of the response to help these animals. There has been money allocated to restore the sea grass beds in their habitat and supplemental feeding happened through the winter as well. What's next for conservation efforts? Time will tell. 

We had a guest this week. Dr. Matthew Savoca joined us to talk about his work with marine plastics and baleen whale prey consumption. He is currently a post doc in the Goldbogen Lab at Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University. The paper he was the lead author on in 2021 about baleen whale feeding capacity was one of the most mind blowing papers we have read in the past year.

Ted was back for another episode with us this week. This time around we chatted with him about his background with Cheesemans' Ecology Safaris and our upcoming trip to Antarctica. This is a small preview of what is to come this winter on our expedition to the Southern Continent. Tickets are still available and you can find more information about the trip here: https://cheesemans.com/trips/antarctic-peninsula-feb2023

Hundreds of fin whales gather in Antarctic hotspots in large feeding aggregations. This story has been in the news cycle off and on for months now. Groups as large as 150 fin whales were observed around Elephant Island. The paper with the published results of these 2018 and 2019 surveys came out this month. Are fin whales recovering in the Southern Ocean? Things seem to be headed that direction. 

This week we talked about Indo Pacific bottlenose dolphins and their unique spa treatments. These animals in the Red Sea have figured out how to use corals and sponges to take care of their skin. This is the first time a cetacean species has been documented self medicating in the wild - fascinating!  

This week we talked about Indo Pacific bottlenose dolphins and their unique spa treatments. These animals in the Red Sea have figured out how to use corals and sponges to take care of their skin. This is the first time a cetacean species has been documented self medicating in the wild - fascinating!

We are so excited about our trip to Antarctica this winter! In preparation for our trip with Cheeseman's we have started to learn about the southern continent and we wanted to share some of it with you. We will cover southern hemisphere topics throughout the summer and fall as we continue to prepare for our trip. In this episode we talked about some introductory information about Antarctica and the whales that can be found there.

We have a couple announcements this week. The San Juan Islands trip has been postponed to October of 2023 - you can still book this trip on our website. We have also been invited to Antarctia! You can join us on this trip hosted by Cheesemans' Ecology Safaris. Check out more info about the trip here: https://cheesemans.com/trips/antarctic-peninsula-feb2023 Our topic this week was the latest information about offshore killer whales of the Eastern North Pacific. The paper we covered was information from a 26 year study period. Tagged whales and survey encounters show that they have an enormous range, varying group dynamics and incredible dive capabilities. 

We had Dave Cade on this week to talk to us about whale and shark tagging. Dave has worked with rorqual whales all over the globe and is currently working on a basking shark project in Ireland. He also works with humpback and blue whales on the California coast most summers.   

There are so many humpback whales on the California Coast right now! So it was only fitting that we talked about a new memo from NOAA about the status of humpback whales in the Mexico and Central American Distinct Population Segments (DPSs). The numbers have been adjusted and reanalysed to better reflect what is observed in movements of whales between the regions.   

New mics! Can you tell the difference?  The nerds talk about recent sightings along the California coast including blue whales in Monterey! A recent paper from frontiers in marine science delves into blue whale body conditions and how it may be directly correlated to marine productivity. As blue whales stretch out along the west coast, and sightings become more unpredictable as they search for krill, what does this mean for the health of our marine ecosystems? 

This week we talked about the final report from the Baja Lagoons in Mexico. The gray whale breeding season is ending on a higher note than years past, but still is not back to "normal" by any means. We also had some incredible sightings to catch up on from Monterey Bay and Santa Barbara: basking sharks, huge numbers of humpbacks, blue whales and more!

In Episode 109 We had a special guest Chase Dekker. Chase was born and raised in Monterey, CA. He attended college in Washington at Western Washington State University where he studied Organismal Biology & Zoology. After college he lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with daily access to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. He now calls the Monterey area home, but has traveled the world guiding photography trips for many years. You can regularly find him out with Sanctuary Cruises in Moss Landing, CA and his photography has been published all over the place including the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.

We just finished up our three day weekend of trips in Monterey Bay! Thank you so much to everyone who attended. We were so fortunate that the weather and the wildlife cooperated all weekend for us to get out on the water. Listen in for our sightings report.

This is our last episode before our April Killer Whale Trips!  We caught up on a few sightings before talking about some of the latest news on Hawaiian spinner dolphins. There have been many changes with regulations in Hawaii about viewing this species. We learned about the background information that led to the ruling and how big of a problem it was causing for the dolphins. Not everyone is happy about the final ruling from NOAA, and there is now a lawsuit being filed against them. 

Slater and Adam are back from Baja! We caught up on the long list of sightings we had from Baja, California, and Maui. Then we talked about an article that has been making the rounds on social media about conjoined gray whale twins. The original stranding happened back in 2014, but since it's been in the newsfeed lately we decided to talk about it more in detail. 

This week we talked about updated and new information in regards to humpback whales. Most of this information is from Hawaii, but some of it can be applied to humpback breeding grounds across the world. The most interesting new paper we talked about was the findings of two different humpbacks moving between Hawaii and Mexico in the same season! We still have spaces on all of our trips for April! Book tickets online at www.thewhalenerds.com