Blog Posts

Written by MMRP PhD student Lewis Evans We are excited to share our newly published manuscript   in Marine Mammal Science . Titled:  Elevating photo-identification: Aerial-identification improves re-sight rates and supports long-term monitoring of humpback whales Authors: Lewis I. Evans , Martin van Aswegen , Sonja Feinberg, Jens J. Currie , Stephanie H. Stack , Andrew Szabo , Lars Bejder Why did we conduct this study? Not all whales are the same. They differ in size, body co

Philip T. Patton January 14, 2025   Marine Mammal Research Program PhD Student Philip T. Patton has published an article in Conservation Biology with co-authors about the use of AI to improve marine mammal conservation.   Understanding animal populations is essential for conservation, but traditional methods like manual photo identification, that is, identifying the same animal in different images, can be costly and time-consuming. Our recent paper explores how artificial int

By Liah McPherson We are pleased to announce a new publication in Scientific Reports entitled: Quantifying the abundance and survival rates of island-associated spinner dolphins using a multi-state open robust design model McPherson, L., Badger, J., Fertitta, K., Gordanier, M., Nemeth, C., Bejder, L. Quantifying the abundance and survival rates of island-associated spinner dolphins using a multi-state open robust design model. Sci Rep 14 , 14764 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1

Members of the MMRP and Pacific Whale Foundation spent the first half of November doing fieldwork off the coast of Lānaʻi. The primary goal of this fieldwork was to deploy Customized Animal Tracking Solutions (CATS) suction-cup tags  on false killer whales ( Pseudorca crassidens ) as part of Jens Currie ʻ dissertation research (read more about these tags and this project in last yearʻs Lānaʻi blog pos t!) Video made by Jens Currie featuring the tag deployment on a false kille

We are pleased to share a new publication in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution . The publication is the product of a massive collaboration, with researchers from around the globe sharing their valuable image data—representing six continents and 25 species—to advance cetacean research and conservation. The manuscript is entitled: A deep learning approach to photo–identification demonstrates high performance on two dozen cetacean species Authors: Philip T. Patton, T

Written by Gussie Hollers Members of the MMRP spent the last ten days working with the Pacific Whale Foundation off the coast of Lānaʻi. The primary goal of this fieldwork was to deploy Customized Animal Tracking Solutions (CATS) suction-cup tags on false killer whales ( Pseudorca crassidens ) as part of the dissertation project for new MMRP graduate student Jens Currie . With this data, Jens will be able to gather new insights into the foraging ecology of the endangered Mai

Written by Liah McPherson It feels like just yesterday that I began my research on Oʻahu’s spinner dolphins. Somehow, two years have flown by and I have less than a year left of my master’s program. Since January of 2021, I have completed eight field seasons studying spinner dolphins off Oʻahu’s Waiʻanae Coast. I want to say up top that none of this would have been possible without lots of support from the MMRP team and many others from HIMB and the larger community. It tak

Written by Ashley Marxsen Intern Ashley Marxsen, photographing pilot whales off of the Kona coast, Hawai ʻi Island. Photos taken under NOAA Research permit 21476. As someone who is about to start their last year of college, it has been a goal of mine to gain some field experience before entering the daunting yet promising “real world”. I am a Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences major at Oregon State University, and fieldwork is something I hope to have the abilit

Written by Claire Lacey To anyone who has spent as much time reading papers about Hawaiian spinner dolphins as I have, the leeward (west) side of Hawai ʻi Island is almost legendary. It's where a very large amount of what we know about these animals was researched and discovered - and it's somewhere I've been itching to visit since I first started this project. Now our Oʻahu fieldwork is completed, my opportunity to visit the fabled Hawaiʻi Island resting bays is finally he

Written by Claire Lacey There have been some big milestones over the last month or so, here at "spinner dolphin HQ"! Spinner dolphin, photographed by Claire Lacey under NOAA Research permit 21476 For the past year or so, we've been conducting line transect surveys around the entire coastline of Oʻahu, collecting data that will be used to estimate how many spinner dolphins use these waters (see our project pages , and previous blogs: Counting dolphins and spinner dolphins o

by Brijonnay Madrigal Ever heard the saying, more heads are better than one? Here at MMRP , we strongly believe in this motto. As scientists, we cannot work in a vacuum. We benefit from engaging with other scientists, learning new techniques, and sharing new ideas which advances our science. Our work at MMRP is highly collaborative with every student working with multiple collaborators for their projects and helping their fellow labmates. For example, Martin Van Aswegen , a

Written by Claire Lacey This work is a collaboration with NOAA / PIFSC Regular readers may remember from a previous blog post - Counting dolphins - that this summer has seen the spinner team at MMRP get underway with the line transect surveys for dolphins around O`ahu. During the past few months, our time has been split between the leeward (west) and windward (east) coasts of the island. These two areas are very different, so its' been interesting to see the differences

Written by Liah McPherson Well, the first semester of my master’s degree was fairly routine: taking classes, reading papers, and getting together all the bits and pieces necessary to begin my research in January. But less than a week into 2021, I was out on the water, bouncing around in an XL north swell, trying to find spinner dolphins during my first winter field effort. Since then, I’ve been to Maui (twice) to help Martin out with his PhD work on humpback whales (and lea

Written by Claire Lacey Exciting times here at “spinner dolphin project HQ”, as we make final preparations to get our dolphin surveys underway. These trips are a collaboration with NOAA / PIFSC and will be running until the end of the year or so, as we collect the data we need to get an estimate of how many spinner dolphins use the coastal waters around Oʻahu. There are a few different ways to count animals, and very often it is not as easy as it initially appears. The most

Written by Liah McPherson Studying dolphins has always been my life’s goal. Truly, I cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn’t fascinated by these animals (my parents have saved many anatomically pathetic drawings of dolphins from my early childhood). So in April, when I found out I was accepted to the Marine Biology Graduate Program at UH Manoa set to work with the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP) –– to say I was overjoyed would be an understatement! After mo