Blog Posts

Written by MMRP alumna Brijonnay Madrigal We are excited to share a new publication in Royal Society Open Science , which describes the acoustic behavior of false killer whales from the endangered Main Hawaiian Islands insular population. This research encompasses one chapter of former MMRP Ph.D. student and current Scripps postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Brijonnay Madrigal's   dissertation . Authors: Brijonnay Madrigal , William Gough , Jens Currie , Lars Bejder , Augusta Holl

Written by Cameron Nemeth We are pleased to share a new publication  in Marine Mammal Science , entitled: Nares modulation in breathing cetaceans reflects respiratory mechanics Authors: Cameron Nemeth , Joy Reidenberg , Lars Bejder  and Andreas Fahlman A humpback whale breathing at the surface on a brisk morning in Southeast Alaska. Credit: Alaska Whale Foundation  Field Team (NOAA permit #19703) Overview: Cetaceans (dolphins, whales, and porpoises) possess a specialized resp

By Claire Lacey Lacey, C., Bejder, L., Perrin, W.F., Wursig, B.  2025. Chapter 04. Spinner dolphin Stenella longirostris .  Ridgway and Harrison's Handbook of Marine Mammals, Volume 2: Oceanic Dolphins.  Academic Press/Elsevier. We are pleased to let you know about another MMRP publication - a book chapter this time. The chapter is a contribution to the second volume - Oceanic Dolphins - of the newly revised Handbook of Marine Mammals. It summarizes the best knowledge on spi

We are excited to share our new publication in the Journal of Experimental Biology , titled: Daily Energetic Expenditure and Energy Consumption of Short-Finned Pilot Whales ( https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.249821 ). The paper is accompanied by a JEB Spotlight  article.   Authors: William Gough, Brijonnay Madrigal, Augusta Hollers, Jens Currie, Robin Baird, Kristi West, Andreas Fahlman, Frank Fish, Lewis Evans, Martin van Aswegen, Brian Stir

Authors: Kirby Parnell, Caroline Smith, Adriana Diaz, Kyleigh Fertitta, Pearl Thompson, Philip T. Patton, Isabelle Charrier, Stacie Robinson, Aude Pacini, Lars Bejder We are pleased to share a new publication in Royal Society Open Science , which describes the underwater vocalizations made by free-ranging Hawaiian monk seals. This research encompasses Ph.D. Candidate Kirby Parnell’s  second chapter of her dissertation which she will be defending on 9 th  December (stay tuned

Written by Martin van Aswegen We are pleased to share a new publication in Marine Ecology Progress Series , entitled: Age-specific body length, mass, and energetic cost of growth in humpback whales. Authors: Martin van Aswegen , Andy Szabo , Jens Currie , Stephanie Stack , Jan Straley , Janet Neilson , Christine Gabriele , Kelly Cates , C. Scott Baker , Debbie Steel , Adam Pack , Kristi West , Nicholas Hofmann , Rob Toonen , Coral Loockerman , Florence Sullivan , Ted Cheesema

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

Written by Cameron Nemeth We are pleased to share a new publication  in the Journal of Experimental Biology , entitled: The key to bubble-net feeding: How humpback whale morphology functionally differs from other baleen whales. Accompanying this publication is an Early Career Researcher Spotlight interview with Cameron. Authors: Cameron Nemeth , William Gough , Paolo Segre , Frank Fish , Andrew Szabo , Wesley Fassmann , Scott Thomson , Martin van Aswegen , Julia Burrows ,

Written by Claire Lacey We would like to share a newly published paper: Circum-Island Line-Transect Abundance Estimates of Spinner Dolphins Around O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Authors:  Claire Lacey, Marie C. Hill, Amanda L. Bradford, Erin M. Oleson, Fabien Vivier, Aude F. Pacini, Philip S. Hammond, Lars Bejder. Marine Mammal Science, 2025; 0:e70055   https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.70055 Available to read     Spinner dolphin spinning – © Deb Besser, taken under permit #21476   Spinner dolphi

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

Written by Martin van Aswegen We are pleased to share a new publication in The Journal of Physiology , entitled: Maternal investment, body condition and calf growth in humpback whales. This publication is accompanied by another study estimating the energetic cost of gestation in humpback whales. Authors: Martin van Aswegen , Andy Szabo , Jens Currie , Stephanie Stack , Lewis Evans , Jan Straley , Janet Neilson , Christine Gabriele , Kelly Cates , Debbie Steel , and Lars Bejd

Written by Martin van Aswegen We are pleased to share a new publication in The Journal of Physiology , entitled: Energetic cost of gestation and prenatal growth in humpback whales . Authors: Martin van Aswegen , Andy Szabo , Jens Currie , Stephanie Stack , Kristi West , Nicholas Hofmann , Fredrik Christiansen , and Lars Bejder . Figure 1. Graphical abstract summarizing key methods and findings from the study. Abstract: Improving our understanding of energy allocation in repro

Written by Fabien Vivier We are pleased to announce a new publication  in Animal Conservation  entitled: Inferring dolphin population status: using unoccupied aerial systems to quantify age-structure.     Abstract: Assessing trends in population abundance and demographics is crucial for managing long-lived and slow-reproducing species. Obtaining demographic data, and age-structure information, is challenging, notably for cetaceans. To address this, we combined Unoccupied Aeri

Photo: Krista Jaspers Written by Kirby Parnell We are pleased to share a new publication in Endangered Species Research , which describes the underwater soundscapes of Hawaiian monk seal critical habitats. This research encompasses Ph.D. Candidate Kirby Parnell’s first chapter of her dissertation and is her first, first-author publication! The manuscript is entitled: Underwater soundscapes within critical habitats of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal: Implications for conserv

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

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 Fabien Vivier We are pleased to announce a new publication in Ecology and Evolution entitled: Quantifying the age-structure of free-ranging delphinid populations: testing the accuracy of Unoccupied Aerial System-photogrammetry. Video created by Anna Schmalz: https://www.mmrphawaii.org/interns Vivier, F ., Wells, R. S., Hill, M. C., Yano, K. M., Bradford, A. L., Leunissen, E. M., Pacini, A. , Booth, C. G., Rocho-Levine, J., Currie , J. J., Patton, P. T., & Bejder

Written by Brijonnay Madrigal We are pleased to share a new publication in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America , which describes the first killer whale call catalog for the Chukchi Sea and identifies the likely ecotype present. This paper was written by Brijonnay Madrigal and colleagues at the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center as part of her Master’s thesis work conducted at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories prior to entering the PhD program at the Hawai’i

Written by Kirby Parnell We are pleased to share a new publication in Endangered Species Research , which describes underwater sound reception and sound production in Hawaiian monk seals. This research was completed by Kirby Parnell and colleagues at the University of California Santa Cruz during Kirby’s Master’s thesis , prior to starting her Ph.D. at the University of Hawai’i . The manuscript is entitled: Underwater hearing and communication in the endangered Hawaiian mon

It’s mid-January 2021, and the first gray whales ( Eschrichtius robustus ) from the eastern North Pacific population have started to arrive in the breeding lagoons in Baja California, Mexico. Since the start of their southbound migration from their high latitude feeding grounds, several sightings of emaciated gray whales have already been reported along their migration route. This has raised concern among scientists that the unusual mortality event (UME, an unexpected phenom