Bruce Mate didn’t wait long. Within days of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, he was on the phone with officials from the U.S. Minerals Management Service. He and other OSU researchers are analyzing consequences of the largest spill in U.S. waters. Meanwhile, Oregon photographer Justin Bailie was on the scene in Terrebonne Parish.
Mate has pioneered the tracking of whales through devices that can adhere to whales for hundreds of days, communicate with satellites and relay their locations on a daily basis.
OSU graduate student Carrie Newell has discovered that the difference may stem from the relative abundance of tiny shrimp-like zooplankton called mysids, a gray whale delicacy.
Passengers on OSU’s 2006 Gray Whale Expedition to Baja came from places as far-flung as Ypsilanti, North Dakota; Oakland, Iowa; and Tucson, Arizona. Most, however, live in Oregon. Here are a few impressions from San Ignacio Lagoon.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with a group of cetacean scientists for five years and have seen quite a few mysteries explained, but each explanation gives instant rise to at least one new question, and usually more. That’s one of the greatest frustrations, and the greatest pleasures, of working in a scientific field.”
Some whale species and other marine mammals are still not in the clear. Research by Bruce Mate and colleagues in the Marine Mammal Program is revealing new details about ocean ecosystems and helping to address new threats.