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<b>For more information, contact: </b>
<b>For immediate release: April 10, 2007</b><br>
Kate Madin, Sea Grant Educator<br>
(508) 289-3639<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kmadin@whoi.edu">kmadin@whoi.edu</a><br>
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<div align="center"><font color="#000099"><b>“Oceans Alive” Speaker
Will Discuss Ways Humans and Whales Can Share Waterways</b></font><br>
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<br>
Join Dr. David Wiley, Research Coordinator at the Stellwagen Bank
National Marine Sanctuary, to hear about exciting current and coming
research on endangered whales in Massachusetts Bay and how the
Stellwagen Sanctuary is developing ways to let people and whales share
the same waters. Dr. Wiley will talk about the sanctuary’s part in
efforts to re-route ship traffic and study the underwater behavior of
whales , on Tuesday, April 17th at 7:00 p.m. in Redfield Auditorium on
Water Street, Woods Hole, to begin Woods Hole Sea Grant’s annual
“Oceans Alive” lecture series. <br>
<br>
In 1992 the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary became the first
marine protected area in New England, part of the National Marine
Sanctuary system. The sanctuary is charged with managing, conserving,
and protecting marine life in an area of 842 square miles extending
from Cape Ann to Cape Cod, while facilitating compatible uses by
people. One of the sanctuary’s greatest concerns is marine mammal
conservation in these busy waters. <br>
<br>
Wiley’s presentation will highlight whale research at the sanctuary.
“We conduct several marine mammal conservation initiatives,” he said.
These include acoustic monitoring of whales, tagging whales to
understand their underwater behavior, and evaluating the use of
voluntary guidelines for the whale watch industry and commercial
shipping.<br>
<br>
“Science can only go as far as people propel it,” Wiley said. “It’s up
to the general public to take the science and make it count in the
policy arena. At the Stellwagen Bank Sanctuary, we do policy-oriented
research.” <br>
<br>
Stellwagen Bank is a shallow underwater plateau lying at the mouth of
Massachusetts Bay, 25 miles east of Boston, where underwater topography
and ocean currents come together nurture a rich and diverse
concentration of marine life. More than a dozen resident and seasonal
marine mammal species feed on Stellwagen Bank⎯among them endangered
whales, and the severely endangered north Atlantic right whale. <br>
<br>
Because of its rich resources and location, Stellwagen Bank has a long
history of human use⎯for fishing, for transit, and trade. Both
commercial and recreational fishing and maritime shipping into and out
of the port of Boston create heavy traffic across this sensitive
region. Inevitably, a concentration of feeding whales in waters
carrying a high volume of ship traffic creates a high risk of collision
between commercial ships and whales.<br>
<br>
In a significant recent achievement, Wiley and colleagues have worked
towards an international agreement to move shipping lanes to and from
the Port of Boston northward, out of the area of highest whale
concentration. “This was a four-year collaborative effort,” said Wiley,
“that will take effect July 1, 2007, and promises to reduce deadly ship
strikes in this highly traveled region.” A National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report recently estimated that ship
strikes to right whales could be reduced by up to 58 percent, and to
all large whale species by up to 81 percent by the shift. <br>
<br>
Sanctuary researchers are also beginning “one of the largest
non-military ocean noise projects in the world,” said Wiley, a joint
project with the National Marine Fisheries Service and Cornell
University to monitor noise in the water. “How much noise is produced
by commercial ships? A lot,” he said. “But underwater most noise
attenuates fast, so after about 200 yards the noise has decreased
dramatically—which will benefit whales when the shipping lanes have
moved.”<br>
<br>
A guest investigator in the Biology Department at WHOI, Wiley received
his Ph.D. in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England,
and he has been at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary since
2001. He has worked for the past several years with WHOI colleagues
Peter Tyack, Mark Johnson, and Mark Baumgartner to monitor whales in
the sanctuary, giving us new insights into how large whales actually
use their environment. With a unique suction-cup tagging device that
they attach to whales, researchers record where the whales travel, how
they find food, and their diving patterns for the first time. “We
tagged 15 animals during just the past summer,” Wiley said, “for over
one hundred hours of data” on whale behavior, adding to hundreds of
hours collected over the past several years.<br>
<br>
Woods Hole Sea Grant’s “Oceans Alive” lecture series for 2007 continues
on Tuesday, April 24th at 7:00 p.m., with Glen Gawarkiewicz, associate
scientist in the WHOI Physical Oceanography Department, speaking on “A
Costal Current in Winter: Exploring coastal ocean cooling with a REMUS
autonomous underwater vehicle.” The series will conclude on Tuesday,
May 1, at 4:00 p.m., with “Young Scientists Present: winning science
fair projects,” which showcases the talents of the winners of local
high school science fairs, students from Falmouth Academy and Falmouth
High School. <br>
<br>
All presentations are in Redfield Auditorium on Water Street in Woods
Hole, and are free and open to the public; families are especially
encouraged to attend. Light refreshments will be provided. Parking for
evening lectures is available in the parking lot opposite the
auditorium, and parking for the May 1 afternoon lecture is available in
on-street, metered spaces.<br>
<br>
For more information, contact the Woods Hole Sea Grant Program,
508-289-2398 or <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:seagrant@whoi.edu">seagrant@whoi.edu</a>.<br>
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