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Wow, what an exciting February for Marine Life Studies. We kicked off our newest project the "Joey Jones Scholarship and Educational Fund" and all monies donated at the AT&T plus the whole month of February went directly to build the scholarship fund. Plus we promoted our free educational program for the schools. The schools are facing so many cutbacks in funding that this is an important endeavor for Marine Life Studies. We kicked off our free educational program on Monday, February 15, 2010 by visiting third graders at Stevenson School, Carmel Campus and it was so much fun. It is really important to give back to the community. “The next generation holds the keys to better understand the importance and beauty of our planets’ ocean ecology,” says Stap. “I want to offer youngsters a chance to pursue an education in oceanic studies. It is so rewarding to give something back to those who will continue to value our oceans and marine mammals.” (Excerpt from article written by Leslie Miller 2-22-10) Victoria Wade and I were so excited at the enthusiasm of the kids. We left them with an assignment. We supplied the teacher, Ms. Foster, with everything the students would need to accomplish the task. Each student received a photo packet with 15 identification photos of both humpbacks and killer whales, plus blank sheets of flukes and killer whales, so they could draw their own and develop a short story on how the Humpback Whales and Orcas received certain markings that are used to identify individual animals. We plan to post some of their work once we get copies. For more information on booking Marine Life Studies for your school please send an email through our “Contact us” Page. We are now on Facebook so check it out. Become a fan. It is free. There are pictures posted already and I plan to
Update on W.E.T. (Whale Entanglement Teams of Central and Northern California): Marine Life Studies coordinated a hands-on water training for W.E.T. in December. Cheryl McCormick, Executive Director of the American Cetacean Society (ACS), joined us. The article about W.E.T. is now available on page 5 of “Spyhopper, ACS Newsletter”. Aloha, Peggy WOW, we are so excited about BIRDIES FOR CHARITY. It is a tremendous opportunity to show you care by PLEDGING today. Thank you for taking the time to make a difference while at the same time you could win some amazing prizes. It is a Win-Win for everyone.
Marine Life Studies organized a hands-on water training for W.E.T. (Whale Entanglement Teams of Central and Northern California) for December 1,, 2009. The training was led by the lead for W.E.T. of Central California, Jim Harvey and the lead for W.E.T. of Northern California, Pieter Folkens. The training was a great success with multiple boats used for the training including the “Sheila B” (Moss Landing Marine Lab), the new rib inflatable (Moss Landing Marine Lab), small soft bottom inflatable (Moss Landing Marine Lab), v-bottom inflatable (Bob Talbot’s boat) and “Sweet Pea” (Marine Life Studies). “Sweet Pea” was used as the “whale” by attaching a wooden replica of a whale tail that had line and fishing net to simulate an entangled whale. Then a couple of the W.E.T. team would get in the small soft bottom inflatable and try to disentangle the line, etc. from the pseudo whale tail. The Sheila B acted as a support boat so when a different tool was needed it could be transferred from the Sheila B to the W.E.T. team in the inflatable. The other boats were used in similar fashion so we could get as much hands-on water training in. We had type I, II and III training for the people on the W.E.T. team and proved to be a very productive training. Luckily the seas were kind to us that day. Cheryl McCormick from the American Cetacean Society came up for the training and there will be an article upcoming in the “Spyhopper” Newsletter, so look for that. We were all thrilled to continue our boat-based research surveys on Monterey Bay. It was an amazing season operating our research boat surveys this fall (2009). Marine Life Studies success is due to our amazing, highly skilled, and dedicated volunteer staff. I would like to give them my heartfelt gratitude for all their hard work. It has been a pleasure working with them. Mary Whitney, Terri Dratt, Victoria Wade, Duane O’Sullivan, Jude Iverson, Homer Holmes, George Black, Topher Mueller, Al Leverette, Dave Schramm, Martijn Stiphout, Lucy Bryant, Ashley Ganer, Angela Kilmer, Kathi Koontz, Dana Riley, Steve Jensen, Willow Jones, Sue & Ron Leinweber, Cathy LaGrand, Dick Stap, Marilyn & Larry Schutz, Sudy Dostal, Jane DeLay, Lisa Crandell, Dida Kutz, Bruce Storrs, Tiffany Thomas, Debbie Waugh, Melanie Wiegner, Chuck Davis, Betsy Collins, Kelly Grace, Karen Kleid, Bruce Thomas, Noel Flores, David Reins, Kate Cummings, and last but not least “Whiskee” our canine research assistant. Love and Gratitude to all, In 2009 we continued to move forward with the Whale Entanglement Team (W.E.T.) project. You can see on our home page that the W.E.T. now has a dedicated toll-free number and a Response and Reporting card, available on waterproof paper. Please contact us if you would like to get a waterproof card or are interested in helping to distribute them. Pieter Folkens designed the Response and Reporting card. We all appreciate Pieter's hard work. Pieter is the lead for the W.E.T. in the Northern California area including San Francisco Bay and Jim Harvey of Moss Landing Marine Labs is the lead in Central California including Monterey Bay. The American Cetacean Society, Monterey Bay Chapter, generously donated $500 toward the printing costs. We have been distributing the cards throughout Central and Northern California with the help of several dedicated volunteers and NOAA including the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. We also have a downloadable flyer that you can pass along. It gives information on how to get a waterproof Response and Reporting card. Please feel free to email it to anyone on the water that you think could use a waterproof card. If you would like printed copies of the flyer please contact us. We are all anxious and excited to get
back out on the water this fall to continue with our research effort.
We will conduct boat-based surveys on the water in
Monterey Bay. If you are interested in volunteering for Marine Life Studies
please contact us. There are many areas in which you can volunteer either
on or off
the water.
More yet to come in 2009 so please check back. We encourage you to check out our Donate page. Your support is vital in the accomplishment of our mission and goals. In this tough economic time everyone is stretched pretty thin. Donations all over the country have declined. Whatever you might be able to donate would be greatly appreciated. Check out our "Wish List" as maybe you have some equipment that could be donated. Remember gifts and donations are 100% tax deductible. FYI, all personnel involved with Marine Life Studies serve as volunteers; we have no paid employees. To this end, all donations are applied directly to the fulfillment of our research, education and conservation mission. Thank you for all your support especially to our dedicated volunteers. I want to extend a special thank you to Cathy LaGrand of LaGrand Design for generously donating her time to the design and maintenance of the Marine Life Studies website. It always amazes me what she does with the jumble of information I provide her. I also want to express my gratitude to Sue
Leinweber. Sue typed in all the data from the fall 2008 season. It
is a
very time
consuming and tedious
job.
Sue,
thank you very much for generously donating your time. WOW, 2008 has been a very exciting, productive and busy year for Marine Life Studies (MLS). There are so many things to update you on since I have not kept up with the blog like I should. Most exciting for us is the formation of W.E.T. (Whale Entanglement Teams of Central and Northern California). This is a project we actually started working on in the fall of 2006 that was slated as the number one project for MLS to focus our efforts on. It all started with a question, "Why doesn’t California have a coordinated statewide program for disentangling whales like Hawaii?" Mary Whitney, a valuable volunteer for Marine Life Studies as well as the founder of Fluke Foundation, wrote a great article for the American Cetacean Society (ACS) newsletter "Soundings -- the Newsletter of ACS Monterey Bay" October 2008 issue. See the article here. MLS had a booth at the recent ACS Conference in Monterey, November 15 and 16 to get the word out to the public. We had the tools that MLS purchased in the spring of this year as well as photos of entangled whales and a video courtesy of Ed Lyman and Dave Mattila who are the head of the disentanglement network for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback National Marine Sanctuary (HIHNMS). In fact Ed taught the training and strategy session held at Moss Landing in May that Mary wrote about in the W.E.T. article. The response was great and we even got a few donations for much needed equipment. If you would like to donate for the purchase of tools for the W.E.T. project send to address on donation page and be sure to write on the check or letter that the money donated is specifically for W.E.T. 100% of all monies donated for W.E.T. go to purchasing the equipment that we still need to have a full cache of tools. As with all donations your donation is tax deductible under the guidelines of 501(c)3.
Now that I have updated you on the success of W.E.T. to keep things simple I will let you know the other exciting things that have happened in 2008 in chronological order. The winter was very exciting with the volunteer work I do with the Hawaii Whale Research Foundation in Maui. We had an incredible and productive season plus some of my most amazing encounters with the humpbacks. The premier of "Humpbacks from Fire to Ice" was
presented by Ross Isaacs, the director, co-producer and underwater
cinematographer
on the project at Whale Quest Kapalua in February 2008. "Humpbacks
from Fire to Ice" is an intimate film portrait of the first
year of a baby humpback whale’s life narrated by David Attenborough.
I had the pleasure of working with Ross for part of the making of
the film in Maui. Ross Isaacs is
an amazing and accomplished cinematographer who was a joy to
work with. This film was a labor of love for Ross.
He is
very passionate about bringing his love of nature to the screen
for others to enjoy and his love of animals. Ross has a big heart
and
gentle soul who cares deeply for the humpbacks as all earth’s
creatures. The Courier Mail in Australia (by the way that is
where Ross lives) interviewed Ross about the film and some of
the special
moments. In the piece Ross talks about the amazing encounter
in the water with a mother and her calf. That happened this winter.
I was
in the water doing stills while Ross was on video. It was one
of the most amazing experiences in my life. The mother was nicknamed "Barnacle
Betty" because of her barnacles. Truly an experience
I will never forget as at one point "Barnacle Betty" swam
right towards me within a couple feet and turned, which was amazing
in itself,
but then the calf squiggled between me and it’s Mom and
touched me. It was the most calm and peaceful thing I have ever
experienced.
In all my years of research I have never reached out to try and
touch a whale or a dolphin. I feel as if I am a guest in their
world. So
to have a whale touch me was very special. I cried tears of joy
as I knew it was a once in a lifetime experience. Both Ross and
I were
under special federal and state permits with NOAA National Marine
Fisheries Service to be in the water. The Hawaii Whale Research Foundation (HWRF) has done a few projects
with the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) over the 30-year span
that Dan R. Salden, Ph.D. has been studying the competitive behavior
of
humpback whales. This year TBS wanted to do a documentary called "Ocean
Odyssey", directed by Naomi Kawaguchi. The documentary aired
in Japan in March 2008 starring award-winning actor Hideaki Ito.
Since MLS has limited funds to run the project
we decided that in 2007 we would concentrate on projects that could
make a
difference
but would not take much cash, just time. So of course a project
we
actually started working on in the fall 2006 was slated as the
number one project to put all our efforts into. The project is
to help facilitate
a "Whale Rescue Network" for Monterey Bay that has grown
to incorporate all of California and coordinate it with existing
trained personnel already in place. Training will be held in the spring of 2008, date and location to be announced. Contact us to be on the mailing list. Humpbacks are endangered and are one of the whales mostly likely to become entangled because of their curious nature. If interested in becoming involved, a prerequisite
would be to take the following Incident Command training which is
free and available
on line. There are several levels. Here are the links for levels
one and two:
In some parts of the ocean there are 6 lbs of plastic for every pound of fish. During our own research in 2007 we actually documented more sightings of garbage than we did of marine mammals while doing our boat transects. We had 53 sightings of garbage and only 40 sightings of marine mammals. " Impacts of larger debris have been well-documented
over the years, including marine mammal, fish and seabird mortalities
caused by
ingestion causing starvation and suffocation, and entanglement. Research into
the impacts of smaller debris is emerging, but it is known already
that small plastic debris is ingested by marine life at all levels
of the marine food web, from zooplankton to the largest marine
mammals." See http://www.plasticdebris.org/
and click on BMPs for Trash & Debris
[Trash_BMPs_for_Munis.pdf]
You probably
have heard about the North Pacific
Gyre that is a huge area of floating marine debris twice the size
of Texas. It is
essentially plastic stew
floating just below the surface in the Pacific Ocean between California
and Hawaii. For more information check out these web pages:
Up to September 28, 2006
After Whale Fest, one of our MLS volunteers,
Tif Thomas, and myself met the Earthrace team in Newport Beach and
went with them to San
Diego. We assisted them with projects and cleaning the boat as
well as helping them sell DVD’s and t-shirts for their cause.
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How you do like the new logo? It was a gift from Manny Espinoza of Espinoza Graphics who designed the logo for Marine Life Studies. Janice (Joey Jone’s sister) was helping me with a logo I was designing from a photograph I had taken in the fall 2008. Janice took it to a Photoshop class she was taking from Manny. Manny was kind enough to take on the project of creating our logo. Well, done Manny - thank you for the beautiful logo and all your hard work. Please check out his website - 
The week
after the ACS conference, 
George
and Mary:
Leatherback
turtles are endangered so each and every one of them is critical
for the survival of the species. Leatherback turtles
eat jellyfish. A balloon in the water can be mistaken for it's favorite
food. Balloons, plastic bags, styrofoam, and trash floating in the
water all can be mistaken as food and the turtles die when this trash
blocks their intestines. 
I
met the 
The
weather conditions on the ocean were finally good so the weekend
of September 23rd we got all the equipment ready to go out. Howard
from the Elkhorn Yacht Club called as he noticed the boat sitting
low in the water. The boat had been in the slip for 5 days and
there was a lot of water in the boat. Had to bilge out the boat
and checked
it over. Let it set overnight thinking we had the problem solved
but there was some water in the boat the next day. Decided not
to go out but instead to pull the boat out of the water. There
was a
slow leak where one of the ground wires ran through the stern.
So we will be doing some repairs. That is how it is sometimes in
the
life
of a research team. blog from Earthrace Captain Pete Bethune...
"After San Francisco we had
a series of great promotions. Monterey, Morro Bay and Ventura were
all awesome, with lots of people through
the boat and plenty of media. We met a few more people who're now helping
us. We also made stops in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Peggy Stap,
alias the Pegster, took us all under her wing."
I want to thank all of you that came over
for the greet and meet pot luck. It was so nice to meet all of you.
We are very
fortunate to have such nice and
enthusiastic people on our team. This weekend we are having a garage sale
in Monterey on Sat & Sun
(Sept 2nd & 3rd)
to raise money for our project. If anyone has anything they want to donate
please give me a call at 831-901-3833 (and if anyone would like to
give us a hand at
the garage sale we would appreciate it). While manning the garage sale we
are going to put together the display boards for Whale Fest which
is on Sept 9th
and 10th. |