New Logo! And thanks to our volunteer staff

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 - www.espinozagraphics.com

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,
Peggy