Written by Dr. Dee Boersma The ongoing pinniped (seals and walruses) die-off on Peninsula Valdés is catastrophic. Our contacts in Argentina–two local veterinarians (Marci Uhart and Ralph Vanstreels), and Claudia Campagna of WCS–tell us that hundreds and potentially thousands of sea lions and elephant seals have died. Avian flu (more widely known as bird flu) has devastated seabird populations throughout […]
Written by Leigh West African wild dogs are very social animals, living in groups called packs. Wild dog packs have a dominant male and female, and it is this dominant pair that breeds each year to produce litters of pups. Packs of wild dogs are very cooperative, hunting and raising their young together. Two of the wild dogs that the
Written by Dr. Anna Nisi We have been building cutting-edge models of species distributions for four great whale species – blue, fin, sperm, and humpback whales. One key threat to the great whales is collisions with shipping vessels, and identifying places where ship-strike risk is high is essential for informing mitigation actions like vessel slow-downs. Our next step is to
Our next open house will be November 9, 2023 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.! Meet the scientists dedicated to studying sentinel species, learn about their latest research, and find out what’s next for the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels. Find more information on our open house page. We hope to see you there!
Excerpt: “Here we bring together sighting data from aerial and shipboard surveys in the southern and central Chukchi Sea, as well as recent sightings of humpback whales near Utqiagvik, Alaska to document these observations more fully. Authors: Kathleen M. Stafford, John C. George, Qaiyaan Harcharek, Sue E. MooreJournal: Marine Mammal ScienceDOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.13051 Photo credit: Dr. Mridula Srinivasan NOAA/NMFS/OST/AMD [Humpback whale breaching. ]
The Abrahms Lab – Briana Abrahms, Biology assistant professor; Kasim Rafiq, Biology postdoctoral researcher; and Leigh West, Biology graduate student – was featured on the UW Homepage this week for their work studying the behavior of endangered African wild dogs in Botswana. Read the full article on the UW homepage. Congratulations, all!
The research, led by scientists at the Abrahms Lab and published in Nature Climate Change, reveals that a warming world is increasing human-wildlife conflicts. Read about the paper on the NSF site.
Authors: Eric L. Wagner, Esteban Frere, P. Dee BoersmaJournal: Marine Pollution BulletinDOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.11 Photo credit: National Ocean Service Image Gallery Summary Written by Sofia Denkovski Argentinian oil and effects on seabirds Surveys from 1982-1990 suggested more than 40,000 penguins died per year in Chubut and Santa Cruz from chronic oiling. This was hypothesized to be due to the colonies’ proximity
Dr. Eric Wagner’s latest essay, The Molt, can be found on the website The Last Word On Nothing. Here’s a small excerpt: A living animal is alive all the time. Every moment matters in an unending stream of being, whether we are watching or not. This isn’t an end for the penguins. It isn’t a beginning, either. They are simply
After Assistant Professor of Biology and Boersma Endowed Chair Dr. Briana Abrahms and her team deployed GPS-audio wildlife tracking collars on African wild dogs and lions during the summer of 2022, Dr. Abrahms and Dr. Kasim Rafiq, a postdoc in the Abrahms Lab, have been working with industry collaborators to build AI models that detect behaviors (such as hunting) and hunger levels
Thanks to the generous support of Zoo Augsburg in Germany, Dr. Ginger Rebstock and Dr. Eric Wagner were able to return to Punta Tombo for a couple of weeks in April. There, they put twenty satellite tags on penguins—ten females and ten males—that were about to start their post-breeding migration. From last year’s tagging effort, we know that females hug
Eric Wagner was featured in a webinar series co-sponsored by NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Feiro Marine Life Center. In this talk, Eric discussed the ongoing research on the rhinoceros auklets of Destruction Island (and beyond), and talked about what these furtive birds can show us about the larger world in which they try to make their living.
Authors: Sue E MooreJournal: ICES Journal of Marine ScienceDOI: 0.1093/icesjms/fsad030 I describe my path through a series of opportunities that provided stepping stones from childhood years in the landlocked US Midwest to a 45-year-long career focused on cetacean behaviour and ecology…
Authors: Jennifer B Tennessen, Marla M Holt, Brianna M Wright, M Bradley Hanson, Candice K Emmons, Deborah A Giles, Jeffrey T Hogan, Sheila J Thornton, Volker B DeeckeJournal: Behavioral EcologyDOI: 10.1093/beheco/arad002Coverage: The Seattle Times, Skagit Valley Herald, Seattle King 5 News, KUOW Public Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud”, Victoria Times Colonist, North Shore News
In January and February of 2023 Dr. Dee Boersma, along with PhD students Katie Holt (Boersma Lab) and Erik Johansson (Abrahms Lab), spent six weeks in Punta Tombo to set up the remote scales that weigh penguins on their way in and out of the breeding area, and followed 19 penguins using GPS tags. The three of them were also able
