Newsletter 4 - Marine Mammal Institute - Oregon State University

HATFIELD MARINE SCIENCE CENTER, NEWPORT, OR 

Marine Mammal Institute 

Winter Newsletter December 2009 

Look to the future 

Hello dear friends. We are pleased to update you with news from the Marine 

Mammal Institute. The funds you have contributed to the Marine Mammal Institute have 

provided us with an element of stability that is rare in an academic environment during 

these difficult economic times. THANK YOU! Having funds from the endowment has 

allowed us to keep the highly skilled people who make our program so successful. In the 

last four years, we have grown from just myself as a principle investigator to 3 faculty 

(adding Drs. Baker and Horning), resulting in group growth from 14 (faculty, staff, and 

students) to 28. These are great people doing exceptional work. At an October biennial 

meeting for the Society of Marine Mammalogy, MMI contributed 20 papers and posters 

More from 

Bruce Mate 

on page 2

during the one week of workshops and formal presentations. 

More and more, MMI is recognized for its many worldwide 

academic collaborations and agency funding diversity, 

including the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Minerals 

Management Service (MMS), the Department of Energy 

(DOE), National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department 

of Defense (DOD). I hope you are as proud as I am in the 

accomplishments we have achieved with your support! 

MMI is dedicated to becoming the international center of 

academic excellence in marine mammal ecology, conservation 

and ocean health. To a growing extent the university is 

encouraging collaborative studies as a means of reducing 

expenses and increasing efficiency. This is something MMI is 

trying to do by attracting shared positions with many OSU 

colleges so that new faculty can work in close proximity to 

one another to solve the complicated challenges our society 

places on marine resources. Regrettably, space is in such a 

premium at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, there is “no 

room at the inn”. In that regard, we have renewed our federal 

proposal to the National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST) for a new building in Newport. Our previous effort, 

which required a $9 M non-federal match to acquire $14 M of 

federal funding, came apart during the last week of the Oregon 

legislative session (which meets only 6 months every 2 years). 

There will be a short legislative session in February and we are 

hoping to acquire the needed match during that session to be 

eligible for the NIST grant (awards announced in March 2010). 

Besides MMI, the building would house the Marine Genomics 

and Genomics Program, and a proposed Marine Biodiscovery 

program looking for medical cures from marine organisms, 

including chemosynthetic species around deep-sea thermal 

vents. 

Things here have been busy and I want to bring you up to 

date on many exciting happenings. 

The Whale Telemetry Group (WTG) has been tagging 

eastern gray whales this fall along the central Oregon coast. 

Because gray whales are a 

near-shore species, we did 

this as a day-trip operation, 

trailering our 22' boat from 

port to port and over-nighting 

in hotels. Ladd Irvine, a 

recent COAS Masters student 

of mine, has been doing the 

tagging. Barb Lagerquist, a 

former MMI-Masters student 

in Fisheries & Wildlife, used to 

be our lead field person before 

getting married and having 

two children. Because we were 

“local”, she was able again to 

drive the boat during approaches and has not lost her touch. It 

is good to have her back in a field mode. Craig Hayslip (MS from 

U of WA) has been our main photographer for several years and 

is an important part of this project because we are using photos 

Territorial Seas Work 

The R/V Pacific Storm was engaged for 3 months, 24/7 this 

summer in measuring the Oregon Territorial seas as part of a 

College of Oceanic & Atmospheric Sciences program. It really paid 

its own way. It surveyed the nearshore sea floor to improve maps 

originally created over 60 years ago. The crew operated with 

a precise satellite GPS system that even took into the account 

the role of the vessel and state of the tide to identify the precise 

water depth. 

to evaluate the effects of tagging over time. Tomas Follett, our 

database manager, loves getting out into the field, but gets 

“chained to a desk” most of the time. In this field season he 

got to get out into the field and gain boat-driving experience. 

Jennifer Olson, and intern this fall from Colorado, has been 

taking biopsy samples and processing them. It takes five folks 

to tag whales. I only got out with them one day. They did such 

a great job, that they no longer “need” me out there. I am 

proud of them, but “Darn, I kind of liked that part myself”! 

When we are all out doing field work or at meetings, the office 

work is ably managed by Sheri Woods, Bonnie Anderson- 

Becktold, and Kathy Minta, who keep our many universitybased 

operations working smoothly. 

These animals, which were thought to be resident all 

throughout the summer/fall-feeding season moved around 

a great deal and very quickly. Within two weeks one animal 

was halfway up Vancouver Island, while another was in 

northern California. Virtually all the animals were identified 

from photographs so we have a known sighting history that 

goes back up to 15 years. Some of their movements this fall 

have tracked individuals to every area they have ever been 

sighted in throughout their entire lifetime. This is the first time 

we have tagged whales off Oregon and the reason was to test 

a new generation of tags that we may be using next year for 

the tagging of Western Gray whales off Sakhalin Island, Russia. 

I have gone to the International Whaling Commission meetings 

the last four years, in part to gain endorsements from the 

international community about tagging this most highly 

endangered species (relative to the gray whales along our 

coast). They were thought to be extinct in the 1970’s and now 

MMI Newsletter December 2009 2 OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

number just 130 animals. Amazingly, we do 

not know where these animals go to breed 

and calve in the winter. Identifying that 

will aid conservation efforts and promote 

the recovery of this fragile population, 

who’s summer feeding habitat is an area of 

developing oil and gas production. 

Robyn Matteson did an outstanding 

job of defending her master’s thesis in 

oceanography recently. She collected 

and assembled the oceanographic data 

associated with blue whale concentrations 

at the Costa Rica Dome (CRD), during our 

spectacular cruise on the Pacific Storm 

800 miles west of Costa Rica in 2008. I 

hope you had an opportunity to see the 

2-hour National Geographic documentary 

which first 

aired in March, 

entitled 

“Kingdom 

of the Blue 

Whale”. It 

has received 

the highest rating of any program that has 

ever aired on the channel. The companion 

article in the March National Geographic 

magazine (“Still Blue”) is also the highest 

rated piece for this year’s issue. Not 

only did we identify the first calving area 

for blue whales anywhere in the world, 

they were also feeding and mating. Our 

collaborator, John Calambokidis maintains 

an extensive catalog of blue whales 

found in the eastern North Pacific and 

photographed untagged whales at the 

CRD. Most of the photos from the CRD did 

not match his catalog, which is thought to 

encompass at least 80 % of the west coast 

population. Thus, whales using the CRD 

to breed and calve also come from other 

areas, probably the central and western 

North Pacific. I would very much like to 

return to the CRD to tag whales and track 

them to these other feeding areas. We are 

also planning on how to do additional blue 

whale research in the winter off the Pacific 

coast of Baja, Mexico, where this may also 

be happening. 

During the NG-sponsored research, 

we encountered a dead blue whale floating 

in the western Santa Barbara channel. We 

helped perform a dissection, which showed 

it had been struck by a ship. This was one 

of 5 deaths of these remarkable animals 

reported in just 3 weeks in southern 

California. MMI tagging data help 

understand the seasonal distributions 

of whales and will suggest ways to 

reduce blue whale mortalities from 

ship strikes. Such research provides 

insights into how small changes in 

human activities can often make a 

big difference in the conservation and 

recovery of endangered species. 

Some of you will recall that 

MMI provided seed funding for Kelly 

Benoit-Bird in COAS to begin work 

with squid in the Gulf of California with 

Bill Gilly from Stanford University. This 

work provided a basis for our research 

on squid-eating 

Small changes in human activities 

can often make a big difference to 

the conservation and recovery of 

endangered species. 

sperm whales 

in the same 

area the next 

two years. As a 

result of those 

combined 

efforts, Kelly and Bill have received a 

three-year grant from NSF to further 

understand this elusive species and its 

trophic relationship to whales. 

This fall, MMI entered into a 

new collaborative relationship with 

the College of Engineering in which 

three senior students and a graduate 

student began working on tag 

development design issues as their 

capstone project. This collaboration 

with Dr. John Parmigiani and OSU 

alumnus Bill Reiersgaard has led to 

the submission of a National Ocean 

Partnership Program grant, which 

would continue these studies for two 

more years with additional professional 

involvement. Bill has been working with 

me for many years on tag designs. The 

engineering students will characterize 

the skin, blubber and muscle of whales, 

to make a synthetic testing environment 

out of ballistic gels (think “CSI” and the 

testing of bullet trajectories in flesh) and 

develop a virtual computer environment 

in which various tag designs can be 

modified and tested without having 

to put them out on a real whale. They 

will be using tissues collected by the 

Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding 

As you may recall, there is a great 

There is a great interest in 

harnessing wave energy off the 

Oregon Coast. We are examining 

the feasibility of using 

an acoustic device to protect 

whales if these buoy moorings 

become a collision hazard for 

the whales. Gray whales do not 

have any sophisticated sonar 

system. By emitting only low 

frequency sounds, they identify 

large features for navigation, 

but not smaller features like the 

4-6” diameter mooring cables. 

If problems develop with 

whales inadvertently running 

into these cables, there needs 

to be a way to keep them at a 

distance. With all the negative 

concerns about acoustics and 

whales, this may be an area 

where a low level of sound may 

actually save whale lives. Next 

year, we will test a device in 

the migration stream to see if 

it can divert gray whales up to 

500 yards. If so, this will be the 

first device of its sort to keep 

whales out of harms way from 

other calamities as well, like oil 

spills. 

Network (OMMSN), led by Jim Rice, the 

MMI stranding coordinator, who works 

closely with the College of Veterinary 

Medicine’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. 

I hope you will see the advances I 

have reported here and those elsewhere 

in this issue as an indication of what a 

good investment your gifts to MMI have 

been. I would be very grateful to have 

your continued support this coming 

year….and don’t forget us in your estate 

planning too! 


New Faces in MMI 

Alana Alexander 

Julia Hager 

Joining the Marine Mammal Institute in May 2009 as a parttime 

research technician in the Pinniped Ecology Applied Research 

Laboratory (PEARL), Julia came with a Master’s degree 

in Marine Biology from Bremen, Germany. During this time 

she was engaged in the ecology of Antarctic ice algae and now 

would like to gain insights into the marine mammal research. 

Under the supervision of the lab head Dr. Markus Horning 

and the Faculty Research Assistant Kim Raum-Suryan she 

is involved in the study about the attendance patterns and 

entanglement rates of Steller sea lions at Sea Lion Caves, near 

Heceta Head. Additionally, Julia is preparing her PhD project 

which will address the sensory system of pinnipeds. 

Alana is an International Fulbright Science and Technology 

awardee (2008-2010) from New Zealand. She arrived at OSU in 

September 2008 after completing her BSc(Hons) degree in 2006, 

and then working for two years as a research assistant at The 

University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her BSc(Hons) dissertation 

focused on the low level of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) 

control region diversity found in long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala 

melas). For her PhD, Alana is extending this analysis 

to the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), as well as 

updating previous research on global and regional geneflow by 

sequencing longer regions of the mtDNA control region and 

using DNA from previously unsampled areas. 

Angie Sremba 

Angie began her career at Oregon State University as an intern in 

the 2006 Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) program. 

After graduating from Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan in 

2007, she worked as a research assistant with the Cooperative 

Institute for Marine Resources Studies (CIMRS) to finalize the 

research she had begun as an intern. Before starting graduate 

school, she had the opportunity to participate in the winter 2008 

cetacean research field season with the Universidad de Baja 

California Sur in La Paz, Mexico. During this time, she helped with 

photo-identification and biopsy collection on cruises in the Gulf of 

California and spent two months working with gray whales 

(Eschrichtius robustus) in the San Ignacio Lagoon with Dr. Steven 

Swartz. She began her MSc with Scott Baker in the fall of 2009 working 

in the Cetacean Conservation and Genetics laboratory. For her 

MSc thesis, Angie will be studying the genetic diversity of the blue 

whale (Balaenoptera musculus) both in the eastern tropical North 

Pacific and Antarctic. 


Three large cetacean strandings 

occurred in Oregon this past spring 

Reported by Jim Rice 

Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator 

In early April, a fresh dead adult female gray whale (Eschrichtius 

robustus) was found on the beach at Washburn State Park, just north of 

Heceta Head. She was extremely emaciated, and there was no evident 

trauma to the body. Her posture, lying belly-down flat on the sand, 

suggests that she died on the beach or in shallow water shortly before 

she was reported to the stranding network. We suspect the immediate 

cause of death was starvation. A necropsy was conducted immediately 

Dead gray whale found near Heceta Head 

and tissue samples were collected and submitted to the Veterinary 

Diagnostic Laboratory at OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Corvallis. Pathology results determined the whale had 

ovarian cancer. The carcass was buried on site by the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation the following day. 

On March 6, a distressed whale was sighted by Coast Guard helicopter in the surf at Heceta Beach, in Florence. 

Members of the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network (OMMSN) responded and found the whale stuck on a sandbar 

and getting knocked over by waves. As the tide came in, the whale managed to free itself and began swimming again. It 

was observed by helicopter swimming weakly northward, 

parallel to the beach on the edge of the surf zone. The 

following day, the Coast Guard again searched the waters 

for the whale during their regular flyovers, but no sightings 

of the animal were made. Then, at approximately 5:00 

PM, a passerby reported a dead whale on a remote beach 

immediately north of Sea Lion Caves. An investigation 

of the carcass commenced the following morning, but 

by then it had been moved by the tide to its final resting 

place, at Devil’s Elbow State Park, adjacent to Heceta Head 

Lighthouse. 

Stranding network members spent much of Sunday 

examining the carcass, taking measurements, photographs, 

A live fin whale had stranded alive two days earlier a few miles and various tissue samples. 

away, but made it back into the water. It subsequently died and The whale was found to be 

floated to this beach at Heceta Head where it was buried. 

a sub-adult male fin whale 

(Balaenoptera physalus), with no apparent signs of injury that could immediately be ascribed 

as a cause of death (ship strike or fishery entanglement, for example). Its emaciated condition 

suggested that the whale had likely been sick for some time before coming ashore. The 

carcass was buried on site by the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation on Monday, 

March 9. Just prior to burial, samples for archiving were collected. A thorough necropsy to 

determine cause of death was not conducted, as State Parks managers insisted that the 

carcass not be taken apart on the beach. 

On the stormy night of May 13, a live sperm whale calf was reported coming ashore at the 

base of a cliff in Depoe Bay. It was later found dead in a nearby cove with no beach access. On 

the following day the carcass was found floating offshore by Carrie Newell of Whale Research 

Excursions. She graciously brought a response team from the Marine Mammal Institute on 

her zodiac to collect samples of skin, blubber, lesions, and intestine. It is believed that the 

calf became lost and disoriented after becoming separated from its mother. We received no 

reports of sightings of adult sperm whales in the area. 

Further details, photos and maps can be found at www.mmi.oregonstate.edu/OMMSN 

A sperm whale calf stranded at an 

inaccessible beach at Depoe Bay. 


Untangling the mystery of 

entangled Steller sea lions: 

first steps toward a solution 

A followup story by Kim Raum-Suryan 

Since 2005, we have been collecting 

data about Steller sea lions entangled 

in marine debris and derelict fishing 

gear off two haul-out sites in Oregon, 

Sea Lion Caves and Cascade Head. We 

noticed that many of the younger sea 

lions (1 to 3 years-of-age) had thick 

black bands around their necks. As 

the animals grow, these bands start 

cutting into the neck, eventually causing 

severe injury and death if the bands do 

not break off (very unlikely). At first, 

we were unsure about the source of 

this entangling debris. However, we 

realized that these black rubber bands 

are the same bands that are used on 

commercial and sport crab pots. We 

have subsequently found some of these 

bands washed up on Oregon beaches. 

The mystery is how these sea lions are 

getting these bands around their necks 

and what we can do to help prevent 

this problem. The loose ‘replacement’ 

bands are either being lost overboard 

vessels at sea or the sea lions are 

somehow becoming entangled in the 

bands while on the crab pots. We 

suggested cutting the loops, making 

them into ‘strips’ so if they come off 

the crab pots, they lose the loop and 

are no longer an entanglement hazard 

to marine animals. Another idea is to 

better secure the ‘replacement’ bands 

while on board the vessels so they don’t 

accidentally go overboard and present 

an entanglement hazard. We contacted 

the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission 

(ODCC) about this problem. At first, we 

met with resistance, that there is “no 

way” these bands could be coming from 

the commercial crab fishery. However, 

after observing newly entangled young 

sea lions each year for the past 4 years, 

presenting the data and photos at a 

meeting with the director of the ODDC, 

crab fishers, Oregon Department of Fish 

and Wildlife biologists, and Oregon Sea 

Grant personnel, there was a change of 

heart and the ODDC agreed to help us 

bring awareness of this issue to the crab 

fleet. As part of this effort, the ODCC has 

printed laminated copies of a photo of a 

Steller sea lion with a black rubber band 

around its neck and has listed ways crab 

fishers can help reduce the problem of 

entanglements. They plan to post these 

at ports throughout Oregon. They also 

presented our findings at the recent 2009 

Oregon Dungeness Crab Summit held in 

Newport, Oregon. We are pleased that 

the ODDC has agreed to help us bring 

awareness about this problem, but we 

have a long road ahead of us to solve this 

problem. 

New study of Steller sea lions 

suggests death by predation 

may be higher 

(Source - Mark Floyd, OSU) 

A pioneering project that implants lifelong 

monitors inside of Steller sea lions 

to learn more about why the number 

of these endangered marine mammals 

has been declining – and remains low 

in Alaska – is beginning to provide 

data, and the results are surprising to 

scientists. 

Four out of five of the data sets that 

researchers have recovered indicate that 

the sea lions died from traumatic causes 

– most likely, attack from transient killer 

whales. 

This comes as a surprise to many 

scientists and resource managers who 

previously thought that recent sea lion 

population trends are largely attributable 

to depressed birth rates, a loss of 

fecundity, or poor nutrition, according 

to Markus Horning, a pinniped specialist 

with the Marine Mammal Institute at 

Oregon State University and principal 

investigator in the study. 

“This obviously is a very small sample 

so we cannot overstate our conclusions,” 

Horning said, “but the fact that four 

out of five deceased Steller sea lions 

that we received data from met with a 

sudden, traumatic 

death is well beyond 

what conventional 

thought would have 

predicted. It could 

be coincidence…or 

it could mean that 

predation is a much 

more important factor 

than has previously 

been acknowledged.” 

Results of the 

study are being 

published in the 

journal Endangered Species Research 

and results were presented at a meeting 

of the Society for Marine Mammalogy in 

Quebec City. 

The science behind the discovery 

is a story within itself. The researchers 

worked with Wildlife Computers, Inc., in 

Redmond, Wash., to develop a tag that 

could be implanted in the body cavity of 

sea lions and remain there during their 

life span. Conventional externally applied 

tags rarely have the battery power to 

transmit data for longer than a year and 

are shed during the annual molt – thus 

information about sea lion mortality is 

difficult to obtain. 

These new tags, however, stay 

within the sea lion until its death, 

recording temperatures for as long as 

eight to 10 years. When an animal dies, 

and either decomposes or is torn apart 

by predators, the tags are released and 

send a signal to a satellite that transmits 

it to Horning’s lab at OSU’s Hatfield 

Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore. 

“We can tell whether an animal died 

by acute death through the temperature 

change rate sensed by the tags and 

whether the subsequent transmission of 

a signal is immediate or delayed,” said 

Horning, who is an assistant professor of 

fisheries and wildlife at OSU. 

Horning and his collaborator, Jo- 

Ann Mellish, have tested cooling and 

decomposition rates of sea lions on 

animals that have died from stranding or 

other causes. They’ve also inserted tags 

within those animals to see how long 

it would take before the signal would 

transmit based on whether an animal 

was on the beach, was deep at sea, or 

was torn apart by predators. 

continued on page 7 

MMI Newsletter December 2009 

6 OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Their protocol for inserting tags 

within live Steller sea lions was 

developed from initial deployments on 

non-threatened, stranded California 

sea lions at the Marine Mammal Center 

in Sausalito, Calif. 

“We wanted to make sure 

there was no adverse impact on the 

animals,” Horning said, “and there 

wasn’t.” Since 2005, Horning and 

his colleagues at the Alaska Sea Life 

Center in Seward have implanted 

tags into 27 Steller sea lions that were 

captured and released off the coast 

of Alaska. Since that time, they have 

received data from five animals – at 

least four of which appeared to die 

from traumatic deaths, based on the 

rate of tag cooling and immediate 

signal transmission. Horning said the 

tags can precisely identify the moment 

an animal died from temperature 

data. And while they are confident 

in their ability to determine whether 

the death was caused by predation 

or non-traumatic causes, identifying 

the actual predator is admittedly a bit 

of guesswork, Horning says. “There 

are only a couple of species that are 

known to target sea lions as prey,” 

he pointed out. “Orcas are not only 

common in that region of Alaska, they 

also have been observed preying on 

sea lions. Some species of sharks are 

known to attack sea lions, but they 

aren’t as common in those waters and 

there haven’t been any observations 

of predation in the study area.” If 

predation of Steller sea lions is more 

prevalent than previously thought, 

Horning said, there are implications for 

management. “If the proportion of sea 

lions killed by predation in our study 

was applied to population models, 

we estimate that more than half of 

the female Steller sea lions would be 

consumed by predators before they 

have a chance to reproduce,” Horning 

said. “We recognize that this is a very 

coarse estimate based on a small 

sample size. “But we hope this serves 

as a wakeup call to begin looking more 

closely into the actual role of predation 

as a determinant in Steller sea lion 

populations.” 

These newly developed tags were also featured 

in a brief newsclip in the Oct 23 2009 issue of 

the journal SCIENCE (Vol. 326, p. 505). 

‘Bycatch’ whaling — a growing threat to coastal whales 

(Source - Science News - June 29, 2009) 

Scientists are warning that a 

new form of unregulated whaling has 

emerged along the coastlines of Japan 

and South Korea, where the commercial 

sale of whales killed as fisheries 

“bycatch” is threatening coastal stocks 

of minke whales and other protected 

species. 

Scott Baker, associate director of the 


at Oregon State University, 

says DNA analysis of whalemeat 

products sold in 

Japanese markets suggests 

that the number of whales 

actually killed through this 

“bycatch whaling” may 

be equal to that killed through Japan’s 

scientific whaling program – about 150 

annually from each source. 

Baker, a cetacean expert, 

and Vimoksalehi Lukoscheck of 

the University of California-Irvine 

presented their findings at the 

recent scientific meeting of the 

International Whaling Commission 

(IWC) in Portugal. Their study found that 

nearly 46 percent of the minke whale 

products they examined in Japanese 

markets originated from a coastal 

population, which has distinct genetic 

characteristics, and is protected by 

international agreements. 

Their conclusion: As many as 

150 whales came from the coastal 

population through commercial bycatch 

whaling, and another 150 were taken 

from an open ocean population through 

Japan’s scientific whaling. In some past 

years, Japan only reported about 19 

minke whales killed through bycatch, 

though that number has increased 

recently as new regulations governing 

commercial bycatch have been adopted, 

Baker said. 

Japan is now seeking IWC agreement 

to initiate a small coastal whaling 

program, a proposal which Baker says 

should be scrutinized carefully because 

of the uncertainty of the actual catch 

and the need to determine appropriate 

population counts to sustain the distinct 

stocks.Whales are occasionally killed 

in entanglements with fishing nets and 

the deaths of large whales are reported 

by most member nations of the IWC. 

Japan and South Korea are the only 

countries that allow the commercial 

sale of products killed as “incidental 

bycatch.” The sheer number of whales 

represented by whale-meat products on 

the market suggests that both countries 

have an inordinate amount of bycatch, 

Baker said.“The sale 

of bycatch alone 

supports a lucrative 

trade in whale meat 

at markets in some 

Korean coastal 

cities, where the 

wholesale price of 

an adult minke whale can reach as high 

as $100,000,” Baker said. “Given these 

financial incentives, you have to wonder 

how many of these whales are, in fact, 

killed intentionally.” 

In Japan, whale-meat products 

enter into the commercial supply chain 

that supports the nationwide distribution 

of whale and dolphin products for 

human consumption, including products 

from scientific whaling. However, Baker 

and his colleagues have developed 

genetic methods for identifying the 

species of whale-meat products and 

determining how many individual 

whales may actually have been killed. 

Baker said bycatch whaling also 

serves as a cover for illegal hunting, but 

the level at which it occurs is unknown. 

In January 2008, Korean police launched 

an investigation into organized illegal 

whaling in the port town of Ulsan, he 

said, reportedly seizing 50 tons of minke 

whale meat. 

Other protected species of large 

whales detected in market surveys 

include humpbacks whales, fin whales, 

Bryde’s whales and critically endangered 

western gray whales. The entanglement 

and death of western or Asian gray 

whales is of particular concern given the 

extremely small size of this endangered 

populations, which is estimated at only 

100 individuals. 

It will be published in a forthcoming 

issue of the journal Animal Conservation. 

the wholesale price of 

an adult minke whale 

can reach as high as 

$100,000 



Hatfield Marine Science Center 

2030 SE Marine Science Drive 

Newport, OR 97365 

http://mmi.oregonstate.edu 

Record numbers seen 

The population of California sea lions along the Oregon 

coast appears higher than normal this year. Biologists say 

it happens every few years, and it may be due to El Nino, 

the Pacific Ocean warming cycle. The scientists say El Nino 

has pushed many of the so-called “forage fish” — such 

as herring, squid, hake, sardine and anchovies — north 

from California into Oregon waters. Jim Rice of Oregon 

State University says the OSU Marine Mammal Stranding 

Network has gotten plenty of calls in the past month about 

the sea lions. 

But Rice says don’t worry, the sea lions are not stranded 

— they’re just following the food, and it’s getting a little 

crowded. 

Cover photo by Anthony Lombardi 

Back cover by Craig Hayslip

Newsletter 4 - Marine Mammal Institute - Oregon State University

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