The Whale Museum summer lecture series: Right whale conservation, ecology, and technology

||| FROM TATE THOMPSON for THE WHALE MUSEUM |||

Join us at 7 p.m. on August 11 at The Whale Museum for another fascinating lecture in the 2023 Summer Lecture Series. Dr. Erin Meyer-Gutbrod will be presenting a lecture on right whales. FREE and open to the public!

North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered, with fewer than 350 animals remaining in the species. The primary barriers to the recovery of this baleen whale are ship strikes, fishing gear entanglements and climate-driven redistribution of its prey. Right whales are the focus of significant conservation effort, but insufficient monitoring and modeling has led to policy gaps which contributed to the current NOAA-designated Unexpected Mortality Event. Dr. Erin Meyer-Gutbrod will summarize some recent research that shows how
oceanographic shifts in the previous decade impacted right whale reproduction rates, and led to seasonal changes in habitat use, reducing the efficacy of historic protective policies. The future survival of the species will be best supported with modern technologies, including “on demand” fishing gear, increased use of passive acoustic monitoring, and expansion of real-time alert systems to monitor and communicate right whale presence.

Dr. Erin Meyer-Gutbrod is an Assistant Professor in the School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment at the University of South Carolina. She earned a BS in Physics at the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Earth and Atmospheric Science at Cornell University. She is a quantitative marine ecologist that uses statistical, demographic and spatial models to understand how marine species respond to environmental processes.

Many of Erin’s research projects focus on human impacts to threatened or economically valuable species. Erin also serves on the Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (JEDI) committee for The Oceanography Society and edits a quarterly JEDI column in Oceanography magazine.

For more information, call (360) 378-4710 ext.30. The Whale Museum is located in Friday Harbor at 62 First St. N. Founded in 1976, The Whale Museum’s mission is to promote stewardship of whales through education and research. Learn more at whalemuseum.org.