PROJECTS

Since 2012, Oregon State University (OSU) has been conducting tagging and tracking studies on large whales in support of the U.S. Navy’s efforts to meet regulatory requirements for marine mammal monitoring under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The primary goal of these studies has been to determine whale movement patterns, occurrence, and residence times within several Navy training and testing areas in the Pacific Ocean, as reported extensively in a series of previous Technical Reports

This report presents results from field efforts conducted off the coast of northern Washington (NWA) in summer and fall 2019, as well as results from previous OSU studies of humpback whales in southern and central California (SCCA), northern California and Oregon (NCA/OR), and NWA from 2004 to 2018.

This report presents detailed results from the tagging, biopsy sampling, and photo-identification (photo-ID) efforts conducted in the Hawaiian Islands in 2019, as well as results from previous OSU studies of humpback whales in the Hawaiian Islands from 1995 to 2018. Whale use of Navy training and testing areas as well as their use of NMFS-identified Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) in the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska is also examined.

This report presents detailed results from the tagging, biopsy sampling, and photo-identification efforts conducted off the coast of northern Washington and central Oregon in summer 2018, as well as results from previous OSU studies of humpback whales in Oregon in 2016 and 2017. Whale use of Navy training and testing areas as well as their use of NMFS-identified Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) is examined and assignment to various DPSs (based on tracking, genetic, and photographic information) is discussed. Comparisons are made to tracking results from humpback whales tagged by OSU in California in 2004, 2005, and 2017 (presented in Mate et al. 2018a). For the 2018 data, this report also presents detailed dive behavior analyses and ecological relationships between whale locations and oceanographic conditions.

This work is in support of marine species monitoring activities by the United States (US) Navy in its training and testing range complexes in the Pacific Ocean. Specifically, the study seeks to help delineate humpback whale Distinct Population Segments found off the US West Coast, as well as to describe their feeding-season home range, migration to the breeding areas, diving behavior, habitat use, and ecological characteristics.

This Preliminary Summary provides an overview of field survey methodologies as well as initial summaries of the data collected through 1 July 2019. Twenty-five tags were deployed and Argos satellite locations were received from 24 of them.

This report presents detailed results from the tagging, biopsy sampling, and photo-identification (photo-ID) efforts conducted in Hawaii in 2018, as well as results from previous OSU studies of humpback whales in Hawaii from 1995 to 2015. Whale use of Navy training and testing areas as well as their use of NMFS-identified Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) in Hawaii and Alaska is also examined.

The purpose of this Cooperative Agreement between Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest (NAVFAC SW) and Oregon State University (OSU) is to support marine mammal studies in compliance with the Letters of Authorization and Biological Opinions issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to the Navy for activities in all Pacific Ocean testing and training range complexes. With regard to humpback whales, in 2016 NMFS divided the global population into fourteen Distinct Population Segments (DPS) for purposes of listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Four DPS were designated for the North Pacific based on the location of distinct breeding areas (Federal Register 2016a, b): “Western North Pacific”, “Hawaii”, “Mexico”, and “Central America”. The corresponding ESA status is “Endangered” for both the Western North Pacific (estimated at 1,066 animals; Wade 2017) and the Central America DPS (estimated at 783 animals; Wade 2017); “Threatened” for the Mexico DPS (estimated at 2,806 animals; Wade 2017); and “Not Listed” for the Hawaii DPS (estimated at 11,571 animals; Wade 2017) (Federal Register 2016a, b).

This report presents detailed results from the tagging, biopsy sampling, and photo-ID efforts conducted in Hawaii in 2018, as well as results from previous OSU studies of humpback whales in Hawaii from 1995 to 2015. Whale use of Navy training and testing areas as well as their use of NMFS-identified Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) in Hawaii and Alaska is also examined.

This report presents detailed results from the tagging, biopsy sampling, and photo-identification efforts conducted off southern and central California in summer and off Oregon in fall, as well as results from previous OSU studies of humpback whales in California, Oregon, Southeast Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands during 1997–2016.

Through the use of satellite telemetry and genetic analyses, this project will provide greater detail on which subpopulations of humpback whales use the Navy activity areas in the North Pacific Ocean. Satellite tag deployments will occur off California and Oregon/Washington (summer/fall 2017) and Hawaii (winter/spring 2018) to track the migrations of humpback whales throughout the Pacific basin for multiple weeks to multiple months after deployment.

This report details the results of three years (2014-2016) of tracking data for blue and fin whales (Balaenoptera musculus and B. physalus, respecitvely) tagged in southern California waters, as well as one season of tracking data for humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) tagged off the Oregon coast. T

Blue and fin whale tagging efforts took place off the southern and central coast of California during one 30-day cruise aboard the research vessel (R/V) Pacific Storm. Nineteen tags were deployed on blue whales (11 LO, 8 DM) between July 14 and August 3, 2016.