WEBVTT
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Language: en

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Alright. Aloha mai kakou and welcome. We're 
pleased to have you join us for the Insights into  

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humpback whale use of entire ocean basins gained 
through two large international studies webinar.  

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This series is hosted by the Office of National 
Marine Sanctuaries and as a way to learn about  

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some of the exploration, research and discoveries 
occurring in sanctuaries.  During the presentation  

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all attendees will be in listen only mode. You are 
welcome to type questions for the presenter into  

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the questions box in the bottom of the control 
panel on the right hand side of your screen.  

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This is the same area you can let us know about 
any technical issues you may be having. We will  

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be monitoring incoming questions and technical 
issues and we'll respond to them as soon as we can.  

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Now we are recording this session 
and we'll share the recording with  

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registered participants via email when 
it is available on the ONMS website.

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So I am Cindy Among-Serrao, one of your 
hosts for this webinar. I am contracted by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation 
as the Hawai'i Island program coordinator  

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for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine  
Sanctuary.  My fellow hosts for today is Ed Lyman,  

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the Natural Resource Specialist for the Hawaiian 
Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary  

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as well as Allen Tom, our Superintendent of Hawaiian 
Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.  

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We greatly appreciate any feedback you 
may have that will help us improve the  

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experience, so please take a few minutes to 
complete a short evaluation following this

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webinar.  Alright, so the Office of National Marine 
Sanctuary serves as the trustee for a network  

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of underwater parks encompassing more than 600 
000 square miles of marine and Great Lake waters  

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from Washington State to the Florida Keys 
and from Lake Huron to American Samoa.  

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The network includes a system of 15 marine 
national marine sanctuaries and Papahanamokuakea  

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and Rose Atoll Marine National Monuments 
there is currently a proposed Lake Ontario  

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National Marine Sanctuary and here is a map 
just showing you where all of them are located.   

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So the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries  

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is mandated to conduct research, monitoring, 
resource protection, education, outreach and  

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of course management of America's underwater 
treasures to preserve them for future generations.

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National Marine Sanctuaries are 
living classrooms where people can see  

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touch and learn about the nation's 
Great Lakes and ocean treasures. 

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One moment as the slide loads

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Okay so the next year is very exciting as 
the National Marine Sanctuary system turns  

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50 on October 23rd 2022, so please join us 
throughout the next year as we celebrate  

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the history, accomplishments 
and beauty of these incredible  

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underwater parks across the U.S. I will put in 
the chat the website where you can learn more.

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Alright and then so kind of narrowing down 
on our Sanctuary who's hosting this webinar  

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today. The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale
National Marine Sanctuary was designated in 1992  

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and is jointly managed between NOAA's Office 
of National Marine Sanctuaries and the State  

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of Hawai'i through the Division of Aquatic 
Resources. More than half of the humpback  

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whales in the North Pacific seasonally 
use the waters around the Hawaiian Islands  

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as their principal breeding and calving wintering 
grounds. The bottom left is a map of the Hawaiian  

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islands and the areas outlined and shaded 
are the sanctuary boundaries. The sanctuary's  

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mission is to protect Hawai'i humpback whales 
and this extremely important habitat, through  

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closely aligned education, research and resource 
protection efforts the sanctuary works with the  

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community and our other partners to reduce threats 
to humpback whales including through enforcement.

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Alright so I want to put a little plug in 
tomorrow and Friday, we are hosting a virtual  

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Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Marine 
Sanctuary research symposium. So folks that  

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are interested to learn about some of the projects 
and research that are going to be happening in the  

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upcoming season, feel free to register and you can 
view the agenda and more info via the registration  

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link that I just put in the chat and now I will 
pass it on to Ed Lyman to introduce our speaker.

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Thank you Cindy,  and Aloha everyone well 
I have the great honor of working with Dave  

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Mattila for many years. Both at the Sanctuary, he 
was the Sanctuary's first research coordinator  

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and elsewhere and as such I can say Dave 
Mattila is one of the leaders in the field  

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of not only better understanding the animals 
but also the threats understanding the threats  

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and responding to the animals in that regard. He 
is actually I think one of the pioneers as far as  

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large whale entanglement response and working with 
ship strikes and especially entanglement response.  

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I will say in that regard he's got over 45 
years of experience literally covering the  

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world's oceans on those topics. He is currently 
the technical advisor focused on human impact  

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reduction for whales under the Secretariat 
to the International Whaling Commission  

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and remains a scientist for or at the Center 
for Coastal States. That's where Dave and I first met.  

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Okay where we got our start,  
where I got my start yep  

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thumbs up there. He is also a great speaker and 
a teacher and you're gonna find that out today  

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increasing an all-important outreach towards 
making us all better stewards protecting the  

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animals, the planet and getting people together 
is one another one of David's strong points, he's  

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great at getting people to work together at 
networking. So in short David's footprint here  

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I'm going to do a little analogy in the field 
of whether it's whale research, the response,  

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the outreach is as well figuratively as broad and 
powerful as a whale's flukeprint. I for one consider  

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myself very lucky to have worked with him, he is 
like I said he's been one he's been my co-worker  

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but he's much more than that, he's my 
mentor.  He's been my mentor. He continues to be so  

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he's a dear friend and as such is with great 
pleasure to introduce Dave Mattila, today's speaker  

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for the Sanctuary's Hu'i Kohola, Return of the 
Humpback whales for the month of November events,  

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which as Cindy just mentioned is just the 
start Dave is kicking us off here in many ways  

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even just tomorrow and the next day we 
have a series of talks on research as well  

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through a research symposium but let's get back 
to David's talk on collaborative research.  

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His title is the title of his talk his insights 
into humpback whale use of entire ocean basins  

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gained through two large international studies. 
So please everyone welcome Dave Mattila. 

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Thank you David.  Okay, well, Mahalo Ed and Cindy.   
Thanks so much and and well you said I have  

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leave a large footprint you're talking about 
kicking it off I'm thinking oh boy you know  

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well let's  I'll try to do what I can here 
that you you've set the bar pretty high. So I'm  

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going to well and Aloha to a lot of old friends 
that I think may some people may be on here 

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maybe some someday we'll all get together again 
in Maui or and reminisce but for now   

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let's get right into this presentation that 
the sanctuary asked me to give and let me see here.  

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Cindy or Ed you can tell me if I'm 
if we're not seeing the first slide but  

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(looks good) I'm gonna as Ed said I'm gonna talk about 
two large  studies that I've had the  

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really good fortune to be to participate in  
to be one of the the instigators of and but they  

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they really were carried out by  really 
literally hundreds of people  and  these are  

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I'm talking about the YoNAH project which 
is Years of the north Atlantic humpback  

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and the SPLASH project which is a structure 
of populations levels of abundance and status  

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of humpbacks and some of the key 
steering committee are listed here.  

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But basically I think most of you know that 
humpback whales are are found in all oceans  

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of the world. Generally from the subpolar 
regions to the tropics and the YoNAH project  

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 occurred in the north Atlantic in 1992 and 1993 
and then the SPLASH project was 2004 through 2006.

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The two projects had a common organizational 
structure that is they had a steering steering  

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committees that were made up of experts 
in particular disciplines like genetics  

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and statistics, modeling but also 
regional coordinators for regions  

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that were identified as being the 
key regions around the the ocean basins.

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Both studies were built on existing data from 
long-term studies in the north Atlantic that was  

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the catalog of multiple contributors 
to a a collaborative catalog curated by Allied  

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Whale at the College of the Atlantic 
and but it also we took advantage of  

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at the time I was working at the Center for 
Coastal Studies and  we took advantage of  

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some very detailed  information on long-term 
studies of whales of the Gulf of Maine  

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and I put the plug here for the 
Stellwagen Bank Sanctuary which  

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as it was a key one of the key habitats for 
this this ocean basin study of the north Atlantic.

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And the data in the I don't know for the north 
north Pacific of course a lot of it was from  

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the  the history of great research done 
in Hawai'i but also  a couple of key places   

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in the in other areas of the ocean of the 
north Pacific ocean basin up in southeast  

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Alaska centered around Glacier Bay National 
Park.  Also the West coast of the U.S. work of  

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Cascadia Research Collective and others a 
lot of that taking place in the sanctuaries  

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along the West Coast. Then work in in long-term 
studies of off Mexico in the Revillagigedo islands  

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and the and Baja and also work in Ogasawara 
but so we had a a foundation of data on  

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humpback whale use of particular key habitats 
in both both oceans. We also both studies use  

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similar methodologies that is photo ID and I 
think most of you know the the taking photographs  

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of the underside of the humpback whale's tail, it's 
like a fingerprint and each one is distinct and  

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unique to each individual but we also collected 
small biopsy samples with a crossbow and a  

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dart that for genetic analysis and and other 
analyses as you'll see. Those were  

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common  the fundamental methodologies but 
in SPLASH we also added a bit of looking at  

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 taking photographs for assessment of human 
impacts of the whales and that was something  

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new and something that back in the days of YoNAH
in 1992 and 93 we didn't even think about to try.

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Both studies also used a few big ships but very 
few really to get to some of the areas  

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that up in the you know the Bering 
Sea around 
the Aleutians or off offshore British Columbia  

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 and up in Norway and around Iceland 
and what not using big ships but most of it  

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was conducted by small boats working from 
either from a bigger boat or from land  

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 some of them quite amazing like 
in the lower right there the the work of   

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Joe Assab is in in the Philippines. 
But again it was hundreds of people  

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 some of you if you if I leave this on
long enough might see yourself on there but  

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 it couldn't have been done without 
a really cooperative spirit from 

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from I think in in the North Pacific we figured 
400 researchers from from 10 different countries.

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So in the North Atlantic for the YoNAH 
project we decided  based on the existing  

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data that we would try to sample in Iceland 
Norway Greenland Labrador as well Newfoundland  

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Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Maine.  Those 
were the feeding areas that we would try to get  

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photo IDs and and biopsies and then also  in the 
West Indies breeding ground. Down around the  

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Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. We did think 
about the Cape Verde Islands which historically  

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were a a place where humpback whales were hunted 
and they're at that the time we were designing  

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the study there were some people just beginning to 
work there but they were only finding a handful of  

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whales and so the statisticians told us that in a 
in a winter if we only could get 10 IDs that photo  

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IDs that wasn't going to make a dent and wouldn't 
 was not of wasn't important to sink a lot  

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of resources to try to get samples from there so 
we were mostly focused on these areas in yellow  

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and these were the raw  results 
 basically we identified.  

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Overall in 1992. 1375 whales. In 1993, 1468 
and then the unique animals biopsied  

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were about a thousand each year which was 
unheard of at the time  at that time.  I  

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think most most genetic studies and that were 
getting biopsies were getting you know 10- 20  

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samples so this was a a very intensive 
project to to get this kind of sample size

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and then we did  the the main thing 
that I should say NOAA was a was a major 

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organizer and supporter of both projects and one 
of the main things they wanted to know was and  

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we all wanted to know was how how many are there 
and I was I don't know if all of you know how  

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a simple marker capture works but basically if you 
have a population say that's those black dots of  

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the North Atlantic humpback whales and you photo 
ID the number of whales in that little dotted  

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rectangle.  Then they are technically tagged then 
if you come back the next year and you photograph  

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again some whales the basically the ratio of
the tagged ones to the ones you hadn't seen before  

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is going to give you an idea of the  
population size. So if you photographed 100 whales  

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in the first year and 100 in the second year 
and all 100 were the same then your population's  

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100 but if it's you photograph 100 and 100 
again and only ten of them are the same then  

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the population is roughly a thousand that 
I'm over very oversimplifying but because  

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you have to take into  sampling considerations 
 animals being born animals dying all that kind  

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of thing but that's way was way above my pay grade 
that's why we had the the expert statisticians.  

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So the the results for the YoNAH project were

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basically the best estimate we figured based 
on our we in the YoNAH project we actually tried  

00:16:27.520 --> 00:16:33.680
to gather a lot of information about 
how much time we spent with each sighting  

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how how many times they fluked or didn't fluke and 
what was our likelihood of of getting a photograph  

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and that kind of thing we were really trying to 
see what kind of bias there might be and in the  

00:16:44.160 --> 00:16:50.720
end we felt that the best estimate was 
was to look compare the animals photographed  

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and the feeding ground to those photographed in 
the breeding ground and get your mark recapture  

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that way and the best estimate was 10 600 but 
what we we also did was to thanks to our   

00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:12.160
geneticist Paraparesbo.   At the time was this was 
the first time that anybody was  with whales  

00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:18.000
was looking at microsatellites and really 
 getting individual being able to identify  

00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:24.640
individuals genetically for whales and you know 
it took forever back then there weren't any other  

00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:30.000
robots doing it and we were all pulling our hair 
going what is this graduate student doing damn it  

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:36.640
 but in the end what it meant was that we 
were able to do a mark recapture using genetic  

00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:44.880
tags not the photo ID and that was interesting 
because we were able to look at and compare  

00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:50.880
the differences between males and females because 
we could identify the sex genetically and   

00:17:51.520 --> 00:17:57.760
and what that meant was that the the best 
estimate for the West Indies breeding ground was  

00:17:57.760 --> 00:18:04.720
to actually just estimate the number of males and 
then multiply it by two because we knew from our  

00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:14.480
sampling everywhere else that the sex ratio is 50 
50. So and I'll get into that in a second  

00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:19.920
we start to examine why was that happening and this slide if you look at this number here  

00:18:21.040 --> 00:18:27.120
the estimate for females in the breeding 
ground was much lower than males and we were  

00:18:27.120 --> 00:18:33.680
wondering well what is that all about and 
so we looked at the behavior differences between  

00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:39.920
the males and the females and I you probably can't 
see this I apologize for this but the upper  

00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:50.000
graphic is the timing of females that were 
seen in each in both winters and as it turns out  

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:57.680
the ones that were on these on right on or near 
the line were were seen almost to the day the  

00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.760
the following winter they were seeing you know say January 10th on one winter and then January  

00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:09.440
close to January 10th the next winter so there 
seemed to be a significant trend there while  

00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:15.360
the males that's the lower graphic we're more 
random and some of that has to do with males  

00:19:15.360 --> 00:19:23.680
we we do believe based on historical data  stay 
in the breeding grounds longer than the females  

00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:29.920
and so the females seem to  show up for a short 
time and that that short time they showed up was  

00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:37.840
kind of tended to be close to the same time 
each year we also look by the way at the  how  

00:19:38.800 --> 00:19:45.840
 whales from different feeding areas came 
through in the breeding area and I 

00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:53.600
apologize this this graphic isn't exactly may 
not be very helpful for you but what this shows  

00:19:54.160 --> 00:20:01.760
is that the the whales that were coming from 
further away like coming from Greenland  

00:20:01.760 --> 00:20:06.640
and Iceland and Norway tended to come through 
later in the season in the winter breeding  

00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:11.200
season than the whales that were coming from 
the from Stellwagen Bank and from Canada.  

00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:19.840
So these were some biases in the in the the use 
of the area that we had to take into consideration.

00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:24.080
So what what did we end up with? Well we found   

00:20:25.600 --> 00:20:35.760
that genetically there was a genetically 
distinct population a different population in  

00:20:35.760 --> 00:20:41.040
up in the Eastern North Atlantic and 
that these whales did not seem to  

00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:45.600
be going to the West Indies breeding ground 
we didn't know where they went but we assumed  

00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:53.200
it was to Cape Verde islands and to the off 
the West Coast of Africa this had implications as  

00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:58.400
you'll see for both the Atlantic and the Pacific 
this has implications for management when you  

00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:03.680
have whales that are genetically distinct 
mixing with other whales in in the same area.

00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:15.840
That information did feed into the recent or 
well not not so recent anymore biological review  

00:21:16.560 --> 00:21:25.360
of the status of humpbacks to help identify the 
most likely distinct population segments which  

00:21:25.360 --> 00:21:32.160
is what the US choose that's how they manage the 
 the species is by distinct population segments  

00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:40.320
and so we basically have two breeding 
the the data suggests is or is most  

00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:45.200
consistent with two separate breeding stocks 
and some mixing on the on the feeding grounds.

00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:55.200
Some other things that happened because 
of this this international work is that  

00:21:56.800 --> 00:22:05.280
not only did we learn about the interconnectedness 
of  the whales and their use their use of the  

00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:11.840
waters of many different countries but we also 
learned of the interconnectedness of humans  

00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:21.040
and so we it helped to foster a 
spirit of cooperation which inspired and  

00:22:21.040 --> 00:22:25.920
eventually motivated the sister sanctuary 
agreement between Stellagen Bank  

00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:30.720
and Silver Bank, which Silver Bank is off the 
north coast of the Dominican Republic and is the  

00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:37.840
principal breeding area for Western North 
Atlantic Humpbacks. That has since grown into  

00:22:37.840 --> 00:22:47.280
a cooperative or a an agreement between 
several places in besides Stellwagen Bank  

00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:53.040
also the Agoa sanctuary and the French 
Antilles also they're the Dutch  

00:22:54.400 --> 00:23:00.960
Caribbean and Bermuda as a as a way point between 
the breeding and the feeding areas so there's a  

00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:07.840
an agreement a partnership 
between those areas.

00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:15.840
And I think I'm going to Cindy if 
what I was going to do is pause after  

00:23:15.840 --> 00:23:22.800
 three times two two times in the middle and 
once at the end if anybody had any questions and  

00:23:22.800 --> 00:23:30.160
I don't know Cindy has anybody typed in any 
questions in the chat or about the YoNAH project  

00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:37.680
Or yeah basically about the YoNAH project.  Yeah 
Hey David we did get a couple questions.  

00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:45.280
So one question is: Given that the worldwide 
population has risen since these studies were done  

00:23:45.280 --> 00:23:50.320
is the basic premise of where they go 
and what they're doing still the same? 

00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:58.320
That's a that's a good question I think 
the I think we're learning that or it  

00:23:58.320 --> 00:24:05.760
appears that they are beginning to re-colonize 
habitats  at least that's what the data is most  

00:24:05.760 --> 00:24:12.240
consistent with as as you know the obviously 
YoNAH was done now 30 years ago practically  

00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:20.160
 the whales are starting to repopulate areas 
like for instance off the coast of New York City  

00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:28.400
and they're showing up in 
some other places as well so but 

00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:38.480
by and large the this the main feeding 
areas still seem to be the same as are the main  

00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:43.600
breeding areas so there there's also some more 
 complicating factors that we're learning for  

00:24:43.600 --> 00:24:48.080
instance there is movement of humpback whales 
between the Cape Verde's and the Caribbean  

00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:54.240
so we don't you know you always ask the 
geneticists well how do they maintain their  

00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:59.120
genetic distinctness and they go well you 
know they mumble and we don't know but it  

00:24:59.120 --> 00:25:04.480
may be time maybe an issue of timing they just 
there may be something it's something that's  

00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:08.240
happening with a number of humpback whale 
populations throughout the world where they  

00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:17.040
genetically distinct breeding populations might 
swim through the breeding grounds of another group  

00:25:17.040 --> 00:25:25.760
and yet not intermingle but that's that's for you 
know someone now starting out can can discover  

00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:31.360
why that is I think we're that's a that's a 
tough one and another another question Cindy ? 

00:25:32.320 --> 00:25:39.680
Yeah so next question. To what extent 
do prevailing ocean currents or gyros  

00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:46.000
tend to isolate distinct humpback populations 
is that a common reason for genetic isolation  

00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:55.840
or etc? I don't think we know that. I'm 
trying to think of anywhere in the world 

00:25:57.360 --> 00:26:04.000
where we could say that that was the cause 
there are certainly physical barriers and  

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:09.040
I'll show you in a moment or 
in a while  towards the end here  

00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:18.560
some of this work in the North Atlantic has 
 allowed looking into the past and how whales  

00:26:18.560 --> 00:26:27.600
have adapted to periods of glaciation and 
climate change and there's it's certainly  

00:26:28.560 --> 00:26:32.400
the evidence from that is that it can 
make  it can make a difference about  

00:26:33.840 --> 00:26:37.760
there are environment environmental factors that 
make a difference other than the water the water  

00:26:37.760 --> 00:26:46.000
temperature things like physical boundaries 
and the either the homogenous  

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:52.480
homogeneousness of or the homogeneity excuse me 
of the of the of the food or the if there's a  

00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:59.200
of a great variety of food but so I don't 
think I can point to any any place where we  

00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:06.320
say yeah this current kept this this 
group isolated but they do have  

00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:11.040
it in they do have an influence in the big 
picture I think that's maybe safe to say.  

00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:18.560
Okay any others or I should probably move on there 
are a few other questions but I think we'll try  

00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:30.160
and save them for the next Q and A period. Okay okay 
 so the SPLASH project was really 

00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:35.760
instigated by the the Sanctuary, the Hawaiian 
island sanctuary when I was there we we thought  

00:27:35.760 --> 00:27:42.720
hey let's I we knew that that the researchers 
in the North Pacific wanted to do something  

00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:48.160
similar to the YoNAH project to to get a handle 
on what was going on in the big picture and so  

00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:53.840
in 2003 we invited what became 
this the steering committee for the  

00:27:54.400 --> 00:28:00.480
for the SPLASH project to Kihei and 
that's where we planned the project

00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:06.800
the at the time  the

00:28:09.360 --> 00:28:13.600
the the conventional wisdom was that 
there were three basic stocks. The  

00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:21.840
Eastern pacific, Central pacific and Western 
pacific and that was about the  

00:28:21.840 --> 00:28:30.640
extent of it at that time. We did these are 
the areas where we established sampling along the  

00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:39.040
coast of Mexico, Central America Mexico US, Alaska 
and Russia and the Philippines and  

00:28:39.040 --> 00:28:46.320
Japan and these are the raw results even  
more impressive than the YoNAH project 10  

00:28:46.320 --> 00:28:57.840
000 individuals identified and over 5500 skins 
skin samples for genetic genetic analysis.

00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:08.080
And what we got was a this is the this is 
a arrow showing some of the major movement by  

00:29:08.080 --> 00:29:14.560
identified individuals photographically identified 
individuals and it as you can see it sort of  

00:29:14.560 --> 00:29:21.360
looks like what we thought but it's actually more 
complicated some of the whales off of Mexico  

00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:26.480
we're going way over to even to either Eastern 
Aleutians excuse me Western Aleutians in Russia

00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:32.720
and so it was it was a complicated picture

00:29:35.040 --> 00:29:40.960
and what we also realized is that some of 
the whales that were being photographed  

00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:46.000
here in the Bering sea were not showing up 
anywhere anywhere in the in the winter  

00:29:46.560 --> 00:29:54.640
and the best explanation for that was that 
there's some breeding area between Hawai'i  

00:29:55.280 --> 00:30:03.440
and Japan and the Philippines that housed 
this or hosted a significant number of whales  

00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:07.040
maybe spread out over a lot of 
little seamounts and and islands but  

00:30:07.600 --> 00:30:12.560
but a distinct breeding breeding 
ground that that we didn't know about.

00:30:15.520 --> 00:30:18.320
So anyway the the mark recapture results  

00:30:19.280 --> 00:30:24.880
for the North Pacific all came 
in at around 20 000 at that time

00:30:28.320 --> 00:30:28.820
and

00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:38.320
and it also  based on existing previous data 
seem to be increasing at about somewhere  

00:30:38.320 --> 00:30:44.320
between five and seven percent which is a 
the the highest documented has been on the coast  

00:30:44.320 --> 00:30:50.800
of Australia both I think both the east and west 
coast where they're they've documented ten percent  

00:30:50.800 --> 00:30:58.000
but it five to seven as much is more is a more 
common population growth rate documented in  

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:04.400
most popular in most of the populations.  So then 
the question was well okay if we put together the  

00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:13.440
genetic analysis done by Scott Baker and his group 
 that's these colored pies showing the haplotype  

00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:18.880
composition of the of the of 
regions along with the movements.  

00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:25.120
I put this here to intentionally show you that 
it's kind of kind of difficult and complex  

00:31:25.120 --> 00:31:31.840
 but in in looking at it the 
group felt that there were basically a  

00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:40.400
unique Central American population down here in 
the lower right there was Mexican whales   

00:31:40.400 --> 00:31:50.000
that were breeding off Mexico Hawai'i and then 
the Western Pacific Japan and that's Okinawa  

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:56.320
and Philippines but Ogasawara was slightly 
different which is a more of an offshore island  

00:31:57.520 --> 00:32:04.240
 but that's was what the the data 
was suggesting was our  distinct  

00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:14.080
population segments based on the SPLASH
data and that basically was used  

00:32:15.040 --> 00:32:23.600
by NOAA in in the the status review of 
humpbacks and those were agreed as the distinct  

00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:30.880
population segment Central America Mexico Hawai'i 
Western Pacific and then this this sort of  

00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:36.640
mix of unknown breeding area of Ogasawara
and then going to these these feeding areas.

00:32:39.840 --> 00:32:46.720
So that's the  basic population 
results in a you know very quick and dirty in a  

00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:51.760
summary. But there were other things 
that came out of out of these projects  

00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:59.840
that I think  well all of it is has I think 
I think helps stimulate further questions and  

00:32:59.840 --> 00:33:06.720
further studies and and greater insights into 
what's going on and one of those we had  

00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:15.280
a graduate student that at the time Christina 
Else who looked at toxins for   

00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:21.600
the for the Pacific from the SPLASH samples 
that's here on the right and we were able to  

00:33:21.600 --> 00:33:27.120
get her some samples from the Gulf of Maine 
in the Atlantic and you can see the   

00:33:27.760 --> 00:33:35.680
those were those are had higher toxic loads to 
put it give you a reference  these this dotted  

00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:42.480
line is where PCB's affect  immune function in 
river otter and then up here is where it affects  

00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:47.760
the reproduction. Nobody's been able 
to look at that that I'm that I'm aware of 

00:33:47.760 --> 00:33:54.560
the effect on baleen whale reproduction 
that's just out of our capability at this point  

00:33:54.560 --> 00:34:01.360
but you can see that the Pacific populations were 
were fairly low at least based on those thresholds.

00:34:03.840 --> 00:34:14.560
Right there also this the YoNAH samples have 
been used to stimulate a study of looking into  

00:34:14.560 --> 00:34:24.640
the past and the population basically looked 
looking at population changes growth and shrinkage  

00:34:24.640 --> 00:34:31.440
of populations of of eight baleen whale species 
over a time per period of thirty thousand years  

00:34:31.440 --> 00:34:38.320
through the last period of  the great of great 
glaciation and I'm not going to go into this  

00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:44.480
in detail because it's kind of still embargoed but 
however just actually now an hour and a half ago  

00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:48.800
I got an email that said that the paper's been 
accepted for a publication. So you can keep an  

00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:54.480
eye out for this but it did we were able to 
look this is Per Pausible and his students  

00:34:54.480 --> 00:35:00.560
primarily looked at seven different types 
of prey and their genetic diversity and  

00:35:00.560 --> 00:35:07.120
and looking at their past through the genetics 
and comparing that with the with the whales and  

00:35:07.120 --> 00:35:13.440
found that I think the take-home messages are 
that actually with the during the period of the  

00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:21.600
of glaciers this light blue the populations 
were  smaller because there was  

00:35:21.600 --> 00:35:30.640
less habitat  and to some degree and there 
was other environmental factors at the  

00:35:30.640 --> 00:35:36.560
time but when they melted during what this period 
of eight point two thousand years ago the  

00:35:36.560 --> 00:35:44.000
 was in a a warming of sort of rapid 
warming trend it did stimulate the growth of  

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:51.280
food populations and therefore growth of  of the 
baleen whale populations but that the take  

00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:58.800
home from this is that the the changes are very 
long lasting and take a long time. The other  

00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:03.360
take-home message is over here on the right that 
there was quite a difference between the North  

00:36:04.160 --> 00:36:11.600
Atlantic and the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern 
Hemisphere is much more homogenous mostly just  

00:36:11.600 --> 00:36:21.920
krill-based ecosystem while the North Atlantic is 
is more their greater diversity of currents and  

00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:27.360
prey and what have you so it gets a little bit 
of the question about currents isolating and and  

00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:32.000
and I so when this comes out 
it's going to be in Global Change  

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.720
Biology you can take a look 
at it and see what you think.

00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:43.680
Also in the SPLASH project as I mentioned we 
it was we decided that we were going to  

00:36:43.680 --> 00:36:52.240
try to look at through photographs look at 
other impacts to  human caused impacts to the  

00:36:52.240 --> 00:36:58.080
whales. The humpback whales of the North Pacific 
and one of those was to look at the wounds from  

00:36:58.080 --> 00:37:03.760
entanglements which is was something that had 
just been starting to happen in the here in  

00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:09.040
the Gulf of Maine with right whales and humpback 
whales and basically we asked all the researchers  

00:37:09.040 --> 00:37:15.040
to take lateral photographs of the tail 
stock as the whale as the humpback whale dove  

00:37:15.040 --> 00:37:22.320
and looking for notches and wrapping scars 
to get a sense of how many of them had  

00:37:23.600 --> 00:37:29.920
gotten into entanglements and survived 
and so this was an attempt to do a systematic  

00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:38.160
 view of this across an entire ocean basin 
these kinds of studies so far have found  

00:37:38.160 --> 00:37:44.960
that the interaction of humpback whales with 
ropes and nets in the water is much greater  

00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:51.280
than and had previously been known and was 
greatly underestimated most of the studies show  

00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:59.280
anywhere from 20 to 80 percent of populations are 
scar have scarring in the Gulf of Maine it's  

00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:03.840
somewhere between somewhere around now about 15 
percent of the animals get new wounds every year

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:12.640
less than 10 percent of those reported reported 
to any kind of rescue or or reporting network  

00:38:13.920 --> 00:38:20.000
and Dr. Jouke
Robbins was able to take this  

00:38:20.720 --> 00:38:26.560
and look this the animals getting 
new scars every new wounds everywhere year  

00:38:26.560 --> 00:38:33.360
and estimated a an annual mortality due to 
entanglement of about three percent which  

00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:38.320
if your population is growing at five to 
seven percent that's a significant issue.  

00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:44.560
So it it did appear that it's the primary threat 
to most stocks and so from the SPLASH project

00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:50.560
Dr. Robbins did a analysis of the  

00:38:50.560 --> 00:38:54.400
photographs that we had and basically 
these pie charts or these pies

00:38:56.720 --> 00:39:02.240
the size of the pie is the size of the sample 
of good photographs and then the black is the  

00:39:02.240 --> 00:39:07.840
percentage in that area the percentage that 
showed scars from entanglement and so you can  

00:39:07.840 --> 00:39:13.840
see there is nowhere where they didn't 
show significant entanglement scarring  

00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:22.400
and so for the that U.S, the 
status review of humpback whales  

00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:28.320
fish entanglement in fishing gear was 
highlighted as the the most urgent or the  

00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:34.240
most significant immediate threat anyway to all of 
the different populations really around the world.

00:39:39.040 --> 00:39:44.880
So i think I'm going to pause again 
Cindy and that's kind of the end of  

00:39:44.880 --> 00:39:49.200
the SPLASH project and see whether 
people have questions about that.

00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:56.080
Yeah so there are a lot of great questions 
coming in thanks everyone keep them  

00:39:56.080 --> 00:40:02.800
coming in but for now let me 
just kind of filter through them all.  

00:40:03.680 --> 00:40:13.040
So one question is:  So SPLASH occurred around 
15 years ago is there any progress on finding the  

00:40:13.040 --> 00:40:19.120
missing breeding ground and kind of merging that 
with another question: Has there been any telemetry  

00:40:19.120 --> 00:40:25.120
work to determine the missing breeding ground ? 
Well of course I skipped town right after the  

00:40:25.120 --> 00:40:31.840
SPLASH project and and started working and 
kind of left the North Pacific but I

00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:37.600
and I'm sure there's some people who are 
watching this I think Alan Ligons on here  

00:40:37.600 --> 00:40:43.600
I believe he's been working and in one of 
those areas that might possibly be a  

00:40:43.600 --> 00:40:49.760
that part of that missing breeding 
ground I'm not aware of tagging  

00:40:50.640 --> 00:40:56.400
and you know what if I'm wrong about that 
I'll send out an email with a correction  

00:40:56.960 --> 00:41:02.160
and  a link to whoever might be tagging I'm 
not aware of people tagging in the Bering sea  

00:41:02.720 --> 00:41:11.440
and the and the Western Aleutian islands it's 
tough place to tag that might that those would  

00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:16.080
be the animals that you'd want to try to tag to 
see where they go in the Winter I don't know  

00:41:16.080 --> 00:41:22.400
Ed if Ed is there do you are you aware 
of anybody tagging whales that are going  

00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:30.000
somewhere between the Hawai'i and the Japan ? 
No David , I'm not aware of anything.  Okay  

00:41:30.640 --> 00:41:35.040
well we may just be showing your ignorance but i 
think if if somebody if we do hear of it I'll 

00:41:35.040 --> 00:41:41.600
make sure Cindy can circulate it to people  
as far as there's  there's an attempt now  

00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:49.120
to do a a a kind of a follow-up to SPLASH to get 
to get a a trend of what's going you know what's  

00:41:49.120 --> 00:41:56.320
happened since then that's part of
what will be a comprehensive assessment of  

00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:03.680
North Pacific Humpbacks for the International 
Whaling Commission. Any other question Cindy ?  

00:42:05.200 --> 00:42:10.640
Yeah so there are several of them sorry 
I'm filtering through them now. 

00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:21.120
All right one easy one is so what is the North 
Pacific population currently? Well that's not that  

00:42:21.120 --> 00:42:27.760
easy because.  Well I guess you could figure 
it out if you if it was 20 000 in 2005 and it's  

00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:34.080
if it has continued to grow at five five to seven 
percent let's say six percent  I'll let somebody  

00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:39.360
else do the math but that might give you a potent 
that would give you a ballpark figure of what  

00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:48.400
it might be  I'm not aware of anyone that has 
done a a recent mark recapture estimate to you  

00:42:48.400 --> 00:42:54.160
know on its own standing on its own to be able to 
compare with that done by SPLASH. I think that's  

00:42:54.960 --> 00:43:00.160
 they may be trying to do that with what 
they're calling the SPLASH 2 project but I  

00:43:00.160 --> 00:43:05.840
don't I'm I'm not sure I don't think they don't 
have those results yet they're working on that.

00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:14.160
Actually that's great for mentioning SPLASH 2 
because I know some folk there was a question  

00:43:14.160 --> 00:43:20.960
regarding SPLASH 2 and of course others were 
wondering if they're going to be same projects  

00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:26.400
similar to SPLASH or YoNAH in the Southern 
Hemisphere I know that was another question.  

00:43:27.120 --> 00:43:35.040
Well there actually there was a or there 
is a something that the Australian government  

00:43:35.600 --> 00:43:42.880
started called the SORP project, a Southern 
Ocean Research Partnership and  there's also  

00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:49.440
the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium and 
this so  the with regard to humpback whales,  

00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:56.960
the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium 
has been a collaborative effort to  

00:43:57.680 --> 00:44:01.760
get market capture and genetic information of 
humpback whales throughout the South Pacific  

00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:10.400
and that has come up with like boy I 
think the most recent official estimate is not  

00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:17.040
that new at probably five to ten years old about 
three thousand whales and that's people working  

00:44:17.040 --> 00:44:28.640
in like American Samoa and Samoa and Tonga 
and New Caledonia and Tahiti and French Polynesia  

00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:36.160
they did attempt by folding that into 
the Southern Ocean Research Partnership  

00:44:37.200 --> 00:44:42.080
they did attempt to get some photo ID and biopsy 
of humpback whales around Antarctic in the summer  

00:44:42.080 --> 00:44:47.280
time but I think it was I don't know the status 
of that I know the first season was pretty tough  

00:44:47.280 --> 00:44:57.440
that's a tough place to work and but 
there is there are efforts to do  

00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:05.840
similar oceanic collaborative projects in the 
in the South Pacific and also actually well  

00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:12.400
they're definitely in in the Arabian Sea which is 
a whole nother a whole nother issue that's  

00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:20.880
a separate population that doesn't migrate and 
there's a very passionate and well  sort of  

00:45:20.880 --> 00:45:28.480
coordinated or or well complementary 
work work being done in the in the Arabian

00:45:28.480 --> 00:45:36.240
Sea.  Awesome and I think we'll have just one 
more question and then we'll move forward with  

00:45:36.240 --> 00:45:41.360
your presentation since you have the slide up 
on the severity of current or imminent threats  

00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:51.520
to humpback whales by DPS.  So one question is 
How they're curious to know how is whale  

00:45:51.520 --> 00:46:00.560
watching a threat and also curious as to why 
whaling is only a one threat? Because this  

00:46:00.560 --> 00:46:08.400
was obviously if whaling were actually occurring 
it would be a higher threat but it's it's  

00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:16.080
only there's only aboriginal subsistence 
whaling in the West Indies and so it's 

00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:22.240
that's why it's good that's why I believe that's 
why it's a low threat if it were if it were  

00:46:22.240 --> 00:46:30.480
planned to start up again then I think 
that then it would obviously be a two or three. 

00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:44.560
I hope that answers that .Okay so I'll  finish 
up here with some other outgrowths of these  

00:46:44.560 --> 00:46:52.640
two studies and some of that is  related 
to the International Whaling Commission what I've  

00:46:52.640 --> 00:46:57.120
been working on the the International Whaling 
Commission is a it's a treaty of 89 countries  

00:46:57.760 --> 00:47:05.520
to  to manage whale populations 
globally and the mission is a  

00:47:05.520 --> 00:47:13.680
both conservation but also  obviously 
to manage whaling but given that that  

00:47:14.960 --> 00:47:22.320
out of all both of these projects we were seeing 
that entanglement was a major threat to  

00:47:23.040 --> 00:47:29.520
 populations of humpback whales and other whales 
around the world. The IWC in 2010 we we hosted  

00:47:29.520 --> 00:47:36.480
a workshop in Maui at the at the time it was the 
new Center there and we had folks from around  

00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:42.560
the world who had information about  the scope 
and impact of large whale entanglement we reviewed  

00:47:42.560 --> 00:47:47.360
the data at the time that was being submitted to 
the International Whaling Commission and saw that  

00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:54.160
that all species of of large whales have 
been reported entangled in man-made ropes  

00:47:54.160 --> 00:47:58.720
and nets at some time but the most 
reported are Minke and Humpback whales  

00:47:59.440 --> 00:48:07.520
 as you can see here on this. As to what type of 
gear if you've talked to Ed you know that it's  

00:48:07.520 --> 00:48:13.680
that he pulls all kinds of stuff off of these 
whales  and with regard but probably  

00:48:14.720 --> 00:48:21.360
90, 98 percent of it is is fishing gear either 
actively fished or or some of it  

00:48:21.360 --> 00:48:32.640
derelict but the majority is actively fished 
gear whoops whoa and  this this here  

00:48:32.640 --> 00:48:37.280
I don't know if you can see the FAO gear type this 
is gill net and drift kill net those are the that  

00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:45.360
and fish pots around the world are the are the 
dominant entanglement risk to humpback whales.

00:48:47.520 --> 00:48:51.200
And as far as where it happens 
unfortunately it can it seems to be  

00:48:51.200 --> 00:48:56.480
it can happen anywhere from in the feeding 
ground where there probably is more likely to  

00:48:56.480 --> 00:49:01.840
run into gear but they can also run into gear 
while migrating or even on on the breeding grounds.

00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:11.440
So because we realized that this was a a 
severe threat and a number of countries asked  

00:49:11.440 --> 00:49:17.280
for capacity building we held a second workshop 
here in Providencetown, Cape Cod at the Center for  

00:49:17.280 --> 00:49:22.640
Coastal Studies to come up with some principles 
and guidelines for responding to entangled whales  

00:49:23.200 --> 00:49:29.680
and also we developed a strategy and a curriculum 
for training and so that's what I've been doing  

00:49:29.680 --> 00:49:35.840
a fair amount since really for the last 10 years 
is helping to build capacity around the world  

00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:39.680
 to respond  to reports 
of an entangled large whales  

00:49:40.320 --> 00:49:47.440
and doing that with with the help of folk great 
folks like Ed. Those courses are two days the first  

00:49:47.440 --> 00:49:52.800
day in the in the classroom and on land and the 
second day with simulated trainings on the water.

00:49:55.840 --> 00:50:00.800
And so far that this initiative which is a 
partnership initiative between the International  

00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:05.520
Whaling Commission and the Center for Coastal 
Studies here on Cape Cod has trained about 1200  

00:50:05.520 --> 00:50:13.120
people from 34 different countries including some 
that may surprise you.  Countries like I've  

00:50:13.120 --> 00:50:18.720
done trainings in Greenland to where I trained 
some of the whalers to how to release whales and  

00:50:18.720 --> 00:50:26.800
trapped in fishing gear.  Also in Norway and in 
Japan we've done a training but a awful lot in  

00:50:26.800 --> 00:50:33.040
Latin America very very  passionate requests 
there this is these little stars are are the  

00:50:33.040 --> 00:50:38.160
ones with the yellow cores are ones where we've 
done the training the the other dark cores are  

00:50:38.160 --> 00:50:45.920
where our teams that already existed but we all 
communicate and and help each other work together. 

00:50:49.760 --> 00:50:55.280
The other thing that I mentioned that has 
come out of these studies for the International  

00:50:55.280 --> 00:51:00.880
Whaling Commission is a comprehensive 
assessment of North Atlantic humpback whales  

00:51:00.880 --> 00:51:08.720
 this was back in 2001 after the results 
of the the YoNAH project were available and  

00:51:09.440 --> 00:51:18.480
what the scientific committee of the IWC realized 
is that for Iceland which wanted to potentially  

00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:27.520
start hunting humpbacks they had a population of 
genetically distinct a very small population of  

00:51:27.520 --> 00:51:33.680
genetically distinct animals that were feeding in 
the same area with the other with a with a larger  

00:51:33.680 --> 00:51:39.760
population. The larger population would goes to the 
West Indies but this genetically distinct group  

00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:45.120
goes to the probably the Cape Verde in Western 
Africa and so unless they could tell them apart  

00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:52.640
then the management advice at the time was you 
know if you can't tell them apart you shouldn't  

00:51:52.640 --> 00:51:58.240
hunt because you might be taking some from this 
very small genetically distinct population.

00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:07.520
There's also now an ongoing comprehensive 
assessment of North Pacific Humpbacks. I

00:52:07.520 --> 00:52:12.000
won't go into that in in great detail but 
it's mostly based on a awful lot of the  

00:52:12.560 --> 00:52:20.000
is based on the SPLASH data taking a look 
at at the structure and the numbers of   

00:52:20.880 --> 00:52:27.200
for each each population or each distinct 
population segment. And then and then finally  

00:52:27.200 --> 00:52:31.840
 one of the unique linkages and one 
of the another one of these curious  

00:52:33.200 --> 00:52:39.120
situations is that the the breeding 
population off Central America

00:52:41.920 --> 00:52:47.840
is genetically distinct small may actually 
be a place where there's some overflow from  

00:52:47.840 --> 00:52:55.200
the South Pacific some genetic overflow so 
it's a very important population but it goes  

00:52:55.200 --> 00:53:00.720
up to the West Coast of the United States and 
feeds off of California and off the West Coast  

00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:09.600
and there it mixes with the population of whales 
that are breeding off of off of Mexico 

00:53:09.600 --> 00:53:16.160
that's a that's a healthier population so I not 
sure exactly how Fisheries is dealing with it I 

00:53:16.160 --> 00:53:22.080
believe that they have to take into consideration 
that you know if 20 humpback whales are killed by  

00:53:22.720 --> 00:53:26.560
entanglement and fishing gear they have to assume 
that a certain percentage of those may be from  

00:53:26.560 --> 00:53:34.000
this highly not highly endangered or or this 
small unique population so they have to manage the  

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:40.480
population and manage the fishing taking those 
things into consideration and so that's been a  

00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:45.680
I know that was a real headache for Fsheries 
but it is that's the reality of the these  

00:53:45.680 --> 00:53:51.120
population the what these humpbacks are doing these 
sort of almost like overlapping herds of distinct  

00:53:52.240 --> 00:53:58.080
 populations and another thing coming out 
of this because of the uniqueness of this  

00:53:58.080 --> 00:54:03.920
population is that the governments of in 
particular it's it's being advanced by Mexico  

00:54:04.560 --> 00:54:12.080
are working with Guatemala, El Salvador 
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and the U.S to  

00:54:12.080 --> 00:54:19.200
develop a concept an IWC conservation management 
plan for that population which would mean a  

00:54:19.200 --> 00:54:27.840
an agreement between those those range states  
to  try to manage cooperatively to take into  

00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:33.040
consideration what's going on in each country 
 for this population to help it recover.  

00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:41.680
So that's I think that's yeah that's some of it 
some of what has come out of these studies  

00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:51.840
and so I guess Cindy we're open to  final 
questions and you're and you're summing up.

00:54:55.120 --> 00:55:01.440
Excellent.  Alright so Mahalo folks for submitting 
all those questions. We'll get to if we have a  

00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:07.600
few minutes for a couple and then I'm going to do 
some wrap-up slides as David has mentioned. So one  

00:55:07.600 --> 00:55:17.520
question that we have is: How does IWC support 
tech development to reduce whale entanglement  

00:55:18.400 --> 00:55:22.080
an example ropeless pot 
systems, real-time alerts etc.?   

00:55:23.440 --> 00:55:30.720
Actually thank you for that question or 
Mahalo for that question.  Sorry. The   

00:55:32.240 --> 00:55:44.400
the IWC is evolving to take a to take what I
think is safe to say is a more holistic view  

00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:53.120
of its management responsibilities and you 
know it was mostly for several decades focused on  

00:55:53.840 --> 00:56:00.160
just the whaling but if you read the the 
language of the agreement there is a mandate  

00:56:00.160 --> 00:56:08.240
for conservation for helping any helping 
recoveries help helping populations recover.  

00:56:09.520 --> 00:56:17.120
The scientific committee has determined that 
entanglement is probably the major roadblock to  

00:56:17.120 --> 00:56:24.320
most populations recovery not a not necessarily 
a insurmountable roadblock but it's an it's a  

00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:29.920
it's probably the biggest 
immediate issue for them and so  

00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:39.360
a couple of countries proposed a by-catch 
mitigation initiative and so there is a  we  

00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:48.640
now have Belgium heads up a standing working 
group on by-catch and the secretariat has hired   

00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:56.800
an amazing coordinator  Marguerite Tarzia who 
coordinates the by-catch mitigation initiative  

00:56:57.600 --> 00:57:05.840
and that she's putting in proposals now 
for hopefully large sums of money to help 

00:57:05.840 --> 00:57:12.560
demonstration projects studies of exactly 
what the the question was about what you know 

00:57:12.560 --> 00:57:18.720
to help determine what are the what 
are the greatest risks and and what are the what  

00:57:18.720 --> 00:57:23.920
can help mitigate those and I can tell you 
from my work going around the world training  

00:57:23.920 --> 00:57:30.400
people to respond to entangled whales a lot 
of the fishermen are desperate especially in  

00:57:31.120 --> 00:57:38.160
in countries where it's subsistence fishing 
 for instance in in Peru the the fishermen  

00:57:38.160 --> 00:57:43.760
came to me said we you know we're losing 
gear, our livelihoods what can we do  

00:57:43.760 --> 00:57:49.760
to help to prevent whales from getting into 
our nets and so there's a there's a a very   

00:57:51.600 --> 00:57:57.280
there's a there's a both a there's a conservation 
need for the populations, there's an animal  

00:57:57.280 --> 00:58:03.680
welfare need it's a horrible way for an animal to 
die and there's there's a socio-economic need for  

00:58:04.400 --> 00:58:11.760
 for fishermen around the world to 
be able to put you know put food on the table  

00:58:11.760 --> 00:58:18.640
for their families. So it's a and that's what 
Margarites working on with a little help  

00:58:18.640 --> 00:58:24.880
from me but mostly that she's
doing that and there is an expert panel  

00:58:25.520 --> 00:58:34.800
of experts from around the world who can advise 
on projects and and on technologies. I hope  

00:58:34.800 --> 00:58:44.400
that helps answer it a little bit oh if you 
go to the IWC website that's www.iwc.int

00:58:45.040 --> 00:58:46.880
and you look for the by catch mitigation  

00:58:46.880 --> 00:58:52.320
initiative you'll get a little bit of 
information there anyway thanks. Cindy?

00:58:55.840 --> 00:58:58.720
Alright Mahalo David. 

00:59:01.680 --> 00:59:10.800
So to be cautious of everyone's time we will 
be kind of wrapping up today's presentation.  

00:59:12.800 --> 00:59:18.720
So hopefully my slides will shift alright 
so thank you for attending today's webinar.  

00:59:18.720 --> 00:59:25.920
As I mentioned earlier we welcome any feedback or 
further questions you can submit input by replying  

00:59:25.920 --> 00:59:31.840
to the follow-up email you'll receive or by email 
emailing us at the emails listed on the slide.  

00:59:33.120 --> 00:59:37.680
As a reminder we'll share the recording of this 
webinar via the email you have registered with  

00:59:37.680 --> 00:59:47.520
as it becomes available on the webinar archive 
page and I believe I will share a bunch of the  

00:59:47.520 --> 00:59:53.440
links currently. Alright there's a few several 
links that I just put in the chat for you folks.  

00:59:55.360 --> 01:00:01.200
Following this webinar all attendees will 
receive a PdF copy of a certificate of attendance  

01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:07.120
that provides documentation for a one hour of 
professional development for today's presentation  

01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:13.120
and it looks somewhat like the one on 
the screen.  There will also be a short  

01:00:13.120 --> 01:00:18.160
evaluation that asks questions for you 
to answer following today's presentation.  

01:00:18.160 --> 01:00:23.120
Please complete the survey immediately after 
signing off the webinar it will likely take you  

01:00:23.120 --> 01:00:28.320
three minutes to complete we greatly appreciate 
any feedback you are willing to share

01:00:30.880 --> 01:00:37.360
and then we do have a couple of upcoming webinars 
as I previously mentioned we are hosting a virtual  

01:00:37.360 --> 01:00:43.360
Research Symposium tomorrow and Friday and 
as Ed mentioned it is kind of kicking off  

01:00:43.360 --> 01:00:48.160
this month's Ho'i Kohola the return of 
the humpback whales to the Hawaiian islands  

01:00:49.360 --> 01:00:52.240
and that link was also 
shared once again in the chat  

01:00:53.520 --> 01:01:01.520
and then another webinar we have next week 
Wednesday that we are hosting is titled Every  

01:01:01.520 --> 01:01:08.000
calf counts Hawaii's humpback whale mother and 
calf pairs in a time of changing climate with Dr.  

01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:16.240
Rachel Cartwright and yeah hopefully you folks can all join 
I also put in the chat where the upcoming webinars  

01:01:16.240 --> 01:01:24.320
will be able to where you can register and view 
this webinar and with that thanks again to David  

01:01:24.320 --> 01:01:30.160
for a great presentation about the insights 
into humpback whale use of entire ocean basins  

01:01:30.160 --> 01:01:35.280
gained through two large international studies 
and Mahalo to all of you for taking the time  

01:01:35.280 --> 01:01:51.840
to join us and this will conclude today's 
webinar Mahalo everyone. Thank you Cindy

01:01:57.280 --> 01:01:57.780