{ leading research } Pabst, McLellan, Nilsson and dolphins, short-finned pilot whales, and McAlarney are pleased to be involved rough-toothed dolphins have also been with the research because the data observed but more rarely. collection mission also complements All results are shared with the U.S. their long-term research on the North Navy, which is also monitoring an area Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis. off the coast of Jacksonville, Fla. Bell Right whales are the most endanthinks that the Floridian location may gered large whale in the North Atlantic become the preferred place to conduct – estimates indicate as few as 400 right the training for several reasons, but “we whales may be felt the data being left in the world. collected in During the sumOnslow Bay was mer months, these very valuable and The UNCW Marine whales typically could benefit us Mammal Stranding feed in the waters overall … so we off Canada and are continuing to Network involves between New England fund that work as 75 and 100 undergraduate before migrating part of the larger and graduate students and south to calve off Navy monitoring the coasts of the program in both citizens from the region Carolinas, Georgia the Pacific and each year in work to underand Florida. Atlantic.” stand strandings. Annually, Right whales When the can be identieight-year moniabout five to 10 self-selected fied individually, toring project, students receive in-depth McAlarney says, now in its second by the pattern year, is complete, stranding experience. of callosities on a definite location their heads. These for naval training irregular skin will be chosen. patches, which The U.S. Navy will then begin to install a network of “nodes” harbor a special kind of whale lice, make it possible to identify these individual on the sea floor to monitor and evaluate a variety of anti-submarine warfare train- whales via photographs. Past UNCW research surveys, ing exercises. funded by the National Oceanic and “It will take some more time before Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) we have enough data to say much, but on right whales in the mid-Atlantic are we are definitely making progress and being combined with the data collected doing some very interesting work,” Bell on this project to help build a long-term says. “Eventually this will contribute to picture of these and other marine mammals informing the Navy and the National that inhabit North Carolina waters. Marine Fisheries Service about the species that live where we plan to train — Kim Proukou ’06M and allow us all to do a better job of contributed to this article. assessing potential impacts.” From 1999 to 2002 and 2005 to 2007 NOAA has supported UNCW research employing aerial surveys of marine animals – bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales, right whales – in the mid-Atlantic. U.S. Navy support at the proposed U.S. Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR) has spanned years 1998, 2006, 2008 and 2009. This article describes the current UNCW role in USWTR Long-Term Monitoring Program. Presently, researchers from UNC Wilmington, Duke University and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, collaborate on this project. During this time, 10 honors undergraduates, 14 master’s students, two Ph.D. students and two post-doctoral fellows have carried out their research in the lab.
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Note: All marine mammal images used in this story were collected by UNCW Marine Mammal Program under NOAA permit.