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| About | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We study aspects of marine mammal behavior as these relate to the animals' habitats, especially food availability patterns, where to engage in mating and calving with minimal threats of predation, and human impacts. Most of our work has centered around dolphins and whales that occur rather close to shore, such as Amazon river, bottlenose, Hawaiian spinner, humpback, and dusky dolphins; and bowhead and gray whales.
Our work tends to use "bread and butter" non-invasive research techniques of focal animal sampling with binoculars, spotting scopes and theodolite tracking from shore; and line transects, photographic identification, and hydrophone recordings from boats. However, we have also used skin swabbing and other sampling of tissue for genetic work; radio tracking; and assessment of dive and prey acquisition patterns by low-intensity active sonar. Presently, we are conducting a long-term project on dusky dolphins in New Zealand, which started in 1983, as well as several other projects around the world (see list below).
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