Foundation for Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research

Home
United States
Seabeck, WA
Foundation for Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research

Advancing marine species conservation through research, technology, and education

05/22/2026

Big welcome to our newest team member! We are happy to have you on board at MarEcoTel!

Clara Bird is a behavioral ecologist using remote sensing to study marine mammals. She has a B.Sc. in Biology (concentration Ecology) and Environmental Science (Marine Science and Conservation) from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Wildlife Science from Oregon State University where she also worked as a postdoctoral scholar. She has experience studying both foraging and social behavior and is specifically interested in understanding the relationships between behavior, physiology, environment, and individual characteristics. Clara has been working with drones since 2017 and has been involved in developing methods for drone-based photogrammetry of cetaceans including several software packages. When she’s not in the field or at her desk, she enjoys baking, exploring the outdoors, and community theater.

04/27/2026

We are really, really excited to announce the latest publication on our behavioral response work with beaked whales off Southern California!

"Assessment of goose-beaked whale responses to mid-frequency active sonar using a Hierarchical hidden Markov model"

Just released in the journal Movement Ecology, this open-access work presents the analysis of data from thirteen SMRT tags deployed on goose-beaked whales (aka Cuvier’s beaked whales, or Ziphius cavirostris) at the Southern California Anti-submarine Warfare Range. These tags recorded the movements, diving behavior, vocalizations, and acoustic environment of tagged whales for days to weeks at a time, in a place where they are frequently exposed to the powerful military sonar systems used in naval training exercises.

This work required developing a model that can combine very large and complex datasets from multiple whales in a single framework, and use these data to describe whale behavior at both coarse-scale (like how often they dive and for how long) and fine-scale levels (like how they move their bodies over 5-min periods). The model can then be used to understand how behavior is likely to change with sonar level. The US Navy and National Marine Fisheries Service need data like this to better assess the impacts of permitted training activities on local populations.

We can’t understate what a challenge this work has been. If you read this paper, you will see that it focuses heavily on the method itself, which we hope will benefit not just our work with this species, but any projects seeking to characterize behavioral responses to human activities in any species with multi-scale behavioral data.

Link to paper in comments.

03/31/2026

Meet the famous Betty and her calf we like to call Boop!

We’re diving deep into the lives of fin whales in the Southern California Bight — studying their population structure and health in collaboration with the University of the Pacific. This work is funded by the Office of Naval Research.

We are combining aerial photogrammetry, tissue sampling, and long-term sighting data to explore differences in appearance, genetics, and environmental exposure between regularly sighted whales and transient visitors.

Gene expression analyses will also be used to assess the biological effects of living in this heavily human-impacted region.

The goal of this work is to enhance the conservation and management of this endangered species.

We have several papers published on West Coast fin whales. To learn more, head over to www.marecotel.org.

10/16/2025

📣15 Years of Whale Tagging: What We Learned About Safety and Long-Term Effects

We have a new paper published in Journal of Cetacean Research and Management:

Erin L Keene, Erin A Falcone, Gregory S Schorr, Brenda K Rone, Gustavo Cárdenas-Hinojosa, Rodrigo Huerta-Patiño, Russel D Andrews (2025) Visual assessment of LIMPET tag site healing in Cuvier’s beaked whales and fin whales.

Researchers remotely deployed 130 minimally invasive LIMPET satellite tags on Cuvier’s beaked and fin whales to study their movements and behavior. Most whales were re-identified after tagging, with many showing minimal long-term effects—even years later. This study highlights LIMPET tags as a safe and effective tool for long-term cetacean research.

A copy of this paper can be downloaded on the journal’s website or at www.marecotel.org.

Image: LIMPET tag deployed on the dorsal fin of a fin whale.

09/30/2025

A new paper is published in Experimental Physiology exploring the unique physiological adaptations of the elusive goose-beaked whale — the deepest diving marine mammal known to science!

“Modelling the effect of varying metabolic rate and cardiac output on estimated tissue and blood O2 and CO2 levels in an extreme deep-diver, the goose-beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris)”

Andreas Fahlman, Gregory S. Schorr, David A. Sweeney, Brenda K. Rone, Shannon N. Coates, Austin S. Allen, Lucia M. Martín López, Susan M. Jarvis, Erin A. Falcone

Download a copy of this paper from our website: www.marecotel.org

09/17/2025

The following paper has been published in Marine Mammal Science:

A Comparison of Diving Behavior of Goose-Beaked and Dense-Beaked Whales From Tagging Studies in Multiple Ocean Basins

Jay Barlow, Robin W. Baird, Janelle Badger, Gregory S. Schorr, Erin A. Falcone, Shannon N. Coates, Peter L. Tyack, Andrew J. Read, Leigh S. Hickmott, John W. Durban, Diane Claridge, Natacha Aguilar de Soto, Daniel Miranda Gonzalez, Fleur Visser, Machiel G. Oudejans, Stacy DeRuiter, David A. Sweeney, Brenda K. Rone, Stephanie L. Watwood

Studies of cetacean diving behavior in multiple locations in different ocean basins allow for an assessment of variability within and among populations. We examine foraging dive behaviors of goose-beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) and dense-beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris) using data from 132 tagged whales in seven locations in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. Acoustic recording tags are used to identify foraging dives by the presence of echolocation. For other tag types, foraging dives are identified based on maximum dive depth. Five parameters are used to characterize foraging dives: maximum dive depth, foraging dive duration, dive cycle duration, and the mean and standard deviation of echolocation depths. We find that differences among dives within one tagged individual are typically larger than the differences among individuals or among locations, and that differences among individuals are typically similar in magnitude to differences among locations. Regression is used to estimate the mean and standard deviation of echolocation depths from maximum dive depth for dives without acoustic data. Composite values of foraging dive parameters (and standard deviations) are estimated as the average of all study locations.

You can download this open access paper on our website: www.marecotel.org

08/15/2025

MarEcoTel has been with the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaii (https://www.facebook.com/MMRPUH) this week. We’ve been working together to synchronize our UAS programs now that we’re all flying the Astro Max with some customization work done by . Thanks for hosting us, we look forward to continuing a great collaboration!

07/15/2025

A new paper has been published in the Journal of Cetacean Research and Management:

“Developing robust large whale satellite tags through follow up studies.”

Zerbini AN, Robbins J, Andrews-Goff V, Baumgartner M, Clapham PJ, Double M, Gales N, Landry S, Gulland FMD, Hammar T, Holland M, Kennedy AS, Leask A, Matilla DK, Sandilands D, Schorr GS

This paper can be downloaded from our website: www.marecotel.org

From 2011 to 2018, researchers deployed 80 satellite tags on North Atlantic humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine to study whale movements, evaluate tag performance, and guide improvements in tag design. Improved engineering—like 3D-printed parts and better anchors—led to longer-lasting, safer tags. This study highlights the
importance of developing satellite tagging technology in association with follow‐up monitoring of
tagged individuals and provides new tag designs that are structurally more robust and less impactful for use with large cetaceans.

Address

2468 Camp McKenzie Trl NW
Seabeck, WA
98380

Telephone

(206) 550-9806

Website

http://www.marecotel.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Foundation for Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Foundation for Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research:

Shortcuts

Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in Seabeck?