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Women's History Month: Talking with Megan Amico

Celebrating Women’s History Month with fish biologist Megan Amico—her science journey, what she loves about her job, what advice she has for the next generation of women scientists, and more!
March 21, 2024 - Feature Story ,
New England/Mid-Atlantic
Megan Amico stands next to her painting at the World Fisheries Congress 2024 conference. The painting is an under and above water scene. Above the water, the sky is bright orange with some yellow clouds. There is a commercial lobster boat hauling up a lobster pot. Below the water is a North Atlantic right whale mother calf pair swimming under the boat.

Deaths of Young Dolphin, Humpback Calf Highlight the Importance of Responsible Boating

In February 2024, NOAA Fisheries and partners responded to a dead spinner dolphin yearling and a dead humpback whale calf in Hawaiʻi. Examinations revealed their deaths were likely due to vessel strikes.
March 07, 2024 - Feature Story ,
Pacific Islands
A mother humpback whale swims beneath its calf to support it on the ocean surface as a researcher on a nearby boat leans over the railing holding a pole underwater to assess the condition of the call. NOAA researchers with the Hawaiian Islands Humpback National Marine Sanctuary assess an injured humpback whale calf off of Maui. The calf had suspected vessel strike injuries to its tail. Credit: Pacific Whale Foundation (NOAA Fisheries Permit #24359)

A.I. Sorts Public Photos to Show Recovering Pacific Humpback Whales Hit Climate Ceiling

Happywhale.com turns hundreds of thousands of whale photos into data.
February 27, 2024 - Feature Story ,
International
Photo showing tail fluke of humpback whale named "Frosty." Photographs of humpback whale tails, identified through artificial intelligence-based image recognition much like facial recognition, allow researchers to track individual whales across oceans, revealing population growth recovering from industrial whaling — and more recently, decline from a major marine heatwave. This whale is known as “Frosty” CRC-12492, named for the snowman-shaped barnacle scars on the tail. Photo: Ted Cheeseman.

Gray Whale Stranded on La Jolla Shores Beach

The whale was in poor body condition but showed no signs of human impact.
February 27, 2024 - Feature Story ,
West Coast
A gray whale lies on a beach parallel to the shore. There are tire tracks near its head. It has barnacles on its skin and its baleen is visible. Stranded gray whale on a beach in La Jolla. Photo Credit: Lonnie Stephens, San Diego Fire-Rescue

Recent Prescott Grants Supporting Whale Conservation Partners

Our marine mammal network partners are leveraging the Prescott Grant Program's competitive grants to improve their stranding response and investigation capabilities for whale conservation.
February 26, 2024 - Feature Story ,
National
Humpback whale breaching out of the water in Maui, Hawai'i Humpback whale breaching off of Maui, Hawai’i. Credit: Ed Lyman taken under NOAA Fisheries Permit #14097

Passive Acoustic Monitoring Reveals More About Sperm Whales off Southeast New England

Study listened for sperm whales in an offshore wind energy development area.
February 21, 2024 - Feature Story ,
New England/Mid-Atlantic
Aerial view of six sperm whales grouped together in dark blue waters. Sperm whales. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

A Game-Changing Effort for Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales

An update from our experts on the status of North Atlantic right whales, and our plans to use Inflation Reduction Act funds for right whale conservation.
February 15, 2024 - Podcast ,
New England/Mid-Atlantic
Southeast
Horton NARW with her calf North Atlantic right whale Horton and newborn calf. Credit: Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, taken under NOAA permit #26919.

Rice’s Whales Heard in the Western Gulf of Mexico

NOAA Fisheries records evidence of endangered Rice’s whales in the western Gulf of Mexico. These findings demonstrate their regular occurrence in waters offshore of Texas and the first evidence of Rice’s whales offshore of Mexico.
February 13, 2024 - Feature Story ,
Southeast
Rice’s whale at the surface. Three ridges on the rostrum (dorsal head) of this Rice’s whale. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Laura Dias (Permit #14450)

Public Input Helps Improve our Understanding of Marine Ecological Relationships in Alaska

Critical links identified between young pollock survival and changes in habitat and prey availability over a 60-year timeframe.
February 13, 2024 - Feature Story ,
Alaska
food web for Bering Sea fish and other species, graphic showing connections between species This is a path diagram for the Bering Sea and Aleutians Islands marine ecosystem. It shows linkages between ecosystem variables. Arrows correspond to suspected relationships. An arrow pointing from X to Y indicates that a change in X is estimated to cause a change in Y. The number next to each arrow shows the estimated magnitude of the change (red arrows indicate a negative change and blue arrows indicate a positive change).

Whales and Carbon Sequestration: Can Whales Store Carbon?

Whales can help mitigate climate change impacts by storing carbon in their bodies and transporting nutrients that benefit ocean food chains.
February 13, 2024 - Feature Story ,
National
North Atlantic right whale Pediddle (#1012) and calf. North Atlantic right whale Pediddle (#1012) and calf. This species was hunted nearly to extinction by commercial whalers in the 1800s, and continues to face threats from vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. Credit: NOAA Fisheries