Aquatic Mammals - A Historical Perspective: Recent Episodes
Aquatic Mammals Journal
The Aquatic Mammals journal's Historical Perspectives interview series is an ever-growing body of work that includes discussions with many founders of the marine mammal field. Originally developed as an on-camera interview series, select excerpts are now available as audio podcasts here on this channel. To see the full interviews of each participant then please visit aquaticmammalsjournal.org and click on the Historical Perspectives tab near the top.
Dr. Gisiner is now semi-retired but stays active in the field by conducting research that interests him, as well as writing and presenting on these interests. His most recent research looks at the Precautionary Principle and its problems for complex multivariate models of environmental risk. It’s a complicated issue. In a nutshell, this means that protecting and recovering marine mammals isn’t as simple as it was 50 years ago.
Today, I am going to revisit a conversation that I had in 2008, with a senior member of the marine mammal science community, Dr. Dan Odell. Dr. Odell’ s Expertise is natural history and biology of cetaceans and manatees in the southeastern United States and cetacean mass stranding phenomena. Dr. Odell’s species of special interest include the Florida manatee, bottlenose dolphin, dwarf and pygmy sperm whales, and killer whales. Reproduction and growth of captive cetaceans is another focus of his study as well as the biology of the bottlenose dolphin in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida.
Today, I’m going a bit off course and revisiting a conversation that I had in 2008, with someone who had very little to do with the marine mammal community other than being married to one of its early members, Margaret Tavolga.
William Tavolga ,or Bill as he liked to be called, was a teacher. He was a professor of biology at City College in New York and also on the research staff in the Department of Animal Behavior at the American Museum of Natural History.
He was one of the world’s leading authorities on fish sounds and is said to be one of the founding individuals of the marine bioacoustics field. He did important studies of the mechanisms of fish sound production and acoustic communication. He did actually co-author one paper on dolphins.
Dr. Robert Hoffman, Bob as he likes to be called is one of the world’s leading authorities on Antarctic Pinnipeds. In the early 1970s he became scientific program director for the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission where he played a major role in assessing threats and implementing the recovery and conservation efforts for Florida manatees, California sea otters, Hawaiian monk seals, and other endangered and threatened marine mammal species.
Dr. Bruce Mate is one of the world’s leading authorities on whales, and best known for pioneering the tracking of whales using satellite-monitored radio tags.
Karen Pryor was a marine mammal trainer in the 1960s. She pioneered the use of behavioral science to develop the dolphin shows at Sea Life Park. Her work with dolphins, as head trainer and curator at Sea Life Park led to the first scientific paper on training creativity in animals. While at Sealife park, she did ground-breaking work on animal behavior and cognition, which eventually segued into what is now called clicker training, which is used by some trainers as a positive and humane way to work with animals.
More than 50 years have passed since Randy Wells began his career as a volunteer with Mote Marine Laboratory. Currently, Randy is director of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, the longest, continuously running wild dolphin study in the world. This study keeps track of thousands of dolphins on Florida's west coast. If you would like to see the video interview then visit aquaticmammalsjournal.org
Dr. Jerry Kooyman a long-time member and mentor of the marine mammal community and American scientist discusses his numerous research projects and contributions that took him to Antarctica where he studied Leopard seals, Weddell seals, and Emperor Penguins. His research topics included the comparative anatomy and physiology of respiration in air-breathing marine vertebrates, diving behavior, and exercise physiology of marine mammals and other aquatic vertebrates including marine birds, particularly the emperor penguin.
Dr. Roger Payne was an American scientist who is probably best known for his work with whales. His career spanned more than fifty years and was largely spent in the pursuit of understanding whale song and promoting whale conservation.
Ken Balcomb was an American scientist who is probably best known for his work with killer whales. His passion for whales was evident through out his life and his advocacy for the whales food, salmon, played an important part in trying to restore an out of balance ecosystem.
Dr. Sidney Holt was a British biologist whose specialty, actually his passion was, saving large whales. He is probably best known for his conservation work with the International Whaling Commission once he realized that the current whaling quota structure was driving whale populations toward extinction. Focusing his attention and his considerable mathematical prowess to protect and conserve large whale species, Dr. Holt provided scientific support to numerous non-governmental organizations that were working to stem the tide of whale kills and forcing whaling nations to only hunt in their own economic zones. He used his scientific, communication, and diplomatic skills to turn the IWC from pro-hunting to a conservation body, a process that took decades of dedication.
Today, we are going off topic a bit to listen to a conversation that I was privileged enough to have a few years ago, in 2015. Dr. Walter Munk, the longest serving oceanographer in the United States, and perhaps the world, the one-time Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography, and Chair of the world-famous Scripps Institution of Oceanography, kindly agreed to meet with me and granted me one and a half hours, out of his still-busy schedule, for a video interview. We are assisted with the interview by his friend Dr. Peter Lamb.
Dr. Perrin is best known for his work in documenting the unsustainable mortality of hundreds of thousands of dolphins per year in the tuna purse-seine fishery of the eastern tropical Pacific. His tenure in the field spanned nearly fifty years and he was one of the scientists whose work was responsible for implementing the marine mammal protection act.
I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to interview Sam for a couple of hours at the Navy dolphin facility in San Diego. We sat outside on the floats of the dolphin pens with Coronado air base in the background while training ops were being conducted. It’s possible you’ll hear some extraneous sounds from the jets and helicopters in addition to the dolphin blows. Let’s listen to what Sam had to say about his career.
Whit talks about his perspectives of the marine mammal field and how he got there. Beginning with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, spending time in the Air Force, and finally a full career in marine bioacoustics. His take, "Its ok to switch gears".
In 2010 I had the opportunity to meet and conduct a video interview with Joe Geraci. Dr. Geraci was a scientist, a professor, a veterinarian, and one of the leading experts in marine mammal medicine. In addition to this, he was a strong proponent of educating the public about sea life and the challenges affecting it. He spent four decades in field work, science, medicine, and teaching people how to respect animals and the environment. In this podcast are a few soundbites from a brilliant decades long career ... Enjoy!
Dr. Kuczaj was a professor at Southern Mississippi University and director of the marine mammal behavior and cognition laboratory.
In these excerpts he shares some thoughts and comments about his career and research while in the field.
We explore a conversation that John Anderson had with Hardy Jones, in 2012. Hardy planned a career as a journalist after graduating college, but as life would have it, something else caught his interest. With his college degree in hand and a couple of journalism jobs under his belt, Hardy heard about a pod of spotted dolphins that visited and interacted with a team of treasure salvage divers working in the Bahamas. Hardy released his first conservation film on dolphins in 1979. This film, "Dolphin" helped to sway the tuna industry away from using dolphins as indicators and setting their nets on them. Subsequently, he produced 76 additional conservation films and one book during his career.
Today we share a conversation with Reginald (Reg) and Margaret Bloom, who may have been the earliest professional wild animal collectors for European and American zoos. They began their career with animals in the 1940s and 50s in East Africa, specifically Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika, catching, collecting and transporting mammals, birds, and reptiles back to zoos in Europe and America. He had an instinctive empathy for the needs of wild animals and birds brought into human care and one might say that these were the earliest roots for positive animal welfare. Their contributions to the zoological world are legendary!
Dr. Taylor’s veterinary work flourished in Europe and globally over the span of 50 years. He was blessed with superior intellect, superb observational and diagnostic skills, and endless academic curiosity but he also enjoyed a side career as a television presenter of studio-based animal programs. David was extremely concerned with promoting and practicing high quality care, for zoo animals and stranded animals. His views and practices took hold and helped to shape an area of the zoological field that is today known as “animal welfare.”
Dr. Herman was an American marine biologist who was best known for his research into sensory perception, communication, and echolocation of bottlenose dolphins. He founded the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1970. And, in 1993, together with Dr. Adam Pack, he founded The Dolphin Institute, which is a non-profit corporation dedicated to dolphins and whales through education, research, and conservation. In our discussion he details how he became a scientist, accidentally and the story of how his dolphins were stolen.
Dr. Ronald Schusterman was a scientific pioneer in early marine mammal research. He founded the Long marine lab in Santa Cruz, California where he studied sensory physiology and cognition of California sea lions, harbor seals, and elephant seals and conducted experiments to understand how they perceive and think about the world. Early in his career, he helped too disprove a theory that sea lions used echolocation like dolphins and bats.
Dr. Scheffers contributions to science and the natural world of marine and terrestrial mammals covered more than five generations beginning in 1932. He was perhaps one of the worlds first naturalists and conservationist, a scientist, a photographer and a prolific author with more than 29 books to he is name and 284 scientific publications to his credit, all of which he conveyed with the hand written word. His early insights and discoveries formed some of the building blocks todays methodologies.
Dr. Reynolds was a world-renowned marine mammal scientist and conservationist who worked with many species of marine animals but the largest portion of his work was devoted to the Sirenia, specifically manatees.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Reynolds had a tremendous impact on students, private individuals and organizations at local, national, and international levels.
World-renowned marine mammal acoustician and ecologist, Bill Evans shares a few stories and thoughts from his diverse career that spanned 5 decades.
Today I share some excerpts from a video interview that I conducted with Dr. Jeanette Thomas in 2014.
Dr. Thomas’s tenure in the biological sciences spanned more than four decades across several continents. She was one of the first women scientists conducting field research and was one of the world’s early leaders in marine mammal communication, behavior and education.