The krill of it all

Big ideas always come to the surface at the monthly speaker series meetings of the Oregon Chapter of the American Cetacean Society.

On Saturday, Feb. 19, PhD student Rachel Kaplan will present “Going in for the Krill: Developing Prey-Informed Ecosystem Models to Mitigate Whale Entanglement Risk in Oregon.”

Entanglement in fishing gear is a major threat to cetaceans around the world, including here in Oregon. Developing ecosystem models can help fill a knowledge gap that is essential for efforts to mitigate entanglements: where do whales spend their time in Oregon waters?

Kaplan will present research that is part of the OSU project Overlapping Predictions About Large Whales, which seeks to provide information to managers about the distributions of blue and humpback whales in Oregon waters using marine mammal surveys, oceanographic data and measurements of an important prey called krill.

Ultimately, these models will be used to map overlap between whales and Oregon fisheries, including for Dungeness crab. This talk will share how this research can benefit both management in Oregon and our understanding of whale distributions.

Kaplan is completing her PhD studies at OSU and was a 2021 ACS Oregon Chapter grant recipient.

Her interest is on how marine animal distribution and behavior intersects with human systems, and how understanding these interactions can inform management and conservation efforts. When not thinking about whales and krill, she is probably hiking, climbing or baking.

The presentation begins at 10 am via Zoom. For more information, go to www.acsonline.org.