JOHN CALAMBOKIDIS
 

John Calambokidis is a Research Biologist with Cascadia Research, a non-profit research organization he helped found in 1979. He has been studying marine mammals since 1976 when he began studying harbor seals while a student at Evergreen State College. He has directed more than 50 research studies on marine mammals while at Cascadia. In the mid-1986 he began long-term studies of humpback and blue whales in the eastern North Pacific. These studies have documented the population size and trends of humpback and blue whales and their migration patterns. Starting in 1999, he began working with National Geographic on examining the underwater behavior of blue whales with suction-cup attached Crittercams. An important part of his research has been examining the impact of human activities on marine mammals. This has including studies of contaminants in marine mammals, the impact of underwater sound, and reaction to vessels. He is the author of over 50 scientific publications and technical reports and two popular books on marine mammals.

ABSTRACT

BALEEN WHALE BEHAVIOR FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE... The talk will examine some of the new insights that we have gained in recent years on the movements, vocalizations, feeding, and other underwater behavior of whales. Long-term studies of whales using photographic identification have provided more detailed information on the movements and migrations of whales as well as their abundance. A variety of instruments attached to whales have given us insight into their behavior underwater. In recent years we have attached Crittercam instrument packages to blue and humpback whales to film their underwater behavior and gather a variety of other data including dives profiles, vocalizations, and feeding behavior. The Crittercams also provide a unique perspective of what the underwater life of a large whale looks like. The tags have been attached to the whale with a non-invasive suction-cup. We have also been using acoustic tags that provide high quality acoustic information on both whale vocalizations and human-made sounds. The talk will include a summary of the findings of this work as well as showing some of the images from the Crittercam deployments and underwater recordings of sounds.