Episodes
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Episode 151 - Maui Reunion
Slater is back! We caught up this winter in Maui and had a nice chat about our impressions and experience on the island for the first time in several years. Also we may or may not be bird nerds instead of whale nerds these days...
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Episode 150 - Special Guest Chelsi Napoli
Katlyn and Chelsi chat about east coast humpbacks! Chelsi Napoli is currently a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University in the Thorne Lab. In the lab, she studies the health and conservation of humpback whales in the New York Bight. She uses drone photogrammetry to assess body condition of New…
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Episode 149 - Southern Ocean Adventures
Katlyn is back from Antarctica with more stories from her time as an expedition guide this season. Hear about sightings of penguins, seals and whales as well as some of the challenges Antarctica is facing.
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Episode 148 - Summer in Svalbard
Katlyn shares some of her encounters and adventures working in Svalbard this past summer.
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Episode 147 - Special Guest Kayah George
We had special guest Kayah George, a Coast Salish matriarch in training, on this week to chat about some of her passions and knowledge about killer whales and the waters around what we now call British Columbia.
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Episode 146 - Special Guest Alex Brash
This week's episode we had Alex Brash join us to talk about his new book: A Whaler at Twilight: A True Account of Whaling and Redemption in the South Pacific. We chatted about the family history that led up to writing the book, whaling history, conservation and more!
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Episode 145 - Last Call on the Peninsula, South of the Circle
This is the last episode of Antarctica trip reports! Hear about Katlyn's adventures in Argentina during her break, and the last two trips of the season. Hundreds of whales, seals and penguins - even South of the Antarctic Circle! It's not the winter (summer?) she expected, but it is a winter to...
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Episode 144 - A little bit of Chile
With some down time from the ship, Katlyn took an adventure in Chile with her family before embarking again for the Southern Ocean. Hear about her trips with a new species of penguin, seals, boat rides and more. Her last South Georgia combo trip was also quite challenging in the midst of site...
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Episode 143 - Holidays on the Peninsula
Three Antarctic Peninsula trips in one month. Whew! It was a lot but there were so many whales and cool science! Hear more about Katlyn's time in the ice and what it's like to spend Christmas and New Year's in the Drake Passage.
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Episode 142 - South Georgia Developments
As avian flu continued to spread on the island of South Georgia, trips became more challenging. Listen to Katlyn's stories of the next month worth of trips in this region and how things developed on the island for the summer season. She also had some awesome whale sightings - including killer...
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Episode 141 - Introduction to the Kingdom of Penguins
After a small break - Katlyn is back with updates from the Southern Hemisphere. Hear about her first trip of the season to South Georgia and Antarctica. More to come!
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Episode 140 - End of Alaska Summer
Katlyn gives a review of the last part of her Alaska season and talks about a few bonus trips at the end.
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Episode 139 - Aleutians & Bering Sea Updates
Katlyn gives a mid season update on her Alaska summer. The ship she is on is covering the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and SE Alaska. Hear about whales in remote places, visiting the Pribilolfs and more! She also got a whale named after her.
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Episode 138 - Killer Whales Are Winning The Internet
Killer whales are winning the summer of 2023 online. In the midst of heavy news coverage of the Iberian orcas interacting with boats making headlines - memes and tiktoks have gone viral about the events. We have covered this topic several times in the past, but with new data we decided to revisit...
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Episode 137 - Getting Caught Up / One Month in Alaska
After a longer break Katlyn is back with a recap episode from the spring trips and her first month at sea in Alaska. Listen in for a detailed recap of the two Monterey Bay trips and an overview of the Alaska route she traveled in May and June. There is also a small tribute to the late Roger Payne...
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Episode 136 - North Atlantic Right Whales Moms & Calves 2023
This week we checked in on the North Atlantic Right Whale breeding season. Meet the moms for this season and a little about their history!
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Episode 135 - Humpback whales in Japan
There are multiple breeding areas off the Western North Pacific Ocean where humpback whales go to breed in the winter. We covered a recent paper that covers the use of Japanese waters by humpbacks in more detail.
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Episode 134 - Special Guest Belén García Ovide
We were so excited to talk to Belén for this episode about her work in Iceland. Belén is a marine biologist, wildlife guide, and sailor who works in the whale watching industry and runs a non profit focused on ocean conservation and education. She has also been an integral part of establishing…
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Episode 133 - Hippos are whales
Slater is back from his safari trip to Kenya! After talking about whale sightings and safari sightings we chat about how hippos are indeed distant cousins of whales, how scientists figured that out, and what adaptations hippos and whales have to live their semi aquatic and marine lives.
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Episode 132 - Humpback Movements in the Southern Hemisphere
This week Katlyn takes us through some information about humpback whale migration patterns in the Southern Hemisphere. After Slater came back from Tonga last summer we have been wanting to learn more about how the whales use Antarctica and travel between the feeding and breeding grounds. Katlyn...
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Episode 131 - ’Tis the Season for Baby Whales
Happy New Year! Several birthing events for large whales in the North Pacific have been documented this winter. So we did a recap of the latest events in Mexico and California. We also covered a paper that gathered up reports over the past few decades of humpback whale births around the world.
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Minisode 14 - Early Season Maui Update
This is our last episode of 2022. We talked through an early season update for Maui with some data from NOAA, observations on the water, and some news updates on Moon the humpback whale.
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Minisode 13 - Humpbacks Have NO Rules
This week we get caught up on a few updates for everyone, including sharing some gratitude for you all. We are so grateful to everyone that listens to and supports the podcast! Also we chat about some interesting patterns of humpback whales moving around the Eastern North Pacific using some data...
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Episode 130 - Special Guest Andy Rogan
This week we had guest Andy Rogan on from Ocean Alliance. Andy is the Science Manager for the Ocean Alliance SnotBot program. We chatted about new technologies in whale research, drones and of course whale snot!
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Episode 129 - Whales in New York
Whale sightings have still been going strong as whales are working their way South for winter season in the Northern Hemisphere. Katlyn took a trip to New York last week to be a part of the Safina Center annual gala event. We are so grateful to them for supporting the podcast this year. While she...
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Episode 128 - Special Guest John Ryan
We chatted all things hydrophone this week with John Ryan from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). As you know, we are huge fans of the soundscape live stream and it was super fun to chat with one of the scientists who is central to the program. They recently published a paper...
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Episode 127 - Close Encounters of the Whale Kind
We have had quite a few friendly humpback whale encounters over the past month. So we wanted to chat more about what makes an encounter "friendly" with a whale and what the experience is like. There hasn't been much science done to explain these encounters currently, but we did discuss what…
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Minisode 12 - How Sound Moves in the Ocean
Katlyn takes us through the basics of how sound moves in water. You can learn the definitions of how sound is characterized and how it's measured. Feel free to reference this episode later if you need a refresh on how this all works when we talk about whale acoustics in other episodes.
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Episode 126 - Slater’s Tonga report
Slater is back from his trip to Tonga and we couldn't wait to talk about it! Hear about his experience swimming with humpbacks in a Southern Hemisphere breeding ground.
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Episode 125 - How Fin Whales Are Moving In The Southern Hemisphere
This week Katlyn did a little follow up on the fin whale story from Antarctica that we have been talking about throughout the summer. For more background you can start with Episodes 117 and 119 as a primer. New studies with satellite and scar pattern data are shedding light on where fin whales…
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Episode 124 - The Basics of Humpback Competitive Behaviors
Competitive behaviors are ramping up in the Northern Hemisphere! Humpback whales have started practicing and engaging in competitive behaviors while still on the feeding grounds, so Katlyn takes us through the basics of what is actually happening during these encounters.
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Episode 123 - Remembering Fran
It’s been awhile since we had the chance to catch up on summer sightings in Monterey. We also had some sad news about a well known whale in California, Fran.
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Episode 122 - Special Guest Katherina Audley
This week we chatted with Katherina Audley about humpback whales in Southern Mexico. For almost the last 10 years she has fostered an incredible community based effort to learn about and protect humpback whales and other marine life along the shores of Guererro. The Whales of Guererro Project has...
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Episode 121 - Big Surprises
Our sightings report was a little bit shocking and has some adult humor. We talked quite a bit about what we think the killer whales off the California coast have been up to this summer. We also had some follow up information about the status of the vaquita population in Mexico. This weekend is...
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Episode 120 - Lettuce Talk About Manatees
After two rough winters in a row for the manatees in Florida around Indian River - we wanted to chat about the state of the response to help these animals. There has been money allocated to restore the sea grass beds in their habitat and supplemental feeding happened through the winter as well....
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Episode 119 - Special Guest Matthew Savoca
We had a guest this week. Dr. Matthew Savoca joined us to talk about his work with marine plastics and baleen whale prey consumption. He is currently a post doc in the Goldbogen Lab at Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University. The paper he was the lead author on in 2021 about baleen whale...
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Episode 118 - The Southern Continent with Ted Cheeseman
Ted was back for another episode with us this week. This time around we chatted with him about his background with Cheesemans' Ecology Safaris and our upcoming trip to Antarctica. This is a small preview of what is to come this winter on our expedition to the Southern Continent. Tickets are still...
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Episode 117 - Fin Whale Party in Antarctica
Hundreds of fin whales gather in Antarctic hotspots in large feeding aggregations. This story has been in the news cycle off and on for months now. Groups as large as 150 fin whales were observed around Elephant Island. The paper with the published results of these 2018 and 2019 surveys came out...
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Episode 116 - The Dolphin Spa
This week we talked about Indo Pacific bottlenose dolphins and their unique spa treatments. These animals in the Red Sea have figured out how to use corals and sponges to take care of their skin. This is the first time a cetacean species has been documented self medicating in the wild - fascinating!
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Episode 115 - Introducing: Antarctica
We are so excited about our trip to Antarctica this winter! In preparation for our trip with Cheeseman's we have started to learn about the southern continent and we wanted to share some of it with you. We will cover southern hemisphere topics throughout the summer and fall as we continue to...
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Episode 114 - Offshore Killer Whales of the Eastern North Pacific
We have a couple announcements this week. The San Juan Islands trip has been postponed to October of 2023 - you can still book this trip on our website. We have also been invited to Antarctia! You can join us on this trip hosted by Cheesemans' Ecology Safaris. Check out more info about the trip...
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Episode 113 - Special Guest Dave Cade
We had Dave Cade on this week to talk to us about whale and shark tagging. Dave has worked with rorqual whales all over the globe and is currently working on a basking shark project in Ireland. He also works with humpback and blue whales on the California coast most summers.
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Episode 112 - Humpback Update for the US West Coast
There are so many humpback whales on the California Coast right now! So it was only fitting that we talked about a new memo from NOAA about the status of humpback whales in the Mexico and Central American Distinct Population Segments (DPSs). The numbers have been adjusted and reanalysed to better...
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Episode 111 - Blue Whale Body Condition
New mics! Can you tell the difference? The nerds talk about recent sightings along the California coast including blue whales in Monterey! A recent paper from frontiers in marine science delves into blue whale body conditions and how it may be directly correlated to marine productivity. As blue...
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Episode 110 - Crazy sightings and Gray whale report
This week we talked about the final report from the Baja Lagoons in Mexico. The gray whale breeding season is ending on a higher note than years past, but still is not back to "normal" by any means. We also had some incredible sightings to catch up on from Monterey Bay and Santa Barbara: basking...
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Episode 109: Special Guest Chase Dekker
In Episode 109 We had a special guest Chase Dekker. Chase was born and raised in Monterey, CA. He attended college in Washington at Western Washington University where he studied Organismal Biology & Zoology. After college he lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with daily access to Grand Teton and...
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Episode 108 - Spring Trip Recap
We just finished up our three day weekend of trips in Monterey Bay! Thank you so much to everyone who attended. We were so fortunate that the weather and the wildlife cooperated all weekend for us to get out on the water. Listen in for our sightings report.
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Episode 107 - Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins
This is our last episode before our April Killer Whale Trips! We caught up on a few sightings before talking about some of the latest news on Hawaiian spinner dolphins. There have been many changes with regulations in Hawaii about viewing this species. We learned about the background information...
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Episode 106 - Baja Report
Slater and Adam are back from Baja! We caught up on the long list of sightings we had from Baja, California, and Maui. Then we talked about an article that has been making the rounds on social media about conjoined gray whale twins. The original stranding happened back in 2014, but since it's…
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Episode 105 - Lessons Learned from Hawaiian Humpbacks
This week we talked about updated and new information in regards to humpback whales. Most of this information is from Hawaii, but some of it can be applied to humpback breeding grounds across the world. The most interesting new paper we talked about was the findings of two different humpbacks...
About this show
A podcast about whales, the ocean and more. Hosts Slater and Katlyn talk about latest science & news and chat with guests about their work.
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