The Whalenerd‘s Podcast

We had Amanda Padilla as a special guest this episode and Adam Ernster as a fill in co-host! We talked with Amanda about her work on boats in Maui, her commercial fishing business and her awesome new sun gear company: Kapa Sungear! We had a lot of fun on this one, and got in to some serious, but good tangents about sustainability, and sustainable consumerism and business practices. You can check out Amanda's company at kapasungear.com

We debriefed Slater's all day trip with three people who were there! Slater, Eric and Adam all gave a recap of the trip. Katlyn also chimed in about her trips. We also chatted more with Adam about whale watching in Santa Barbara. A piece of whale news that we talked about was the new paper and designation of the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETPs) Killer Whales as a new ecotype of Killer Whales.

The gang's all here! Eric, Slater, and Katlyn were finally able to get together and catch up with each other. We talked about our reactions to the film A Life on Our Planet and recent whale news. We also tuned in to the livestream of the R/V Nautilus online and watched them collect a few invertebrates off of Anacapa Island.

In this episode we caught up with Slater after several months. We talked about how things have changed for him in the wake of the pandemic. Katlyn also had a few updates from back when she was laid off and some of her adventures in Massachusetts including a recent trip to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The band is back together! We had Eric and Slater back on as hosts with our special guest Erica Cirino. Erica works as a free lance writer and artist who often covers and shares stories about wildlife and human impacts. She has sailed across the gyres of the Pacific and Atlantic documenting and studying microplastics and plastic debris in our oceans. She is currently working on a book that will cover some of her experiences with her trips and impacts of humans on the planet in regard to plastic debris.

We are recording from all over the country via skype - occasionally there are some audio issues due to that.

Katlyn and Jamie have been off the water for a few days due to poor weather. So they made a podcast episode together! As some of you know, Katlyn is out in Gloucester, Massachusetts working with Jamie at Cape Ann Whale Watch. We talked about how Jamie got started in the marine world, her involvement at the Texas Sea Life Center and her job at Cape Ann Whale Watch. We also talked about her favorite individual humpbacks and how whale naming works in the Gulf of Maine. 

We did have a little technical difficulty with the recording - so about 8 minutes if the audio sounds a little different in the middle of the episode. 

Welcome back everyone! After a hiatus we are back with a new episode. Thank you so much for sticking with us throughout this wild time. For our first minisode back Katlyn gave us an introduction to the new area she is working in: Gloucester Massachusetts.

In this episode Katlyn and Eric talk about all the common hitchhikers on whales and dolphins - we even threw in manatees! 

We talked about whale barnacles, whale lice, remoras, pennella and the various species they are observed on.

The only obvious hitchhiker we forgot was diatoms!

This is the final episode of the three part series on whale song! This episode covers all mysticetes that sing besides humpback whales. While researching this episode, most of the journals had their articles on open or free access. Take advantage while you can! This may change back to pay walls once academic operations go back to "normal" post pandemic. 

Stay safe and healthy out there.

Part 2 of the series on whale song.

Do we know why the winged whale sings? The long and short of it is, we don't. But Katlyn broke down some of the leading theories from over the years of what scientists have studied. This is a broad summary of some of the leading theories as to why humpback whales in particular might sing.