Watching Whales Breathe
Hakai Institute geospatial scientist Keith Holmes collected drone footage of northern and southern resident killer whales in partnership with the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit in 2019 and 2020. Stills from the drone footage are featured in a new PLOS One paper about the whales’ respiration rates, and video footage was included in coverage of the study by Popular Science and the CBC.
Bioblitz at the Quadra Island Ecological Observatory
The Hakai Institute has hosted several terrestrial and marine biodiversity surveys, known as bioblitzes (see this article in our first TQ issue), on and around Calvert Island on British Columbia’s Central Coast—and in the urban marine environment of Vancouver’s False Creek. Hakai researchers also participated in a 2019 bioblitz in San Pedro Bay, home of the Port of Los Angeles. The most recent bioblitz focused on Quadra Island, with the Hakai Institute’s flagship Quadra Island Ecological Observatory as home base. The marathon three-week effort, encompassing terrestrial and marine species, was covered in an article by Rochelle Baker of Canada’s National Observer.
Deeper into the Snow
“Several times a year a team of BC scientists hike out into mountains on Vancouver Island, laden with heavy snowpack core testing gear and skis to get into hard-to-reach places, and camp in the snow, sometimes in -15 C weather or blizzards.” Our article on snowpack research (see “Getting to the Core” in this issue of TQ) piqued the interest of Vancouver Sun reporter Tiffany Crawford, who wrote a short follow-up feature. Also, this year’s concerning lack of snow brought the LiDAR-laden Airborne Coastal Observatory and the cryosphere node’s research into the news recently: see articles in the Times Colonist, Chek News, and CKPG Today.
Hope in the Water
Episode 3 of PBS’s new documentary series, Hope in the Water, includes footage of sea star wasting by the Hakai Institute’s media team. If you have access to PBS, you can watch the episode, “Changing the Menu,” which aired July 3.