Breaching Extinction

This is the final episode of Breaching Extinction (for now). This has been an amazing journey. Thank you to everyone who's been a part of it!

In this episode, Erica chatted with Anaïs Remili researcher and founder of Whale Scientist about her recent publication New killer whale research: North Atlantic killer whale diets revealed in unprecedented detail

This week Erica chatted with the one and only Orca Man aka Fred Denisco about his obsession with the movie Free Willy and some behind-the-scenes details about the film

This week Erica chatted with researcher, José Ángel Ortega Borchardt about his recent publication Microplastics in scats of California sea lions on the Gulf of California.

This week Erica chatted with biologist Helena Costa about her recent publication Using a consumer drone for the collection of humpback whale blow samples during the Arctic polar . Helena compares the uses of different commercial drones for the analysis of cetacean blows.

In this week's episode, Erica chatted with researcher Jaclyn Aubin from the Department of Integrative Biology, Windsor, Ontario, Canada about her recent publication Fly with care: belugas show evasive responses to low altitude drone flights. Protection, energetic assistance, or social perks: How do beluga offspring benefit from allocare? Prospective evolutionary drivers of allocare in wild belugas

This week Erica chatted with researchers Heidi Pearson from the University of Alaska SE about her recent publication Whales in the carbon cycle: can recovery remove carbon dioxide?

This is the first episode of season 5! Erica and Madi sit down and chat about the future of the podcast and the southern residents using the full extent of their home range. If you are interested working with Breaching Extinction please send us an instagram DM or email Erica at erica@breachingextinction.com

In this week's porpisode Madi, Liam and Erica talk about the history of wind farms and their current impact on cetaceans  Sources: Climate Change Impacting Right Whales Episode  Blue Whale Mom Calf Pair Response to Vessel Episode 

This week Erica chatted with Aricia Duarte-Benvenuto, a PhD student at the Patologia Experimental e Comparada graduate Program of the School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science – University of São Paulo, Brazil about emerging infections diseases in the amazon river dolphin.  Sources: Hemotropic Mycoplasma spp. in Aquatic Mammals, Amazon Basin, Brazil 

This week Erica chatted with Fin Whale Researcher Sacha Viquerat about his recent publication Identifying seasonal distribution patterns of fin whales across the Scotia Sea and the Antarctic Peninsula region using a novel approach combining habitat suitability models and ensemble learning methods.  References:  Branch, T. A., & Butterworth, D. S. (2001). Estimates of abundance south of 60°S for cetacean species sighted frequently on the 1978/79 to 1997/98 IWC/IDCR-SOWER sighting surveys. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, 3(3), 251-270. Viquerat, S., & Herr, H. (2017). Mid-summer abundance estimates of fin whales Balaenoptera physalus around the South Orkney Islands and Elephant Island. Endangered Species Research, 32, 515-524. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00832 Burkhardt, E., Van Opzeeland, I., Cisewski, B., Mattmüller, R., Meister, M., Schall, E., Spiesecke, S., Thomisch, K., Zwicker, S., & Boebel, O. (2021). Seasonal and diel cycles of fin whale acoustic occurrence near Elephant Island, Antarctica. Royal Society Open Science, 8(5), 201142-201142. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201142 Herr, H., Hickmott, L., Viquerat, S., & Panigada, S. (2022). First evidence for fin whale migration into the Pacific from Antarctic feeding grounds at Elephant Island. Royal Society Open Science, 9(9), 0-7. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220721

In this week's episode Erica chatted with biologist Josephine Schulze about her recent publication, Humpback whale song revolutions continue to spread from the central into the eastern South Pacific.

In this week's propside Erica, Madi, and Liam discuss Madi's recent trip to French Polynesia among other things.  Sources  https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps2007/330/m330p257.pdf http://seaturtle.org/library/GannierA_2004_AquatMamm.pdf

In this week's episode, Erica chatted with Mari Smultea about her recent publication Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) mother-calf pair behavioral response to vessel in the Southern California Bight. Aquatic Mammals.  Resources:  Smuleta Sciences  Mother Calf Whale Nursing and Other Behavior Sperm Whale Ramming a Vessel in the Pacific First Recordings of Humpback Whale Sounds, Hawaii First Video of Wild Beluga Socio-sexual Behavior in Cook Inlet, AK

In this week's episode Madi, Liam, and Erica discuss genetic disorders that could impact the pigmentation of cetacean skin  Sources:  Fifty Shades of Gray: The First Leucistic Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Sighting off the Cedar Keys, Florida, Gulf of Mexico

Salmon and Mola hats? Could this possibly be a trend for whales? Madi, Liam and Erica dive into potential orca trends in porpsiode! 

This week Erica chatted with Italian researcher Giovanni Bearzi at Dolphin Biology and Conservation, Italy about his recent publication Marine mammals foraging around fishing gear or preying upon fishing catch and bait: it may not be “depredation”. They discuss the true meaning of the word "depredation" and how it has been used in a scientific context.  Resources: Marine biology on a violated planet: from science to conscience

This week Erica chatted with Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina Erin Meyer-Gutbrod about her recent publication Redefining North Atlantic right whale habitat-use patterns under climate change.

In this week's episode, Erica chatted with William Carome, researcher at the New Zeland Whale and Dolphin Trust about his recent publication A long-term shift in the summer distribution of Hector’sdolphins is correlated with an increase in cruise ship tourism.  Sources:  New Zeland Whale and Dolphin Trust: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

In this episode Erica, Liam and Madi discuss what credible science looks like and how to find legit sources for information.  Resources:  Science Council  What Makes Science Science (NPR) Live Science  Understanding Science UC Berkley 

In this week's episode, Erica chatted with Erin Falcone, Biologist at Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research about her most recent publication Movements and residency of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the California Current System. 

Fist porpsiode with Madison Bashford talking about Stellar Sea Cows :)

This week Erica chatted with Katie Kowarski Research Scientist at JASCO Applied Sciences about the last chapter of her thesis: Seasonal song ontogeny in western North Atlantic humpback whales: drawing parallels with songbirds. Katie shares her unexpected findings on humpback whale acoustics is the North Atlantic population.  

In this week's episode, we introduced Madison Basford our new porpisode cohost. Erica and Madi had an authentic and vulnerable conversation about overcoming the trials and tribulations of life and the importance of being healthy in order to have a positive impact on the world.  WARNING: This episode contains sensitive topics including but not limited to trauma, cults, abuse, sexual assault, suicide, and religious trauma  Resources:  Brene Brown Consent Tea Jumping Spiders Living with Secrets Podcast Suicide Prevention The Power of Vulnerability (Brene Brown) Trevor Project (LBGT) 

This week Erica chatted with Joey Stagnaro a, Santa Cruz local who has been working on the Monterey Bay fishing and whale watching since he was 6 years old. Joey shares a bit of his life story and the changes he has seen though out his time on the bay. 

In our final porpisode with Kendra, we finish the last four chapters of Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton. We highly recommend this book to anyone interested in whales or a story about perseverance.  Warning: For some reason, we started talking about explicit around minute 28, so if you don't want to hear that, stop lis tening then.

In this week's episode, Erica chatted with Nicole Danaher-Garcia researcher from the Dolphin Communication Project about her recent publication, The partial merger of two dolphin societies. The merging of social groups is rarely seen in terrestrial animals, making this finding rather remarkable and furthering our insight into the complex world of social creatures. 

This week Erica sits down with researcher Deborah Vicari to discuss her recent publication regarding the discovery of hybridization between belugas and narwhals using geometric morphometrics on museum specimens. Deborah and her colleagues were able to determine Narlugas do exists by studying their skulls.  Source: Skull ecomorphological variation of narwhals (Monodon monoceros, Linnaeus 1758) and belugas (Delphinapterus leucas, Pallas 1776) reveals phenotype of their hybrids

This week Liam and Erica talked about the progress in regard to an oil spill as a result of the vessel sinking with 2,600 gallons of off fuel near SJI. They also discussed chapters 17-19 of Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton. Note: We uploaded the wrong episode last week, whoops :) 

This week Erica interviewed Scott Veirs founder of Beam Reach and co-founder of the Orcasound.net initiative about his new citizen science program, allowing more people to access acoustic data from the Salish Sea. 

This week Liam, Kendra, and Erica discussed topics related to Chapters 14-16 of Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton including sustainability and evolving perspectives

In this weeks episode Kendra, Liam and Erica dove into chapter 11, 12, and 13 of Alexandra Mortons Listening to Whales. 

In this week's episode Liam, Kendra, and Erica dove into chapters 5 & 6 of Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton. They also covered recent SRKW news regarding the Biden administration weighing in breaching the Lower Snake River dams, a new K pod calf, and the recent declaration of vulnerability in 13 individual Southern Residents.  More Sources:  https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/about/regulations/filings/2022/WSR%2022-14-068.pdf

This week Erica sat down with Dennis Fukushima, lead biologist at the Octopus Farm about their approach to octopus conservation and the state of octopus in Hawaii. He also shares his thoughts on how we can be better stewards of conservation. 

This week Erica chatted with Donna Sandstrom, Founder/Executive Director of the Whale Trail and member of the Orca Task Force about her work and thoughts on how to help the Southern Residents.  About The Whale Trail: Where the Whales Are: Discovering Marine Mammals from Shore Along the Pacific Coast (Washington Post 2020) Humans are so loud marine safaris might soon be on land (Daily Beast 2021) About Southern Resident Orca Recovery: Nearby Vessels Interrupt Feeding of Southern Resident Killer Whales, Especially Females (Holt et al 2021) Columbia Basin salmon, Snake River dams and Southern Resident Orcas (NOAA Fisheries 2020) Southern Resident Killer Whales and Snake River Dams (NOAA Fisheries 2016) Southern Resident Orca Task Force Final Report and Recommendations (2019) Southern Resident Orca Recovery - Washington State Website Give them Space! voluntary pledge campaign for boaters to stay 1,000 yard/meters away from SRKW. My book about Springer! Orca Rescue! The true story of an orphaned orca named Springer (Kids Can Press 2021)

This week Erica chatted with Orca Researcher Anaïs Remili about her recent publication, Validation of quantitative fatty acid signature analysis for estimating the diet composition of free‑ranging killer whales. She dove into a new methodology studying whale diets called QFASA, and also discussed her organization Whale Scientists, which aims to highlight young cetacean scientists and help aspiring whale scientists find resources.  Resources:  Anaïs Remili's Website and Twitter  Whale Scientists Website, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok Episode 92. Barataria Dolphins, Imposter Syndrome, and Whale Scientist (Episode with her partner Naiomi Mathews)

This week naturalist and local feral man of Alaska, Dale Frink to talk about the time he got thrown into the water by a blue whale. Dale has requested to raise money for the Ocean Defenders Alliance click the link to donate!  Youtube Video  Photos  

Kendra, Liam, and Erica discuss chapters 3 & 4 of Listening to Whales by Alexandria Morton.  Sources:  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/new-state-federal-report-puts-10-27-billion-price-tag-on-lower-snake-river-dam-removal/

This week Erica chatted with Hannah Overbeak and Tay Shoemaker from Project Polywog about their impact-driven business model. They shared the plight of two endangered frogs as well as insight on how they are helping these species both through a frog rescue and frog breeding programs. 

This week Erica celebrated our 100th episode and pride month with a special two-part episode. In the first part, she chatted with Kendra Nelson about homosexuwhality in the animal kingdom, as well as their personal experiences being part of the LBGTQ community. For the second part, she chatted with musician and og homie Ambur Wilkerson to write "Baleen" a whale rendition of the iconic Dolly Partons song Joleen. 

This we Erica chatted with Owen Begley-Collier and Lucy Larkin from the Snake River Savers about their upcoming protest in Seattle to remove the Lower Snake River Dams Snake river savers social media sites: https://instagram.com/snakeriversavers?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://www.facebook.com/snakeriversavers/ https://twitter.com/riversavers?s=21&t=OkJuFQGKoTa5Mc-7NBltag Washington resident and can’t make the rally? Take action: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-governor-inslee-and-washingtons-senators-to-save-the-southern-resident-orcas Other states take action: https://saveourwildsalmon.salsalabs.org/bidenadminalert2022/index.html?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=6e82a205-3042-4886-b977-c84517bc45f6

In this weeks porpisode Erica, Liam and Kendra dive into the first two chapters of listening to whales by Alexandria Morton. 

This week Erica chatted Alex Haraus, an impact producer focused on saving our natural world. Alex talks about how he has used TikTok as a vessel for conserving wild places and shares some of his life experiences and philosophies. 

This week Erica chatted with Mumbai researcher and PhD Candidate Ketki Jog about her recent publication Marine Mammal Interactions With Fisheries: Review of Research and Management Trends Across Commercial and Small-Scale Fisheries.  Ketki discussed her research and how she used the help of local fishers to collect data. She also shared her insight on how we can be better scientists and stewards of the environment by working together and staying humble. 

This week Erica chatted with one of her favorite humans Madison Bashford about her novel research tagging and studying market squid at the John Hopkins Marine station during her undergraduate career at California State Monterey Bay. They also have a very real discussion about the role of mental wellness in their personal and professional journeys, as well as larger environmental issues.  

In this week's episode, Erica chats with Ally Rice researcher at Scripps Whale Acoustic Laboratory about her most recent publication Update on frequency decline of Northeast Pacific blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) calls. Ally discusses her study and drives into the unexplainable conundrum behind this phenomena and shares current theories for why this may be happening. Erica and Ally also touch on noise pollution and Ally shares advice on how to better care for our environment.