the calf began to propel the fluke of his tail and glided upward towards the surface. and all of a sudden, i found myself peering into the eye of a baby whale. it felt like stepping into another world — a moment of profound interconnectedness that brought tears to my eyes beneath my mask. to my surprise, the baby began to pursue me, while rolling, frolicking, and splashing. it felt as if he was smiling at me, and i could sense his curiosity and joy while we played. 

after what felt like 10 minutes but was really around an hour, we hopped back onto the boat. the captain guffawed in vicarious joy, as we rejoiced in awe about what we had just experienced. we called him ‘crazy baby,’ a name the captain said was fitting for a calf so spirited she’d only seen its equal once in 14 years. i couldn’t believe my luck: to connect with such a magnificent creature so intimately, to share a fleeting but unforgettable moment.

video by chloe malouf.

around two weeks later, in moorea, french polynesia, rachel moore, a conservation photographer and social media influencer, experienced a similarly incredible encounter with a 3-4 year old juvenile humpback whale, who she nicknamed ‘sweet girl.’

“in the six seasons that i’ve swam with humpback whales, i’ve had numerous encounters with curious whales, especially calves. however, none were quite like sweet girl,” moore said. “unlike many young whales, she approached humans with a calm, almost playful demeanor, allowing us to interact with her in ways that were both rare and awe-inspiring.”

however, on october 8th 2024, a boat presumed to be going six times the legal speed limit rammed into sweet girl off the main island of tahiti, severing her upper jaw off and inflicting hours of suffering upon her before she was euthanized. “at first, i didn’t want to believe it was her. it wasn’t until i saw the distinctive markings on her body that i was certain,” moore said. “when i realized it was her, i was utterly heartbroken. it was difficult to process the fact that this incredibly gentle, curious whale had suffered such a tragic end.”

sweet girl’s death sparked a newfound sense of urgency to reduce vessel speed limits in french polynesia during whale season, and moore spearheaded a petition calling for this measure. unfortunately, this tragedy is not an isolated incident. all over the world, whales are threatened by ship strikes, especially great whales (baleen and sperm whales).

whales face growing problems

experts estimate that around 20,000 whales are struck and killed by cargo, cruise, and shipping vessels each year. ship strikes are emerging as one of the primary threats to whale populations around the globe, despite being largely undiscussed. 

the reason for vessel strikes is simple: whales don’t see boats and boats don’t see whales until it’s too late to safely maneuver around them (or they just don’t see them at all). ship strikes occur most frequently in areas where human and whale activity overlap. increasing maritime traffic, vessel sizes, and ship speeds are among the leading contributors to whale mortalities resulting from ship strikes. by 2050, maritime traffic is expected to increase by up to 1200%, indicating this issue will only continue to worsen unless widespread mitigation measures are implemented.

see the map below to visualize the extensive overlap between global shipping routes and whale superhighways. 

the international whaling commission (iwc) has identified whale populations that are most vulnerable to/threatened by ship strikes, as seen below.

according to the iwc’s strategic plan to mitigate ship strikes, “human-induced mortality caused by ship strikes can be an impediment to cetacean population growth. populations of whales in the low hundreds of individuals are at risk of continuing declines even if only a small number of ship strikes occur per year.”

of particular concern is the status of north atlantic right whales, whose main threats are entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes. “unless we get successful management measures, right whales will probably be extinct with your lifetime,” said david wiley, ph.d., the research coordinator for noaa’s stellwagen bank national marine sanctuary.

what’s more, as the climate is changing, whales are adapting, feeding in areas closer to coasts with more human activity, staying in areas longer than expected, and altering migration routes. kathi george, the director of cetacean conservation biology at the marine mammal center and an advisory council member for the greater farallones national marine sanctuary in california, speaks on this phenomenon below.

i spoke to george about public awareness of shipping collisions with whales. listen below:

“(the whales) didn’t evolve with industry. they don’t know to necessarily get out of the way of a ship when it is nearby. but they’re here to eat, and they’re going to go where the food is. and unfortunately, the food is in areas where there are high human activity,” george said.

current mitigation measures

research and monitoring is key to separating whales from vessels across time and space. we have to first understand where the whales’ critical habitats are located, how long they are staying there, and what migratory routes they are taking to get between them. this requires extensive research, international collaboration, and consistent funding.

in collaboration with dan zitterbart, ph. d., from the woods hole oceanographic institute, wiley’s lab is quantifying dimethyl sulfide (dms) abundance in seawater and using it as a predictor for right whale presence. dms is a sulphur compound produced by zooplankton called copepods, a key food source for several types of whales. dms acts as a sort of invisible breadcrumb trail that whales can follow, leading them to areas where food is plentiful. see how this works in more detail below.

surveying the prevalence of dms can also be used to predict the distribution and abundance of sei whales, which feed on copepods and are endangered.

higher efficiency in tracking whale movements paired with streamlined communication is especially crucial considering whales’ increasingly dynamic foraging behaviors. wiley provided an example of right whales suddenly switching habitats due to changes in copepod abundance.

during our interview, wiley expanded on the research around dms:

there are also monitoring efforts to map whale occurrence and identify hotspots where whales aggregate. developed by university of santa barbara’s (ucsb’s) benioff ocean science laboratory, whale safe combines marine science with technology to monitor whale occurrence off the san francisco coast and in the santa barbara channel. the program integrates whale sightings, acoustic buoys detecting whale calls, and a predictive model of blue whale occurrence. daily updates about whale activity in these areas are vital given the rapid changes in whale occurrence with the climate.

regulations on ships and moving shipping lanes

the best way to prevent ship collisions with whales is by separating them from ships entirely. the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa) fisheries division implements various regulations to prevent vessel strikes of whales, shown below.

in our interview, wiley discussed re-routing measures on the us east coast. listen below:

mandatory approach regulations require vessel operators to maintain a specific distance, depending on the species, between their boat and any whales in the area. 

“vessel speed reduction is the most effective tool currently available to reduce lethal collision events,” a noaa fisheries spokesperson said. research shows that the probability of large whale mortality due to ship strikes jumps from 21% at 8.6 knots to 79% at 15 knots (vanderlaan & taggart, 2007). thus, noaa implements both voluntary and mandatory 10-knot vessel speed restrictions in areas designated as slow speed zones along the u.s. east and west coasts. 

aside from the united states, many other countries have similar mitigation measures. the world shipping council (wsc) created the wsc whale chart in november 2023, which “offers mariners, managers, and policymakers a survey of all (governmental ship strike reduction) measures, across the globe, ranging from speed restrictions, routing measures, and areas to be avoided.” 

outreach and collaboration with the fishing industry

most ongoing mitigation measures are voluntary, leaving it up to mariners and the shipping industry to comply, which poses some significant problems. to address this, noaa fisheries and other organizations grade shipping companies based on their compliance with voluntary measures. 

wiley discussed how noaa does this on the east coast and how effective it has been below.

the stellwagen bank national marine sanctuary has also piloted a new technology, using an antenna to send notifications directly to the ship’s ais receiver screen, informing vessel operators if they are non-compliant with noaa’s speed restrictions when inside seasonal management areas (smas).

“we’ve developed a method that we can send a message to a ship in an sma that’s going too fast. and, so it appears on their navigation screen that says, you know, you’re in an area that’s (about to be a) seasonal management area for right whales,” wiley said.

the system is designed to alert vessel operators, but it also allows wiley’s team to track compliance. “so if you send it out once and they don’t get another message, they’ve complied. if you send it 10 times, then they haven’t complied at all,” he said.

funding the notification system is costly, however, and wiley notes that despite the project’s success rate, widespread coverage across the east coast is not yet feasible.

“right now, we’ve got some money that noaa has provided, and we’re targeting particular locations. we’ve got a location in provincetown. we’ve got some along the mid-atlantic, new york, and new jersey. there’s a couple now in tybee island, georgia. again, we’re putting a few of these up, but the more the better.” – dave wiley, ph.d.

off the california coast, whale safe uses its vessel analytics platform, which is an automated system allowing near real-time tracking of vessel activity and was recently scaled all over north america, to grade shipping companies based on their compliance. since its launch in 2020, there has been a gradual increase in compliance in both santa barbara and san francisco. 

rachel rhodes is a project scientist at the benioff ocean science laboratory and leads the whale safe project. rhodes spoke on how outreach with shipping companies has contributed to increased compliance. 

using the vessel analytics platform, rhodes’ team works with the shipping companies to create plans to deliver weekly reports on their compliance. “our hope is kind of this exact example of our data could help companies make those changes if they want to,” she said.

the tool is free and accessible for vessel operators to see whale occurrence on any given day. the platform integrates three complex data sources into a whale presence rating, categorized as low, medium, high, or very high. 

meanwhile, kathi george chairs a work group for the san francisco harbor safety committee, adding guidelines for safely navigating around whales to the san francisco harbor safety plan. george works closely with the shipping industry to spread awareness, share mutual perspectives, and develop mitigation strategies collectively.

next steps

a recent study generated global whale distribution models and compared them with shipping activity to create a global estimate of whale-ship collision risk.

these alarming findings highlight that current management areas are dramatically insufficient to mitigate ship strikes on a global scale. barriers include a lack of coordinated multinational collaboration, insufficient funding, and low public awareness.

looking ahead, scientists like george are encouraging multinational collaboration to work towards expanded management areas for full coverage of risk hotspots. one recent example is the whales in a changing climate workshop hosted in january, 2024 by the greater farallones and cordell bank national marine sanctuaries.

the workshop brought together government representatives from across the eastern pacific basin, ranging from canada to columbia. the resulting plan emphasizes the importance of collaborative management of marine protected areas, harmonized data sharing, and increased investment in research and mitigation measures.

technology too, will continue to adapt. satellite detection of whales offers a new way to track movements efficiently, even in remote areas, and infrared cameras on ship bridges can detect whales earlier. 

another important step forward is scaling whale safe’s vessel analytics platform globally, especially to current management areas and high-risk ship strike zones. in doing so, researchers like wiley can better monitor compliance with speed restrictions and target conservation efforts.

while there’s still hope for reducing ship strikes, the stakes remain deeply personal. as i reflect on the urgent need for global action, i can’t help but recall crazy baby and his mom. revisiting the magical memories of our encounters, i find myself conflicted, torn between awe and trepidation. i lay restless at night pondering the haunting question: where are they now? did they manage to pass through the busy shipping lanes along their journey, like a thread through a needle? it’s unsettling knowing that i will never know their fate, but i will always maintain hope they both mother and son made it to their destination safe and unharmed.

the short film interdisciplinary innovation showcases the transformative power of collaboration while addressing environmental challenges. this conservation research project captures the efforts of an interdisciplinary team working on a diy water quality sensor initiative in madagascar. by uniting students from the institute for integrative conservation at william & mary, universities in madagascar, local community members, and conservation international, the project highlights a shared commitment to water conservation and sustainable solutions.

the film delves into the project’s innovative aspects, combining interviews with team members and partners to illustrate the initiative’s impact on both water quality and community empowerment. it emphasizes the value of cultural exchange, with careful attention to representing malagasy perspectives authentically.

this narrative not only underscores the technical achievements of the team but also celebrates the importance of cross-cultural collaboration in conservation efforts. interdisciplinary innovation offers an inspiring look at how collective creativity can drive meaningful change for communities and ecosystems alike.

anne marie higgins is dedicated to monitoring red-tailed hawks in syracuse, new york. she often spends hours daily observing and documenting them. hawks are a vital part of the ecosystem we live in, helping to control populations of rodents and small mammals, therefore maintaining an ecological balance. due to the nature of being a top predator, hawks face a wide variety of threats including rodenticide poisoning and avian influenza. higgins founded the red-tailed hawk tales facebook page and helped fund syracuse university’s first hawk nest camera in 2016. through her facebook page and the nest-cam, higgins educates and inspires, fostering awareness and appreciation about and for the natural world.

click on the presentation below to view the whole story!

sea turtles have been navigating the world’s oceans for millions of years, and they have a timeless ritual of returning to the same sites to lay their eggs. but now, climate change is forcing these ancient nomads to face an uncertain future, turning them into climate refugees. 

the exact locations where sea turtles have lived for generations are in danger due to rising sea levels, deteriorating beaches, and more harsh weather. we explore the difficulties these animals encounter in this comic, including how storms and warming temperatures are changing their environment and driving them to extinction.

but amid this crisis, there’s hope, as sea turtles continue their struggle for survival. this story serves as a call to action and a reminder that our destiny is linked to that of sea turtles. come learn how climate change is affecting these beloved animals’ futures and what we can do to help preserve them.

click on the image below to view the whole story!

giant clams are iconic animals on the corals reefs and in some pacific islands. they also play an important role in food security and cultural practices for the people of guam.

due to climate change and outside influences, giant clam populations have been declining around the pacific. in response, local communities and governments have been working together and across borders to restore their numbers.

earlier this year, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration put forward a proposal to update the status of giant clams under the endangered species act and increase federal protections. however, many local researchers and community members oppose this, as they believe such projects would make local restoration initiatives and cultural practices more difficult, if not impossible. this story follows indigenous scientist frank roberto’s project in giant clam restoration on guam and his response to the proposal within his community.

the reason you may want to: native plants support a greater abundance and diversity of wildlife by providing habitat that directly supports populations of butterflies, bees, and birds. native plants make landscapes more adaptable to future environmental stressors caused by the climate crisis, including temperature swings, drought, flooding, and pest outbreaks.

in martha’s vineyard, off the coast of massachusetts’ cape cod, the polly hill arboretum has spent decades creating an online record of more than 200 island native plants that you can browse using its plantfinder resource.

timothy boland, executive director of polly hill, says that planting native plants helps to prepare for the unknowns. “native plants are uniquely adapted to soils and stressors, and more so have a really tight connection with the animals in an environment,” boland said. 

polly hill not only informs, it sells native plant plugs to people interested in adding natives to their landscaping. some of the plants they propagate, like red columbine, which flowers in the spring, have had limited populations on the island, and polly hill has helped to restore them. 

“we knew it was here and only here, and now we can propagate it. from a conservation standpoint, with an endemic plant, what we’ve done here is kind of cool,” boland said.

orange butterfly weed is its most popular native plant due to its bright orange flowers and attractiveness to monarch butterflies, but boland encourages people to look beyond the beauty of a plant and consider what it can provide to the environment: “we tend to be enamored with just the beautiful, and don’t understand the functionality of what we would consider a grass. a lot of things have equal value, even though they don’t have the startling beauty.”

a convenient place to “check out” native seeds, the west tisbury library in massachusetts offers a seed library which contains a unique collection of seeds suited to the local environment, and the library hopes to create a locally adapted collection of seeds over time. 

the seed library there has been focused mostly on food seeds until recently. mary sage napolitan, the regenerative landscape manager at island grown initiative, has worked with the organization to create a native plants section.

“there’s a lot of energy behind it, but it’s really hard to get the plants. you can buy seeds from some companies, but they’re not always from the vineyard. the hope is that at least we’ll have some bank of seeds so that people can start,” napolitan said. 

although people are often hesitant to add native plants to their gardens, napolitan says you can still have a gorgeous, well-manicured garden made up of mostly, if not entirely, native plants.

“there are nonnative plants that aren’t bad; some of those plants are totally harmless. it’s just a matter of also making a point to incorporate native plants, because we know that they support so many insects and other wildlife,” napolitan said.

napolitan recommends native garden plants such as penstemon digitalis, a tall white flower, penstemon hirsutus, which produces a similar purple flower, and monarda fistulosa, a lavender flower that attracts a variety of bees and butterflies. napolitan herself is very fond of asters, which can be small blue, white, or purple flowers, and goldenrods, a tall golden flower that is natural bird food.

christine wiley, a horticultural expert and greenhouse grower for more than 30 years, owns vineyard gardens with her husband chuck, a self-proclaimed “plant-aholic.”

“we want to have a positive environmental impact and do anything we can to slow down climate change,” christine wiley said. “native plants have been here for a long time, and we know they do very well here.”

vineyard gardens hosted a garden worksop on june 22, 2024, where attendees were taught how to plant for climate resilience. the workshop was led by guest speaker andrea berry, executive director of the wild seed project in maine. “it’s nice to host a well-known speaker and to support ecology. we are a small island here, and it’s nice to support our environment,” wiley said.

wild seed project is a maine nonprofit that works to build climate-resilient habitats in northeast landscapes. its mission is to inspire people to take action in increasing the presence of native plants grown from wild seed that safeguard wildlife habitat, support biodiversity, and mitigate the effects of climate change.

“native plants are plants that have evolved in the place they are for millennia in relation to the creatures. therefore they are really critical parts to a healthy and vibrant ecosystem,” berry said. 

native plants have interrelated partnerships with insects. milkweed is a good example, as the plant is a select place for monarch butterflies to lay their eggs. those eggs hatch and the caterpillars feed on the milkweed exclusively, then as adults, the monarch feeds off the plant’s blooms. “they have evolved this beautiful relationship with this plant over time that is really critical,” berry said. 

berry included that native plants can be wonderful garden plants because they are adapted to the environment they are experiencing. “when you actually stop and slow down and take a look at a garden, the beauty of a garden is in all the different pieces moving within it, and all the life that it supports. a healthy, living place where all different creatures live and can thrive is actually what i define as beautiful,” berry said.

native plant adaptation continues. the island’s recent rainstorms and windstorms resulted in a great amount of erosion, and conservation efforts have turned towards native plants. 

“when plants evolve in parallel with stressors coming at them from our ecosystem, they develop adaptations that allow them to respond to or mitigate some of those outside challenges. if we have a biodiverse ecosystem, then we are going to have a population of plants diverse enough to be resilient in the face of whatever nature is throwing at us,” berry said.

this story was originally published in mv times.

to read the full story, click on the presentation below.

though they are small compared to other ground-nesting birds like grouse or wild turkeys, they are a keystone species and play an important role in their ecosystem.  

“quail are what i would call a canary in the coal mine for the grassland or prairie ecosystem. finding management ways to help quail is also going to help a lot of other grassland birds, which are in decline,” said brad dabbert, ph.d ., the burnett foundation professor of quail ecology at texas tech university.  

according to the texas parks and wildlife 2023-24 bobwhite quail forecast, quail populations in the high plains of texas, the region that’s home to texas tech, were up from last year but down almost 50% compared to the 15-year average. 

counting quails

scientists perform the research for the forecast by counting all the quail seen from a vehicle on designated routes throughout the state. researchers saw almost four birds per research route this year compared to less than one last year, while the 15-year mean sits at almost seven.  

dabbert leads texas tech quail, a research program aiming to understand how to increase quail populations. he and his team conduct experiments, publish research and educate landowners and biologists.  

dabbert said quail populations naturally vary year-to-year, and one important factor is droughts, which are becoming more frequent.  

“what texas tech quail is trying to do is come up with ways to deal with the vagaries of drought. that is an old land manager saying, you know, ‘we’re one day closer to the next drought,’ and good land managers think of and try to prepare for those,” said dabbert.  

three main strategies

dabbert’s team uses multiple approaches and techniques at their field research site at the pitchfork ranch aimed at increasing quail survival. these include ensuring there is quality habitat, feed broadcasting and predator reduction.  

according to dabbert, quality habitat is the most important factor for healthy quail populations. this heavily depends on the amount of available cover, tall bushes and shrubs that grow branches from the top to the bottom of the plant. cover protects the birds from predators and extreme temperatures.   

cover can be controlled by land managers by limiting grazing to maintain existing cover and prescribing controlled burns to allow more suitable plants to grow in areas overpopulated with bad cover. 

“there’s no shortcut for managing the land correctly,” said dabbert. 

broadcasting involves driving a tractor that pulls a feeder through quail habitat and widely spreads supplemental grain and seeds for the birds.  

providing extra food increases bird survival in fall and winter, meaning there are more chances for successful breeding in spring. and it helps them find food with less foraging, which can make them vulnerable to attack from predators. dabbert and his team published their research supporting this in the peer-reviewed journal wildlife society bulletin.  

the third management approach, predator reduction, involves hunting and trapping animals that eat quail and their eggs.  

dabbert said this can be controversial because people see it as an unnatural practice. however, habitat fragmentation has caused a loss of apex predators that would normally control the populations of animals that feed on quail.  

“unfortunately, most of our environment is fragmented now. we don’t have the apex predators that we once had,” said dabbert.  

mesopredators, medium-sized predators, include animals such as coyotes, raccoons and skunks. dabbert said habitat fragmentation has allowed the populations of these animals to flourish because there are fewer apex predators to control them, especially in the heavily farmed lands of the high plains. and too many mesopredators means lower quail populations. 

by hunting and trapping mesopredators, there are more quail able to breed, and nests are more successful because eggs don’t get eaten. 

dabbert said the research his team is conducting has been successful at increasing quail numbers at their research site. according to their published results, quail survival increased by 16% in areas where they used broadcasting, compared to areas without. 

north america has the highest diversity of freshwater mussels in the world, with almost 300 different species. also known as the “liver of the river,” freshwater mussels filter and protect aquatic ecosystems. despite being able to filter between eight and 15 gallons of water per day, mussels face a myriad of threats including industrial development which affected these populations as factories popped up along the schuylkill river during the industrial revolution. 

at its worst, philadelphians said the river did not even resemble water. now, scientists at the fairmount water works (fww) freshwater mussel hatchery are working tirelessly to create a space where visitors can learn firsthand about the life of a freshwater mussel and how cleaner river water depends on one of the most imperiled aquatic animals in north america.

in 2017, the philadelphia water department teamed up with the partnership for the delaware estuary to open the hatchery, which is free to the public, and located within the fww interpretive center. the hatchery was designed and imagined by the academy of natural sciences at drexel university, victoria prizzia of habithéque, inc., and artist stacy levy.

introducing philadelphians to the power of the mussel

the hatchery sits along the schuylkill river, which provides 40% of philadelphians with drinking water, with the other 60% being provided by the delaware river. the location of the hatchery, along with preserving pieces of architecture from the original waterworks building are all intentional. according to stacey heffernan, the environmental education planner, “mussels are the gateway animal to get people to care for the waterways.” the hatchery’s proximity to the schuylkill, one of philadelphia’s most iconic green spaces, places it in a culturally significant and emotionally resonant site for many locals.  

in addition to this, the hatchery also runs educational programs for philadelphia youth. four schools from the surrounding area participate in the “mussels in the classroom” program. this provides teachers with their classroom’s own recirculating aquaculture system and some juvenile mussels. with this, students are able to engage first-hand with measuring mussels and monitoring water quality. 

the hatchery also runs a “mussels in the field” program located at the audubon discovery center, which provides youth from six nearby school districts with similar hands-on interactions, as well as introduces students to blue-green infrastructure. once a month, the discovery center also hosts “mussel maniacs” where adults can participate in similar field work and connect with other conservation enthusiasts. 

rebuilding a population of workhorse filterers

since the hatchery opened in 2017, they have consistently propagated around 10,000 mussels each year. the fww mussel hatchery strays away from what these types of aquatic field stations often aim to do, which is to focus on restoring endangered native populations. instead, the hatchery is working to build up common species that once thrived in the schuylkill prior to industrial development, which could lead in local efforts to purify water sources for philadelphians. 

in the wild, mussels have a few main ways of propagating, but scientists in the hatchery lab do these manually. this past year, the hatchery achieved a new personal record of the highest number of successful propagations with 20,000 mussels. so far this year, the hatchery more than doubled their yearly propagation numbers with just two inoculation trials. they also performed their first study to determine the rate at which two species of freshwater mussels could remove pollutants. 

looking ahead, the results will be used to determine how mussels can work as a complement to traditional pollution control technologies. with all these new milestones, heffernan says, “we have made a lot of strides in a short period of time.

the experience led me to reflect on the opportunities i’ve had to create strong bonds with nature and the cultural heritage of mauritius, my home. but in this rapidly changing world, new technological factors like increased screen time threaten the relationship this generation of children have with the world around them.

as i return home to mauritius, this storymap outlines my plan to reconnect young people with my island’s magnificent natural environment and the stories passed down from older generations. but this is just the beginning.

the storymap below offers a glimpse into how the vision for protecting these invaluable parts of our identity first took shape in my mind. but the true journey lies ahead — creating a lasting space for youth to become stewards of their environment and culture. it’s a movement to ensure future generations cherish and safeguard the heritage that defines us.