Spring Break
Marine mammal film is a hit
Bruce Mate's research on blue whales aired on National Geographic Channel March 8
Makenzie Marineau
Issue date: 4/14/09 Section: News
As the director of the Marine Mammal Institute at OSU, Dr. Bruce Mate's work promotes marine mammal conservation and contributes to developing better practices for wildlife management.
His newest research is revealed in a National Geographic Channel film, "Kingdom of the Blue Whale," which aired on March 8, and has became National Geographic's highest-rated nature documentary ever. The documentary follows Mate and his colleague John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research on their efforts off the coast of California, where they tagged 15 blue whales, to the whales' wintering grounds at the Costa Rica Dome.
The blue whales were tagged and followed via satellite. The satellite technology used was developed and pioneered by Mate during his 33-year career at Oregon State for tracking marine mammals, particularly whales. The focus on his recent work was to track data to identify the critical habitats where endangered whales breed, feed and calve. Most of the filming took place aboard the R/V Pacific Storm, an OSU research vessel operated through the university's Marine Mammal Institute. Documentation by the National Geographic Channel crew on the research trip began in September 2007, when Mate and Calambokidis first tagged the blue whales along the Pacific coastline.
"Filming started in the fall of 2007, and the documentary covered about a year of our research," Calambokidis said. "We viewed the partnership with National Geographic as an excellent opportunity to do the research we wanted to conduct. It was amazing and a huge pay off to have the ability to do work on what we were interested and passionate about."
Calambokidis co-founded Cascadia Research Collective in 1979. It is a non-profit scientific and education organization based in Olympia, Wash., that was founded on the primary idea to conduct research needed to manage and protect threatened marine mammals.
"In the mid '80s when my interest started in blue whales, there was little known about these mammals. At that time, the blue whale was the most heavily sought out for whaling," Calambokidis said. He has now been doing research on the blue whale for 23 years.
His newest research is revealed in a National Geographic Channel film, "Kingdom of the Blue Whale," which aired on March 8, and has became National Geographic's highest-rated nature documentary ever. The documentary follows Mate and his colleague John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research on their efforts off the coast of California, where they tagged 15 blue whales, to the whales' wintering grounds at the Costa Rica Dome.
The blue whales were tagged and followed via satellite. The satellite technology used was developed and pioneered by Mate during his 33-year career at Oregon State for tracking marine mammals, particularly whales. The focus on his recent work was to track data to identify the critical habitats where endangered whales breed, feed and calve. Most of the filming took place aboard the R/V Pacific Storm, an OSU research vessel operated through the university's Marine Mammal Institute. Documentation by the National Geographic Channel crew on the research trip began in September 2007, when Mate and Calambokidis first tagged the blue whales along the Pacific coastline.
"Filming started in the fall of 2007, and the documentary covered about a year of our research," Calambokidis said. "We viewed the partnership with National Geographic as an excellent opportunity to do the research we wanted to conduct. It was amazing and a huge pay off to have the ability to do work on what we were interested and passionate about."
Calambokidis co-founded Cascadia Research Collective in 1979. It is a non-profit scientific and education organization based in Olympia, Wash., that was founded on the primary idea to conduct research needed to manage and protect threatened marine mammals.
"In the mid '80s when my interest started in blue whales, there was little known about these mammals. At that time, the blue whale was the most heavily sought out for whaling," Calambokidis said. He has now been doing research on the blue whale for 23 years.
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Acai
Lisa
posted 4/14/09 @ 6:44 PM PST
I watched this documentary and it was simply stupendous! Congratulations go out to Dr. Bruce Mate, OSU and National Geographic for collaborating on this. (Continued…)
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