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WHOI in the News


‘Rolls-Royce’ of shark cameras can extend to turtles, whales, seals and squid for ocean’s big picture

Boston Herald

A high-tech SharkCam invented by a Cape Cod researcher offers an unprecedented window into the lives of the ocean’s toothy predators, and can also extend to seals, whales, turtles and squid for a big-picture view of precious ecosystems and how to protect them. “These vehicles, these underwater robots that look like highly complex systems are just an extension of yourself to be able go where people can’t go, and there’s no limitation to what they can do,” said Amy Kukulya, research engineer and principal investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Why are birds and seals starving in a Bering Sea full of fish?

Seattle Times

Federal and university scientists are trying to better understand why some birds and marine mammals have been unable to find enough food, and whether toxic algae blooms — increasing as the water warms — could have contributed or caused some of the die-offs.

Sharks and the ocean’s twilight zone: Some female great white sharks can deep dive for hours

Boston Herald

Much of the shark focus around the Cape is on great whites roaming close to the shoreline as they prowl for seals, but researchers are finding out that several sharks are actually diving deep into the twilight zone out in the middle of the ocean. Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod are researching the sharks’ deep diving behavior and how sharks’ bodies have evolved to handle these deeper conditions. They’re learning that deep diving is far more frequent and extensive across species than previously thought, said Simon Thorrold, a senior scientist in the biology department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Biologging and Raspberry Pi

medium.com

Karla Haiat Sasson, who was a guest student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute summer of 2019, and who is a participant of the DEEPi project at the department of Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, worked on a project to adapt the DEEPi cameras, which were shown to work successfully, into a biologging system for a WHOI project directed by Tag Lab director Amy Kukulya, that seeks more information on the biology of gray seals in Cape Cod.