News from the Read Lab

In January, Andy joined colleagues from around the world to address the plight of Irrawaddy River dolphins (Orcaella breviorstris) in the Mekong River during a workshop in Kratie, Cambodia.  Only 85 animals remain in this critically endangered population, threatened by by-catch in gill nets and an unknown source of mortality…

This fall Read Lab member Wendy Dow Piniak teamed up with Drexel University PhD student Lori Lester and the aquatic veterinary group at North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences led by Dr. Craig Harms to collect measurements on underwater diamondback terrapin hearing sensitivity. Diamondback terrapins are the only aquatic…

The Read Lab has several abstracts accepted for poster or spoken presentation at the upcoming 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals (November 28 to December 2, 2011 in Tampa, Florida). The theme of the conference is “Cumulative effects of threats to marine mammals: Challenges to animals, scientists,…

Danielle Crain, a second year CEM in the Read Lab, co-authored a paper on the feeding behavior of humpback whales that was published this month in the journal Animal Behaviour.

While Kim and Andy were in Boulder, we had lunch with Marc Bekoff, one of Kim’s early mentors and an expert on issues of animal behavior, cognitive ethology, behavioral ecology and animal welfare,  He has written extensively on these subjects (see some of his recent books), including several volumes with Jane…

Leading researchers working on the problem of marine mammal by-catch in gill net fisheries will be meeting in Woods Hole from October 17-20. Learn more here.  The workshop is sponsored by the Consortium for Wildlife By-Catch Reduction, which is a great resource for all things related to by-catch.

On September 27th our Biology of Marine Mammals Class visited Bonehenge – a cool project of the North Carolina Maritime Museum involving the preparation and re-articulation of a sperm whale skeleton.  Special thanks to Keith Rittmaster, curator extraordinaire, for hosting our visit.

Check out the cool new IPad Cachalot app developed by Dave Johnston and his group

Read a recent blog post about our adventures fishing for bull sharks in the Neuse River, NC.

Read the New York Times commentary on our recent paper in Biological Conservation