Pieter Folkens
The Alaska Whale Foundation: Field Research of the Southeast Alaska Humpback Whale PopulationThursday, Feburary 23, 2012
7pm
Location: Saylor’s Restaurant (upstairs room) 2009 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA
The Alaska Whale Foundation has been conducting field research of the Humpback Whale population in Southeast Alaska since the 1980s. Pieter will give us an exciting presenting on their current research on the study area, prey abundance and distribution, social foraging, whale profiles, the community structure, showing the latest Crittercam results including the first ever video of a nursing humpback calf.
Biography:
Academic, environmental, and naturalist circles worldwide recognize Pieters' work as among the finest, most accurate renderings of marine mammals. He is an important illustrator of marine mammal field guides with work published in twenty-eight countries and nineteen languages (from Greenlandic Iñupiat to Malagasy). The accuracy of the illustrations stems from extensive field experience—including lengthy treks up the Amazon River and on Arctic Ice. The quality of the work grows from a consummate attention to detail. Folkens is an accomplished writer, conservationist, and naturalist as well. He spends summers studying humpback whales and orcas in Alaska as a co-founder of the Alaska Whale Foundation. He is a trainer and captain of their water rescue/whale disentanglement team as well as a co-founder of California W.E.T. as a Type I whale disentangler for Northern California. He’s a life member of The Marine Mammal Center. His company — A Higher Porpoise Design Group — is so named to draw attention to one of the most endangered marine mammals, the Vaquita.
He has contributed time and talents to marine research and conservation efforts in West Africa, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Canada, Taiwan. Peru, Brazil Mexico, and at home in California. He has contributed unique scientific specimens currently residing in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California Academy of Sciences. He is the only living artist to illustrate a new marine mammal species for its scientific debut and to have presented academic papers at conferences of the Society for Marine Mammalogy of which he is a charter member and the founder of the Excellence in Science Communication Award.
Folkens' expertise in marine mammal morphology has appeared in twelve feature films as character designs and anatomically correct stunt doubles as well as in four documentaries. His film work includes George and Gracie for Star Trek IV-The Voyage Home, the killer whales in the Free Willy series, dolphins for seaQuest DSV, White Squall, and others.