Highlights from Dr. Roxanne Beltran’s Talking : "Unraveling individual and environmental drivers of variation among elephant seals"

We had a technical problem and sadly the February talk was not recorded so here are highlights from the speech.

February’s fascinating talk was attended by well over one hundred ACS chapter community members to hear from Dr. Roxanne Beltran and researcher Conner Hale relate their research "Unraveling individual and environmental drivers of variation among elephant seals". Due to a technical failure we are unable to provide a recording but are sharing these video links for further interest: 1) 2025 PBS feature, 2) 2024 Science Magazine feature, or 3) Roxanne's Kraw Lectures of 2022 and Slug and Stein Lecture of 2023.

We encourage those interested in keeping up with the cutting edge research underway at the Beltran Lab to subscribe to their newsletter here. And a snippet of the lively Q&A that ensued follows.

·      How do researchers identify ES that arrive in various haul-outs?

Researchers at various California Elephant seal rookeries have agreed to use color tags to mark their locations. For instance, Pt. Reyes uses only pink tags; Ano Nuevo only uses green tags; the Marine Mammal Center uses orange tags for its rescued elephant seals. That is how researchers know that juvenile ES from Ano Nuevo have been seen at the Channel Islands, San Simeon, and Pt. Reyes haul-outs.

·      Can elephant seals differentiate between fish-eating orcas versus mammal-eating orcas?

Answer: Unknown

Biggs orcas, which hunt marine mammals, go completely silent during hunts to avoid detection by their prey. Resident orcas, which primarily eat fish, use echolocation clicks to locate their prey. Elephant seals eavesdrop on deep echolocating cetaceans (i.e. orca, dolphins, beaked whales) and may follow these cetaceans to find prey in the deep Mesopelagic Zone of the oceans.

·      How do elephant seals avoid predation by Orcas when they are swimming back from Alaska to California?

Answer: One behavior observed and recorded on the tags is that elephant seals do respond to Orca sounds by diving deeper away from the surface.

·      Regarding an elephant seal’s weight gain in a foraging trip, Conner offered this:

“I calculated the BMI of a seal that wore a tag during the post-molt foraging trip, and at deployment her BMI was 41, and at recovery her BMI was ~75! She went from 290 to 524 kilograms.” Some female elephant seals consistently gain up to 100kg of weight when pregnant. Beltram Labs’ research showed that increased weight gain correlated with lifetime reproductive success. Females that gain weight consistently have heavier weanlings, which have a better chance of surviving.”

If people are interested in donating to the Beltram Lab in Santa Cruz, here is a direct link:

https://give.ucsc.edu/campaigns/38026/donations/new?designation=a1K8c00000i24K3EAI

A Conversation with Susan Hopp and Award-Winning Wildlife Photographer, Jodi Frediani

In this conversation, board member Susan Hopp interviews renowned marine mammal photographer and native Californian, Jodi Frediani, to learn more about how she got started in wildlife photography, what motivates and inspires her, and what tips she has for people who are interested in the field of wildlife photography.

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In Conversation with Susan: A Feeding Frenzy in Cordell Banks

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Board member and Bay Area naturalist, Susan Sherman reports on a recent trip out to the Cordell Banks. She shares some exciting sightings of several species of cetaceans and a wide variety of sea birds that were all feeding on the same bait fish.

Status of the Southern Resident Killer Whales, and Ways to Help Them

Conservationist and ACS San Francisco Bay Chapter volunteer, Kylie West, provides us with an update on the status of the Southern resident killer whale population. She reports on total population metrics, recent births and deaths, current Endangered Species Act status, current threats, and steps we can take to help protect and conserve this important and treasured population of cetaceans.

In Conversation with Susan Sherman, Bay Area Naturalist

“Conversation with…” series is inspired by “Conversation with Izzy”, beloved marine biologist and ACS chapter board member, Izzy Szczepaniak, who passed suddenly in November 2021. Izzy regularly graced us with reports of cetacean activity in or near San Francisco Bay area.

In this conversation, board member Susan Hopp interviews new chapter board member Susan Sherman, a local naturalist and science teacher, who leads regular trips to the Farallon Islands.

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Help Our Oceans – Eliminate Single-Use Plastic

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In early August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its latest report on the climate crisis and the impact of CO2 in our atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. Described as a “Code Red for Humanity” and summary assessments from scientists like “We are out of time”, ACS community members might be wondering what can I do?

In Conversation with Izzy: Why We Haven’t Seen Whales Feeding in San Francisco Bay This Summer

“Conversation with Izzy” is a regular series where we hear from ACS Board Member and Cetacean Biologist, Izzy Szczepaniak. Board Member Susan Hopp sat down with Izzy to learn why we haven’t seen many whales feeding in San Francisco Bay this summer.

Learn More

In Conversation with Izzy: Recent Strandings of Fin and Gray Whales in the Bay Area

“In Conversation with Izzy” is a regular series where we hear from ACS Board Member and Cetacean Biologist Izzy Szczepaniak. In this installment, Board Member Susan Hopp sat down with Izzy to learn about recent strandings of fin and gray whales in the Bay Area.

In Conversation with Izzy: Humpback and Gray Whales Enjoy Last Meals Before Migrating to Southern Breeding Grounds

ACS San Francisco Chapter Board member, Susan Hopp, recently interviewed fellow Board member and Marine Biologist, Izzy Szczepaniak, to learn about observations of cetacean activity in the Bay Area.

In Conversation with Izzy: Recent Bay Area Cetacean Strandings Included Two Rare Species

We recently interviewed Izzy Szczepaniak, Marine Biologist, and ACS San Francisco Chapter Board member, to learn about some of his research work for the California Academy of Sciences, specifically, the collection of carcasses of cetaceans that strand along the Northern California coastline. There were two very rare species among recent strandings.

In Conversation with Izzy: How the Pandemic Has Affected Cetacean Research in the Bay Area

We recently interviewed Izzy Szczepaniak, Marine Biologist, and ACS San Francisco Chapter Board member, to learn about what kinds of cetacean activity has been observed in the Bay Area during the pandemic to date, and to better understand how the pandemic is affecting research efforts.

ACS Grant Recipient’s Organization Helps A Mexican Community Build Culture and Economy Around Cetaceans

ACS Grant Recipient’s Organization Helps A Mexican Community Build Culture and Economy Around Cetaceans

In a small village along the Mexican Pacific coast, Katherina Audley’s organization, the Whales of Guerrero Research Project identified an opportunity to help a community by creating a stronger bond with cetaceans that depend upon the Pacific Ocean for their survival.

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ACS Grant Recipient's Research Shows Connection Between Whale Entanglement, Warmer Ocean Temperatures, and Dungeness Crab Fishing

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In the last few years, the number of whales getting tangled up in fishing gear in local waters has skyrocketed. In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported 71 separate cases of whale entanglement with fishing gear on the West Coast. That is 41 more instances of whale entanglement than in 2014 and the highest annual total since the agency first started keeping track in 1982.  

Armed with 30 years of whale sighting data in the Farallon Islands, ACS San Francisco Bay Chapter research grant awardee Kaytlin Ingman set out to find out why more whales were getting caught in fishing equipment than nearly ever before.

The Impact of Plastic Pollution on Cetaceans and What Can Be Done About It – A Scuba Diver’s Perspective

Toben Lonne, Editor-in-Chief of Dive.in magazine and PADI certified Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT) instructor, shares a story about how an experience diving with pink dolphins in Thailand opened his eyes to the damage that plastic pollution is doing to cetaceans and their habitats. He shares his perspective on how fellow divers and the concerned general public can take steps to help cetaceans in distress and reduce plastic waste in an effort to preserve these magnificent marine mammals and their beautiful marine habitats.

ACS Grant Recipient’s Research Models Humpback Habitat and Shipping Lanes to Inform Strategies for Reducing Ship Strikes

Andrea Dransfield has never been inside the belly of a whale, but she did get a pretty good glimpse inside several humpback’s mouths.

As a graduate student at San Francisco State University’s Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies, Dransfield got a first-hand view of humpback whales lunge feeding right next to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research vessel. The sighting was not only one of the most gratifying experiences of Dransfield’s research, but also it became a data point in her thesis. Between 2011 and 2012, she gathered records on oceanographic properties and humpback whale sightings during data collection cruises, adding to Point Blue Conservation Science’s extensive dataset, to create predictive models that could map out humpback whale high-use habitats and reduce the risk of whale ship strikes.

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Impacts of Anthropogenic Sound on Marine Life

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When we consider major environmental threats to marine life, we often think of issues such as oil spills, overfishing, and plastic pollution. A threat that’s likely not as familiar to the general public but holds grave consequences is that of ocean noise pollution. NOAA’s National Ocean Service defines ocean noise pollution as “sounds made by human activities that can interfere with or obscure the ability of marine animals to hear natural sounds in the ocean.” An article in Yale Environment 360 shares a quote from marine scientist Christopher Clark: “We are injecting so much noise that we are effectively acoustically bleaching the world’s oceans.”