Center for Oceanic Research and Education
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I become a whale researcher? Where did you go to school?
The best advice here is for highschool students to take as many Science related courses as possible. It's also a good idea to try to get good grades, as college is very competitive and good study habits are essential in college. After highschool, there are many options for continuing your education - many schools now offer Marine Biology and related studies. Many whale researchers are from the Midwest (sounds crazy, but it's true) and have college degrees in such varied fields as Zoology, Environmental Studies, Animal Science, Biology and Chemistry. Most science degrees teach critical thinking and analysis through deduction - all very important in research. Once in college, we recommend that you start applying for internships in your area of interest. We, for instance, will not hire a staffer unless they've done their "stint" as a volunteer intern with our organization! Most whale research groups are the same. Internships will provide you with hands-on training, and will allow you to network with other interns and researchers - all essential in planning a career as a whale researcher.
A fantastic source of information about careers and where to go to school, WhaleNet is an incredible website that can help answer many of your questions:
What sort of educational programs does CORE offer?
The Center for Oceanic Research and Education offers a variety of avenues through which we endeavor to provide education about cetaceans. The primary means includes an internship program for college-aged students from as far away as the United Kingdom, Australia, and throughout the USA; education programs aboard commercial whale watching vessels, where we can reach as many as 10,000 individuals a year; and, educational programs in area schools and civic organizations, we can tailor a presentation for all ages and areas of interest.
Based in Gloucester, MA, CORE is an organization dedicated to the study and conservation of cetaceans. Cetaceans are whales, dolphins and porpoises. CORE's mission is to promote stewardship and conservation of cetaceans and their marine environment. In collaboration with other research organizations, CORE's research focuses on the fascinating social interactions among whales. Through whale watch education programs, school presentations and public outreach activities, as well as internships, CORE hopes to educate as many people as possible about the plight of endangered whales and their fragile marine environment.
CORE collects most of its research data aboard commercial whale watching vessels that
operate out of Gloucester, MA. Interns are aboard each trip as research assistants, and
are taught all aspects of data collection. The types of data recorded on each trip include
physical information – such as climate conditions, sea state, weather trends, water
depth, temperature, location, number and species of each cetacean, as well as behavioral
sequencing and photographs of focus animals. Other duties aboard the boats include
answering passenger questions, assisting with fundraising efforts, helping crew on deck
with lines and keeping the boat clean. In general, the interns will help assure the whale
watch trips run smoothly.
Additionally, interns learn data entry and how to do general office work. They are also
taught all aspects of analysis including data analysis and individual identification of
whales through photo analysis.
In 2003, CORE also started a new position for our interns as "Education Mates" aboard the commercial whale watching vessels out of the Yankee Whale Watching. Aboard each trip, a CORE intern acts as a dedicated education person - interacting with passengers and conducting educational programming thoroughout the trip. The education mate will perform plankton tows, play videos, play whale CDs for passengers to hear, show whale artifacts and conduct activities for children and adults alike. To learn more about becoming an intern or volunteer, click HERE!
Education programs aboard Yankee Whale Watching trips also provide an unequaled opportunity for CORE scientists to reach a broad audience. Each whale watch opens with a dockside introduction previewing the types of whales, marine birds, and other sea life likely to be encountered on the cruise. At sea, on-going narration by CORE scientists identify individual cetaceans, behaviors and offer insight into the daily life of the whales. On the return trip, CORE researchers welcome your questions inside the main cabin of the vessel.
CORE’s community outreach programming take CORE into your school or organization with a variety of media. CORE has a wide variety of media for presentation, primarily in the form of slides, video and hands-on items including bones, whale baleen and water samples. We have a large number of activities that involve student participation such as a life-sized inflatable whale, as well as smaller in-class projects like marine-related puzzles, word-searches, etc. We can also provide presentations about the Internet and where to go for information, if your school has the technology available.
All presentations are given by CORE staff researchers who spend 6-7 months of the year
in the field with whales, and who have much experience with children and public speaking.
On average, we are paid $125 for an hour-long presentation, plus expenses.
If you are interested in arranging a speaking engagement or have any questions, please
feel free to contact the CORE office by e-mail at
core@coreresearch.org
What does CORE do in the Conservation field?
CORE not only provides education program aboard commercial whale watching vessels, but also conducts research on the whales encountered during each trip. These trips provide CORE a free research platform, as well as a "captive" audience to help raise funds to continue our research. Aboard these trips we ensure that passengers become aware of such important issues such as pollution, habitat degradation, overfishing, entanglements and ship strikes and their negative effects on whales.
It is only through research and promoting stewardship of the whales that we might be able to continue important conservation measures that will protect the whales themselves, as well as their important marine environment. Our research maps out those areas that are critical whale habitat. We were involved in a petition drive with Senator John Kerry, garnering over 10,000 signatures to ensure the designation of Stellwagen Bank a National Marine Sanctuary in 1992.
How long has CORE been conducting research?
CORE was founded in 1996 and continues to grow by leaps and bounds every year! Our staff members provide educational narration on whale watch trips all around New England including Yankee Fleet in Gloucester, MA. Our dedicated staff is not only busily conducting whale research aboard these vessels, but doing educational presentations throughout the year and currently working on a number of research grant proposals for future studies.
What does CORE study?
What are the results of research, who uses the information, and what are sources of
funding?
CORE studies the movements, distribution and individual behavior of endangered whale populations in the Gulf of Maine. The results are slow to come, sometimes. It can take several years to collect enough information to draw any conclusions. We have been in operation for only 5 years, so we have not created a sufficient database to end any of our major studies quite yet.
Our research focuses primarily upon the populations of fin and humpback whales found in the inshore waters of New England. We are currently working on several projects including:
We start with a theory. Say that we start with a basic premise that we have more humpbacks than fin whales within a certain area of ocean. Generally it is a matter of breaking everything down into "per effort" increments. For instance, say we saw 6 fin whales and 11 humpback whales in one trip within that area. The next trip we only saw 2 fin whales and 5 humpbacks. To correctly analyze this set of data we would need to break it down into its components. Overall, we had 8 fin whales and 16 humpbacks, each trip is four hours, so that’s a total effort of 8 hours. Therefore, we had 1 fin whale per unit effort and 2 humpbacks per unit effort. We would generally use several years of this type of information to compile real numbers. Finally, statistical programs are run to tell us if the differences are significant. That is a simplistic but very basic means by which we can tell if our theories are true or false. It’s the scientific method at work! Information is shared through direct communication, through publishing in scientific journals and at specific conferences designed for scientists to show and convey their findings.
Sources of funding include grants, direct donations, in-kind donations, memberships, whale adoptions and selling souvenirs aboard the whale watching vessels.
What do you do in the winter?
The winter is the time of year to play catch-up! This is when we do things like write this web page, and do the analysis for the entire year, go to meetings and conferences, clean up the office, write grant proposals, scan photos, etc. Probably the most time-consuming task in the winter is the analysis. We photograph each whale that is encountered on each trip during our 7 month field season. One of our researchers may take over 100 rolls of 36-exposure film. That boils down to 3600 photographs that have to be analyzed. Analysis entails comparison of the field photo to existing photos in our whale catalogs. For instance, if we took a photo of a whale that we thought was "Fan," we would then take the field photo and compare it to our catalog photo of "Fan."
The protocol for making a perfect "match" is to find 10 match points between the two photos. That means that there have to be 10 lines, dots, divots, marks, circles, serrations - 10 some things that match. It's just like fingerprinting techniques - finding unique features on a cataloged print that match to a person's fingerprint. We don't have programs at this point to do the matching, so it's all done by hand (or eye, rather!). No one has yet developed a computer program that can deal with the issues we have to contend with when it comes to whales, like a photo at an odd angle, glare, splashes, diatoms that attach to the whale (harmless, but give it a temporary reddish hue), marks that fade, etc. Our brains are excellent at filtering out these temporary problems, computers can't quite do that yet!
Since all of the employees at CORE are essentially unpaid volunteers (yes, that's right!) most of us have other jobs in the wintertime - it's the only way we can support our whale habit!!
If you have any other questions that you think might be good to have on this page, please e-mail us at:
core@coreresearch.org - with a subject of "for your faq page"
Thanks for your input!