Whale Entanglement Lecture

Humpback whale in Oregon waters.\Photo by Rena Olson.

The American Cetacean Society, Oregon Chapter, is offering a webinar on the issue of whale entanglement.  On Wednesday, Oct. 13, 6 p.m., speaker Solene Derville will present “Anticipating large whale entanglement risk off Oregon through a predictive approach to spatial conflict.”  The talk is free and open to all.

Registration is required.  To register, go here.

Solene Derville is a postdoc in the Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna lab at Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute.  Entanglement in fishing gear is a major threat to marine mammals worldwide and has become a pressing concern for whales in West Coast waters during the last decade. Using data to develop predictive models of large whale habitat use can be combined with fishery data to look at overlap of whales and fishing gear in space and time. This is one tool that can be used to reduce whale entanglements.

Due to the pandemic, Derville remains at the French Institute for Sustainable Development in New Caledonia, where she obtained her doctorate, while doing her postdoctoral work remotely.