Summary of Reported Whale-Vessel Collisions in Alaskan Waters

Here we summarize 108 reported whale-vessel collisions in Alaska from 1978–2011, of which 25 are known to have resulted in the whale's death. We found 89 definite and 19 possible/probable strikes based on standard criteria we created for this study. Most strikes involved humpback whales (86%) with six other species documented. Small vessel strikes were most common (<15 m, 60%), but medium (15–79 m, 27%) and large (≥80 m, 13%) vessels also struck whales. Among the 25 mortalities, vessel length was known in seven cases (190–294 m) and vessel speed was known in three cases (12–19 kn). In 36 cases, human injury or property damage resulted from the collision, and at least 15 people were thrown into the water. In 15 cases humpback whales struck anchored or drifting vessels, suggesting the whales did not detect the vessels. Documenting collisions in Alaska will remain challenging due to remoteness and resource limitations. For a better understanding of the factors contributing to lethal collisions, we recommend (1) systematic documentation of collisions, including vessel size and speed; (2) greater efforts to necropsy stranded whales; (3) using experienced teams focused on determining cause of death; (4) using standard criteria for validating collision reports, such as those presented in this paper.The authors gratefully acknowledge the many organizations and individuals who have reported and collected data on whale-vessel collisions over the years including members of the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network; the US Coast Guard; NOAA Enforcement; the Alaska Department of Fish & Game; the Alaska State Troopers; tour operators; vessel captains, pilots, and crew; harbormasters; fishermen; recreational boaters; Charles Jurasz; and C. Scott Baker. They thank John Sease, Linda Shaw, and Kaja Brix for developing the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network with limited resources; Mary Sternfeld, who shepherded the NOAA Alaska Region Stranding Database through its infancy; Doug DeMaster for initiating the first paper on this topic for the IWC in 2007 and for providing valuable comments on this paper. Special credit goes to Dr. Frances Gulland from The Marine Mammal Center for leading necropsies in Alaska, training local responders in ship strike necropsy methods, and contributing her expertise to this paper. They extend sincere thanks to the Alaskan marine mammal veterinarians (Dr. Kathy Burek, Dr. Rachel Dziuba, Dr. Carrie Goertz, Dr. Kate Savage, and Dr. Pam Tuomi) and volunteers who have conducted and participated in whale necropsies. They are indebted to Jen Cedarleaf (UAS) for her expert fluke matching skills which allowed them to identify several of the dead humpback whales in this study. They thank John Moran (NOAA), Fred Sharpe (Alaska Whale Foundation), and Erin Falcone (Cascadia Research Collective) for sharing photos of live whales with collision injuries. They are grateful to David Mattila (IWC), Ed Lyman (NOAA), and Jerry Dzugan (Alaska Marine Safety Education Association) for contributing to and supporting this study. They thank Whitney Rapp and Greg Ambrose for their help developing the hotspot map. They thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this paper. Necropsies on endangered whales were conducted under National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) permits 932-1489 and 932-1905.Ye

Humpback whales interfering when mammal-eating killer whales attack other species: mobbing behavior and interspecific altruism?

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are known to interfere with attacking killer whales (Orcinus orca). To investigate why, we reviewed accounts of 115 interactions between them. Humpbacks initiated the majority of interactions (57% vs. 43%; n=72), although the killer whales were almost exclusively mammal-eating forms (MEKWs, 95%) vs. fish-eaters (5%; n=108). When MEKWs approached humpbacks (n=27), they attacked 85% of the time and targeted only calves. When humpbacks approached killer whales (n=41), 93% were MEKWs, and >87% of them were attacking or feeding on prey at the time. When humpbacks interacted with attacking MEKWs, 11% of the prey were humpbacks and 89% comprised 10 other species, including 3 cetaceans, 6 pinnipeds, and 1 teleost fish. Approaching humpbacks often harassed attacking MEKWs (>55% of 56 interactions), regardless of the prey species, which we argue was mobbing behavior. Humpback mobbing sometimes allowed MEKW prey, including nonhumpbacks, to escape. We suggest that humpbacks initially responded to vocalizations of attacking MEKWs without knowing the prey species targeted. Although reciprocity or kin selection might explain communal defense of conspecific calves, there was no apparent benefit to humpbacks continuing to interfere when other species were being attacked. Interspecific altruism, even if unintentional, could not be ruled out

mtDNA heteroplasmy gives rise to a new maternal lineage in North Pacific humpback whales

Heteroplasmy in the mitochondrial genome offers a rare opportunity to track the evolution of a newly arising maternal lineage in populations of non-model species. Here, we identified a previously unreported mitochondrial DNA haplotype while assembling an integrated database of DNA profiles and photo-identification records from humpback whales in southeastern Alaska (SEAK). The haplotype, referred to as A8, was shared by only two individuals, a mature female with her female calf, and differed by only a single base pair from a common haplotype in the North Pacific, referred to as A-. To investigate the origins of the A8 haplotype, we reviewed n = 1,089 electropherograms (including replicate samples) of n = 710 individuals with A- haplotypes from an existing collection. From this review, we found 20 individuals with clear evidence of heteroplasmy for A-/A8 (parental/derived) haplotypes. Of these, 15 were encountered in SEAK, four were encountered on the Hawaiian breeding ground (the primary migratory destination for whales in SEAK) and one was encountered in the northern Gulf of Alaska. We used genotype exclusion and likelihood to identify one of the heteroplasmic females as the likely mother of the A8 cow and grandmother of the A8 calf, establishing the inheritance and germ-line fixation of the new haplotype from the parental heteroplasmy. The mutation leading to this heteroplasmy and the fixation of the A8 haplotype provide an opportunity to document the population dynamics and regional fidelity of a newly arising maternal lineage in a population recovering from exploitation.Funding Support for this work was provided by a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University and the National Park Service (Pacific West Region Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit Task Agreement #P12AC15004). Additional funding was provided by the Mamie Markham Research Award, Joan Crebbin Memorial Fellowship, Lylian Brucefield Reynolds Scholarship, Thomas G. Scott Grant Scholarship and the Hatfield Marine Science Center Student Organization Travel Grant. Acknowledgements We thank the SPLASH Steering Committee for access to haplotype information and sighting records. A special thanks to Charles Jurasz for his insight and foresight in documenting individual whales in southeastern Alaska. All research was conducted under appropriate permits issued by the US National Marine Fisheries Service, in accordance with the US Marine Mammal Protection Act and the US Endangered Species Act, including no. 14122 issued to J.M.S., nos. 945-1499-02 and 473-1700- 00 issued to the Glacier Bay National Park, and no. 675 issued to C.S.B.Ye

Local recruitment of humpback whales in Glacier Bay and Icy Strait, Alaska, over 30 years

We provide new information on the scale at which fidelity and recruitment underlie observed increases in humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae populations.We provide new information on the scale at which fidelity and recruitment underlie observed increases in humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae populations. We used photoidentification records and DNA profiles from whales in Glacier Bay and Icy Strait (GBIS), southeastern Alaska (SEAK) to investigate 3 sources of population increase over 33 yr (1973−2005): local GBIS recruitment, recruitment from elsewhere in SEAK, and immigration from outside SEAK. We defined 2 temporal strata for these longitudinal records: ‘founder’ individuals identified from 1973 to 1985 (n = 74; n = 46 with DNA profiles) and ‘contemporary’ individuals identified from 2004 to 2005 (n = 171; n = 118 with DNA profiles). To distinguish between local recruitment and recruitment from elsewhere in SEAK, we estimated the proportion of the contemporary stratum that was either a returning founder or descended from a founder female. After excluding 42 contemporary whales without a known mother or genotype to infer maternity, 73.6% of the contemporary stratum was confirmed or inferred through parentage analysis to be either a returning founder or a descendant of a founder mother. Of the 25 females with genotypes in the founder stratum, 24 (96%) were either represented in the contemporary stratum, had at least 1 descendant in the contemporary stratum, or both. We found no significant differences in microsatellite allele or mtDNA frequencies between the strata, suggesting little or no immigration from other feeding grounds. Our results highlight the importance of local habitat protection for a recovering species with culturally inherited migratory destinations.Ye

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

In silico toxicology protocols

The present publication surveys several applications of in silico (i.e., computational) toxicology approaches across different industries and institutions. It highlights the need to develop standardized protocols when conducting toxicity-related predictions. This contribution articulates the information needed for protocols to support in silico predictions for major toxicological endpoints of concern (e.g., genetic toxicity, carcinogenicity, acute toxicity, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity) across several industries and regulatory bodies. Such novel in silico toxicology (IST) protocols, when fully developed and implemented, will ensure in silico toxicological assessments are performed and evaluated in a consistent, reproducible, and well-documented manner across industries and regulatory bodies to support wider uptake and acceptance of the approaches. The development of IST protocols is an initiative developed through a collaboration among an international consortium to reflect the state-of-the-art in in silico toxicology for hazard identification and characterization. A general outline for describing the development of such protocols is included and it is based on in silico predictions and/or available experimental data for a defined series of relevant toxicological effects or mechanisms. The publication presents a novel approach for determining the reliability of in silico predictions alongside experimental data. In addition, we discuss how to determine the level of confidence in the assessment based on the relevance and reliability of the information

Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) entanglement in fishing gear in northern southeastern Alaska

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2006The prevalence of non-lethal entanglements of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in fishing gear in northern southeastern Alaska (SEAK) was quantified using a scar-based method. The percentage of whales assessed to have been entangled ranged from 52% (minimal estimate) to 71% (conditional estimate) to 78% (maximal estimate). The conditional estimate is recommended because it is based solely on unambiguous scars. Eight percent of the whales in Glacier Bay/Icy Strait acquired new entanglement scars between years, although the sample size was small. Calves were less likely to have entanglement scars than older whales and males may be at higher risk than females. The temporal and spatial distribution of commercial fisheries is complex and difficult to correlate with these results. The percentage of whales with entanglement scarring is comparable to the Gulf of Maine where entanglement is a substantial management concern. Consequently, SEAK humpback whale-fisheries interactions may warrant a similar level of scrutiny

Biologically important areas II for cetaceans within U.S. and adjacent waters - Gulf of Alaska Region

We delineated and scored Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) for cetacean species in the Gulf of Alaska region. BIAs represent areas and times in which cetaceans are known to concentrate for activities related to reproduction, feeding, and migration, and also the known ranges of small and resident populations. This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA)-led effort uses structured expert elicitation principles to build upon the first version of NOAA’s BIAs for cetaceans. Supporting evidence for these BIAs came from aerial-, land-, and vessel-based surveys; satellite-tagging data; passive acoustic monitoring; Indigenous knowledge; photo-identification data; and/or prey studies. A total of 20 BIAs were identified, delineated, and scored for six species: beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas), fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica), and sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). Of the 20 total BIAs, there were two small and resident populations, one migratory, and 17 feeding areas; no reproductive BIAs were identified. An additional five watch list areas were identified, a new feature to the second version of BIAs. In addition to more comprehensive narratives and maps, the BIA II products improve upon the first version by creating metadata tables and incorporating a scoring and labeling system which improves quantification and standardization of BIAs within and across regions. BIAs are compilations of the best available science and have no inherent regulatory authority. They have been used by NOAA, other federal agencies, and the public to support planning and marine mammal impact assessments, and to inform the development of conservation measures for cetaceans.NOAA. US Navy.Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Methods -- 3. Regional summary -- 4. Examples of biologically important areas in the Gulf of Alaska -- 5. Conclusions/recommendations -- Data availability statement -- Ethics statement -- Author contributions -- Funding -- Acknowledgments -- Conflict of interest -- Publisher's note -- Supplementary material -- References.Ye