Ocean Alliance, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1971 as one of the world's first organizations dedicated to cetacean (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) conservation. The organization is headquartered in the iconic Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory [1] building in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. Ocean Alliance's mission is to protect whales and their ocean environment through research, scientific collaboration, education, and the arts. They use drone technology to advance whale science, particularly through their SnotBot® program.[2]
Ocean Alliance was founded in 1971 by whale biologist Roger Payne, with the purpose of saving the great whales from the extinction risk posed by commercial whaling. Payne, along with colleague Scott McVay discovered that humpback whales sing songs,[3] which made him an influential figure in the worldwide campaign to end commercial whaling.
Since its founding under Payne, and later under the stewardship of CEO Iain Kerr, Ocean Alliance has been an important group in the worldwide effort to research and protect whales.
They developed benign research techniques, helping to develop several key research tools for studying whales that are still in use, such as photo-identification [4] and bio-acoustics.[5] Many of their exploits have brought them into the public eye, leading Payne to describe the group as "the group you don't know you know".
During the 1990s, Ocean Alliance established that whales could be saved by publicizing them to the world, and they became involved in over forty documentaries including In the Company of Whales[6] and the IMAX film Whales.[7]
In the late 1990s, Ocean Alliance became increasingly concerned about pollution in our oceans, and how little was being done to study this pollution and bring it to light. From 2000 to 2005, under the leadership of Iain Kerr, Ocean Alliance launched the Voyage of the Odyssey,[8] which provided the first global data set on ocean pollution. This project lasted five years and spanned the entire planet. In its executive summary, Roger Payne stated that, "The Voyage of the Odyssey has proven irrefutably that ocean life is becoming polluted to unacceptable levels by metals and human-made contaminants."
In 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, releasing approximately 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In response, Ocean Alliance spent five years in the Gulf of Mexico, studying the impacts of the oil spill on marine life. This work culminated in the publication of dozens of academic papers and reports.[9]
In 2013, Kerr recognized an emerging technology that could hold the key to the future of whale research and conservation: drones. This marked a shift in Ocean Alliance's approach to whale conservation, as they focused their efforts on facilitating and accelerating the use of drones in whale science.[10] This was carried out under the belief that drones have great potential in whale science and conservation.
Since then, drones have become increasingly common tools in whale science. Ocean Alliance's SnotBot program, and more recently their tagging program, have been at the forefront of this drone emergence.[11]
• 1967: Ocean Alliance founder and president Roger Payne discovered, along with Scott McVay, that humpback whales sing songs. This was an important hallmark of the Save the Whales movement.[12][13]
• 1970s: Payne and Ocean Alliance demonstrated mathematically that the songs of Blue whales and Fin whales are audible across entire ocean basins. The recent corroboration of this theory[14] may explain, for the first time, why these species have no known breeding grounds.
• 1970s: Payne and Ocean Alliance were instrumental in establishing an 860 square mile whale park (Golfo San Jose), off Peninsula Valdes in southern Argentina-an important breeding ground for endangered Southern right whales. This led to a permanent research program being set up, which is now the longest continuously running study on baleen whales (the program entered its 44th year in 2013). Since 1996 the program has been run in conjunction with the Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas.[15][16]
• 1970s: Ocean Alliance scientists pioneered many of the benign research techniques commonly used worldwide to study free-ranging whales.
• 1979, National Geographic magazine published an article by Payne which included a sound sheet of his ‘Songs of the Humpback Whale’.[17][18]
• 1990s–2020s: An education drive was implemented by Iain Kerr to support Ocean Alliance's programs. This included partnerships with schools in Massachusetts developing an elementary whale study curriculum ‘Looking at Whales’, the Cetacean Education Through Awareness (CETA) program in Gloucester, Massachusetts; the ‘Education Today’ program developed in partnership with the Discovery Channel, the Pacific Life WHALE Education program with various schools across the United States and the Ocean Encounters multimedia education program.
• 1970's–2000s: Ocean Alliance was involved in setting up and protecting marine parks in Hawaii, Alaska, Sri Lanka, the Galapagos Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. In 2003, Ocean Alliance's work lead directly to a 1.2 million square mile marine mammal sanctuary being created in the waters of Papua New Guinea.
• 1994: Massachusetts governor William Weld signed a proclamation establishing April 21 as Roger Payne and Ocean Alliance day in celebration of Earth Day.
• 2000–2005: Under CEO Iain Kerr, Ocean Alliance launched 'the Voyage of the Odyssey',[8] to gather the first ever data set on pollutants throughout the world's oceans. This was a massive undertaking, receiving media attention worldwide.
•2008: Bought the Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory in Gloucester, Massachusetts to be its new headquarters.
•2010–2014: Ocean Alliance spent five summers in the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to determine the long-term toxicological impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
•2015: Ocean Alliance 'Drones for Whale Research initiative began after a successful KickStarter campaign. The program, with the flagship 'SnotBot' program at its core, became Ocean Alliance's primary research activity.[21]
•Ocean Alliance's SnotBot and Drones for Whale Research programs continue, as Ocean Alliance becomes a leader in the utilization of drone technology in whale science and conservation. The work was featured in two BBC documentaries, Equator from the Air [22] and Blue Planet Live,[23] and two National Geographic documentaries: Earth Live[24] and One Strange Rock.[25] It has also been presented at the UN headquarters in New York,[26] as well as other ocean conservation and science conferences globally.
•Ocean Alliance becomes one of the first groups in the world to successfully deploy suction-cup data tags on large whales.[27] Data tags are a key tool in whale science, providing fine-scale data on what whales do when they are underwater (an aspect of their lives that prior to the development of tags was difficult for scientists to study).[28] Ocean Alliance's new method is an exciting progression in the field of whale tagging and could lead to advances in our understanding of whale behavior and ecology.
Headquarters: The Gloucester Paint Factory
In 2008, Ocean Alliance purchased the Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory in Gloucester, Massachusetts to be its new headquarters. The Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory is one of the most well-known landmarks on the North Shore (Massachusetts), significant for being the place where Anti-fouling paint, used to prevent the build-up of marine growth on the bottom of boats, was perfected. Since its building it has been a landmark of Gloucester harbour, and Gloucester fishermen have long counted themselves as being home when they glimpsed the red walls of this iconic structure sitting at the gateway of Gloucester harbour.
As technology developed, the type of paint made at the Gloucester Paint Factory became obsolete, and in the 1980s the Factory was shut down. Over the decades a lack of maintenance, the toxic nature of the chemical compounds used to make the copper-based paint and the elements have all pulled the buildings into disrepair. In 2008 Ocean Alliance purchased the buildings to be their new headquarters with the intention of making the Paint Factory a proud symbol of the city of Gloucester's pioneering spirit and of its intimate connection with the seas.
Ocean Alliance is developing the buildings, and among other things hope the buildings will house a state-of-the-art education center (complete with a library, a classroom and an interactive learning/media environment), a Paint Factory Museum and anti-fouling paint exhibit, offices, conference spaces, a robotics laboratory developing the research tools of tomorrow and a toxicology laboratory.
Major Research Programs
The Voyage of the Odyssey
The Voyage of the Odyssey was a 5-year program which collected the baseline data set on contaminants in the world's oceans.[29] It was launched from San Diego in March 2000, and ended five and a half years later in Boston, August 2005.[30][31]
In a 1979 National Geographic magazine article Ocean Alliance founder and president Roger Payne predicted that toxic pollution would replace the harpoon as the next greatest threat to whales.[3] Recognizing the stark lack of data on the subject, Payne set his organization Ocean Alliance the task of obtaining a global baseline data set on contaminants.[32]
After years of planning and fund-raising, the program was finally ready to launch in 2000. In the executive summary of the project, Payne stated that, ‘The Voyage of the Odyssey has proven irrefutably that ocean life is becoming polluted to unacceptable levels by metals and human-made contaminants.’
The focus of the program was sperm whales, a cosmopolitan species found in every major ocean.[33] As long-lived apex predators, sperm whales represent a useful bioindicator of health in the marine ecosystem in a toxicological context, owing to the effects of three key processes: bioaccumulation, biomagnification and the generation effect.[3] Sadly, these three processes also make sperm whales, and other apex predators, at great risk from toxic pollution. As mammalian apex predators that nurse their young with milk, they are also relatively similar to us, and thus are seen as the ‘canaries in the golf mine’ regards humanities relationship with the oceans.
The program also had a robust educational and outreach component. In every country they visited, Odyssey crew members met with government leaders, students, teachers and journalists-many of whom kept promoting ocean health after the Odyssey departed for its next research location.[30] The program was also the focus of a major online diary & educational webpage through American broadcaster PBS.[8]
Aside from collecting the first baseline data set on contaminants in the world's oceans, the program was witness to a number of other successes, innovations and firsts. These include:
• recorded sightings of blue whales in equatorial waters where they were thought never to be present[20]
• the first successful satellite tag on a sperm whale (by visiting scientist Bruce Mate)[38]
• the first electrocardiogram of a sperm whale (by visiting scientist Dr. Jorge Reynolds)[39]
• the training of over 100 scientists from Latin America in the benign research techniques developed by the Ocean Alliance;[20]
• the first successful underwater sonar tracking of sperm whales throughout their dives,[20]
• technique for placing remote sensing packages on the backs of whales and for acquiring skin samples more easily.[20]
On the program, Payne commented that, ‘Saving marine animals from the insidious effects of pesticides, fire retardants, plasticizers, and poisonous metals is not a selfless act. By saving the ocean for whales, we may just be able to save countless other oceanic species and leave our children and grandchildren a healthy ocean rather than one contaminated with the by-products of our progress.’ More information on the Voyage of the Odyssey can be found on Ocean Alliance's website.
Patagonia Right whale program
The Patagonia Right Whale program is one of the longest continually running studies on great whales:[40] as of 2014 the program entered its 44th year.[41] Ocean Alliance founder Roger Payne set up the program in 1970, on realizing that he could identify individual whales based on the patterns of cyamids (whale lice) on their heads. This opened up an enormous opportunity to gain far more information on the life-history of individual whales than had previously been possible. Roger also recognized its significance as it enabled him to learn far more from a live whale than the whaling community was learning from dead whales.[42]
The program is run by Dr. Victoria Rowntree, in conjunction with Dr. Mariano Sironi of the Instituto Conservación de Ballenas.[41] The unique long-term nature of this program has produced significant discoveries relating to the ecology, biological life cycle,[43]ethology and conservation of these species. As time has gone on, the program has been expanded to include genetics, feeding ecology and bioacoustics. The techniques that Roger Payne, and later on Victoria Rowntree and Instituto Conservacion de Ballenas,[16] pioneered have since been well-established among cetacean science programs worldwide.
So called because they were the ‘right’ whale to kill,[44]Southern right whales were brought to the verge of extinction during the early 20th century.[45] Their enormous blubber reserves caused the animals to float after being killed, while their slow-moving nature made them easy targets. Although significant conservation threats still remain (primarily habitat loss), many populations have shown slow signs of recovery. The long-term objective of the Patagonian Right Whale Program is to promote and facilitate this recovery.[40]
Gulf of Mexico program
In April 2010, approximately 210 million gallons of oil was released into the Gulf of Mexico marine environment following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[46] In response, over 2 million gallons of oil dispersant was released, in unprecedented quantities and untested ways,[47] in an effort to break up and sink the oil.
In July 2010, Ocean Alliance, in partnership with the Wise Laboratory of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology, took the RV Odyssey into the area in an effort to determine the, often overlooked, long-term impacts of this environmental catastrophe.[48] After such incidents, people often look no further than the immediate impact: death tolls of particular species are logged, population declines/increases recorded, and these figures are seen as broadly representative of the environmental damage. The toxicological work being conducted by Ocean Alliance and their partners at the Wise Lab was primarily aimed at determining the chronic, long-term impact of the incident-in particular the geno-toxic impacts of oil (and compounds found in oil) and dispersants as they work their way up the trophic food chain.[49]
The long-term effects are believed to be far more significant than the short-term effects, a belief corroborated by on-going research in the Gulf of Mexico[50][51][52] and the fact that the impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill (which occurred in 1985 in Prince William Sound, Alaska) are still being studied over 25 years after the initial accident. The total discharge of oil from this spill was approximately one tenth of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Perhaps the most significant economic impact of the Exxon Valdez disaster—the collapse of the Herring fishery, only collapsed four years after the spill, and has not as of 2016[update] shown signs of recovery.[53] This makes the kind of long-term focused program Ocean Alliance conducted all the more important. Preliminary analysis has shown potentially damaging levels of genotoxic metals including chromium and nickel in Sperm whales living in the area, significantly higher than the global average.[54] Furthermore, it has shown a correlation between proximity to the spill and levels of these genotoxic metals.[54]
To achieve the aim of conducting a long-term analysis, Ocean Alliance monitored the top apex predator of the region, the sperm whales.[55] A resident, non-migratory population of sperm whales resides in the Northern Gulf of Mexico in close proximity to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As apex predators, sperm whales act as bio indicators of the health of the marine ecosystem in a toxicological context, demonstrating the effects of three key processes: bioaccumulation, biomagnification and the generation effect. These processes also make sperm whales, and other apex predators, at greater risk from toxic pollution.
Ocean Alliance conducted this study for 5 years, during each summer from 2010 to 2014. For the final two years, they were joined by activist group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, as part of a program labelled Operation Toxic Gulf.[56] This afforded the program much more exposure than was previously possible.
SnotBot
SnotBot is a research program started and run by Ocean Alliance. Within this research program, drones collect respiratory samples (or, in essence, snot) from whales by flying the drone through the blow or spout of a whale. This spout consists of a mixture of biological and non-biological compounds from which various facets of a whale's health and ecology can be inferred.[57]
Ocean conservation group Parley for the Oceans have been the primary partners and funders of the SnotBot program.[58]
The SnotBot program was initiated in 2014, as an attempt to explore and harness the potential which drones had in whale science.[59][60] At first, Ocean Alliance developed their own drones alongside researchers and students at Olin College of Engineering,[61] before moving to consumer drones made by manufacturers such as DJI[62] and Yuneec.[63]
The initial SnotBot expeditions were funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign, which included a campaign video featuring Star Trek and X-Men actor Sir Patrick Stewart.[64] The first three expeditions took place in Patagonia, Argentina; The Sea of Cortez, Mexico; and Alaska, the United of America.[65]
Since then, four more expeditions have taken place: two more to the Sea of Cortez and two more to Alaska. The team have collected samples from five species of whale including blue whales, orca, gray whales, southern right whales and humpback whales [66]
The primary SnotBot team has consisted of CEO Iain Kerr, photographer and cameraman Christian Miller,[67] Ocean Alliance Science Manager Andy Rogan,[68] Robotics Manager Chris Zadra,[69] and Assistant Director Alicia Pensarosa.[70]
The program has also seen considerable attention in the press. It has been featured in two National Geographic documentaries, Earth Live and One Strange Rock;[71] has been presented at the UN,[63] the Singularity Global Summit,[72] various academic conferences, trade shows[73] and academic institutions.[74][75]
The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. It is connected to the Gulf of Oman in the east by the Strait of Hormuz. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline.
The Gulf of Aden is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. In the northwest, it connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and it connects with the Arabian Sea to the east. To the west, it narrows into the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti. The Aden Ridge lies along the middle of the gulf, and tectonic activity at the ridge is causing the gulf to widen by about 15 mm (0.59 in) per year.
Jean-Michel Cousteau is a French oceanographic explorer, environmentalist, educator and film producer. The first son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, he is the father of Fabien Cousteau and Céline Cousteau.
Carl Safina is an American ecologist and author of books and other writings about the human relationship with the natural world. His books include Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace; Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel; Song for the Blue Ocean; Eye of the Albatross; The View From Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World; Alfie and Me; and others. He is the founding president of the Safina Center, and is inaugural holder of the Carl Safina Endowed Chair for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University. Safina hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina.
Roger Searle Payne was an American biologist and environmentalist famous for his 1967 discovery of whale song among humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to end commercial whaling.
Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by the BP company. On April 20, 2010, while drilling in the Gulf of Mexico at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on April 22, the Horizon collapsed, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and becoming the largest marine oil spill in history.
The United States offshore drilling debate is an ongoing debate in the United States about whether, the extent to which, in which areas, and under what conditions, further offshore drilling should be allowed in U.S.-administered waters.
Sperm whaling is the human practice of hunting sperm whales, the largest toothed whale and the deepest-diving marine mammal species, for the oil, meat and bone that can be extracted from the cetaceans' bodies.
The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southwest and south by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo; and on the southeast by Cuba. The Southern U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, which border the gulf on the north, are often referred to as the "Third Coast" of the United States.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an environmental disaster which began on 20 April 2010, off the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. Caused in the aftermath of a blowout and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, the United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 MMbbl. After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
On April 20, 2010, an explosion and fire occurred on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (64 km) southeast off the Louisiana coast. The explosion and subsequent fire resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the deaths of 11 workers; 17 others were injured. The same blowout that caused the explosion also caused an oil well fire and a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in United States history.
The following is a timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest offshore spill in U.S. history. It was a result of the well blowout that began with the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion on April 20, 2010.
Following is a timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for July 2010.
Cosmo Ace, formerly A Whale and Madison Orca, is a Liberian-flagged ore-oil carrier built in 2010 by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Ulsan, South Korea for TMT Co. Ltd. from the Republic of China (Taiwan). She has seven other sister ships in the fleet, built in 2010-2011 and named in succession: B Whale, C Whale etc., to H Whale.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been described as the worst environmental disaster in the United States, releasing about 4.9 million barrels of crude oil making it the largest marine oil spill in history. Both the spill and the cleanup efforts had effects on the environment.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was discovered on the afternoon of 22 April 2010 when a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. According to the Flow Rate Technical Group, the leak amounted to about 4.9 million barrels of oil, exceeding the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever to originate in U.S.-controlled waters and the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill as the largest spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has challenged this calculation saying that it is overestimated as it includes over 810,000 barrels of oil which was collected before it could enter the Gulf waters.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred between 10 April and 19 September 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. A variety of techniques were used to address fundamental strategies for addressing the spilled oil, which were: to contain oil on the surface, dispersal, and removal. While most of the oil drilled off Louisiana is a lighter crude, the leaking oil was of a heavier blend which contained asphalt-like substances. According to Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, this type of oil emulsifies well. Once it becomes emulsified, it no longer evaporates as quickly as regular oil, does not rinse off as easily, cannot be broken down by microbes as easily, and does not burn as well. "That type of mixture essentially removes all the best oil clean-up weapons", Overton said.
The Voyage of the Odyssey was a five-year program conducted by oceanographic research and education non-profit Ocean Alliance, which collected the first baseline data set on contaminants in the world’s oceans. It was launched from San Diego in March 2000, and ended five and a half years later in Boston, August 2005.
Samantha "Mandy" Joye is an American oceanographer who is well known for her work studying the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. She is a professor at the University of Georgia in the Department of Marine Sciences. Joye has made fundamental contributions in ocean biogeochemistry and microbial ecology, and is also regularly called upon by scientific and policy agencies as well as the media for expert commentary on ocean ecology. She was the expedition scientist and a lead science advisor for The Deep episode, part of the BBC's Blue Planet II, and is featured in production videos including Brine Pools: Exploring an Alien World for Blue Planet II and Future of the Oceans. She led the “Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas in the Gulf” research consortium between 2014 and 2020 and conducts research to understand relationships between biogeochemical cycles, microbial activity, and environmental factors in many diverse ocean environments.
↑ Foundation, Planet Ark Environmental. "Planet Ark Stories and Ideas". Planet Ark. Archived from the original on 24 June 2006. Retrieved 10 January 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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