Last week, the 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals took place in Tampa, Florida. This week-long conference, held in locations all around the world, was an amazing opportunity for the Right Whale Volunteer Sighting Network to gain publicity and sell some door mats. Julie and I attended the conference, and were able to sell approximately 60 mats and a variety of jewelry and other items, benefitting the volunteer sighting network.
This was also a great opportunity to connect with others in our field and learn about cutting edge right whale and marine mammal research. I, for example, attended a talk about right whale vision. It turns out they can see only one color pigment. This one pigment corresponds exactly to the pigment of the copepod that is their main species of prey. Julie attended a talk about the North Pacific right whale, whose population, sadly, has dwindled to about 30 individuals.
Attendees and exhibitors came from all around the world. It was wonderful to see such a dynamic and diverse group of individuals coming together for the same cause. The exhibitors next to our booth were from Taiwan. They were at the conference to promote the conservation of a very unique species of pink dolphin, Sousa chinensis. There are only about 100 of these dolphins left in the world, the only known population being in the Indo-Pacific.
Overall, we learned a lot, educated people in the marine mammal field about our program, and were able to raise some money for the program. It was a great week!
-Kerry
