Andy Szabo

From Birth to Independence: First Year in the Life of a Humpback Whale

About the Speaker

Andy Szabo is the Director and Research Biologist at the Alaska Whale Foundation (AWF). He also oversees AWF’s research program, where he supervises a team of graduate students and undergraduate interns at their remote field station in Warm Springs Bay on the eastern side of Baranof Island. His research focuses on humpback whale foraging ecology, social biology, behavior and health. He received his PhD in Wildlife Biology through the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University.

From Birth to Independence: First Year in the Life of a Humpback Whale

From late 2013-2016, the Gulf of Alaska experienced the largest and most persistent marine heatwave (the “blob”) on record. In the years that followed, researchers in Southeast Alaska and elsewhere began reporting record-low numbers of humpback whale calves. In this presentation, we take an energetic perspective to better understand how these two, somewhat non-overlapping phenomena were linked. We also consider how energetic constraints imposed upon female humpback whales shape their calves’ first year of life.  In doing so, we introduce novel tools and techniques that are shedding light on this critical period in the lives of these animals.