The National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) conducts research on marine mammals important to the mission of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with particular attention to issues related to marine mammals off the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. Research projects focus on ecology and behavior, population dynamics, life history, and status and trends.  Information is provided to various domestic and international organizations to assist in developing rational and appropriate management regimes for marine resources under NOAA's jurisdiction. These organizations include the NMFS Alaska and Northwest Regional Offices, the NMFS Office of Protected Resources, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the International Whaling Commission, and the Arctic Council. 

Research conducted by NMML utilizes a variety of methods and tools to obtain needed information. Determination of status and trends of marine mammal populations requires information on abundance, stock structure, mortality and net productivity. To obtain these data, censuses are carried out from ships, aircraft and on land. Radio and satellite-linked telemetry is utilized to determine movements and migrations, critical feeding areas and depths, and other behavioral data. Sophisticated analyses and modeling are carried out to determine necessary population parameters. Research programs are carried out cooperatively with many other federal, state and private sector collaborators.

Quarterly Reports

• Seal Disease Outbreak in Arctic - Updated Nov 2011
• Using Traditional Knowledge and Archived Documents to Aid Research and Conservation Goals for the Northern Fur Seal
  
• Finding the Needle in the Haystack: Using Sonobuoys to Locate a Critically Endangered Species
  
• Researchers from the Polar Ecosystems Program Census Harbor Seals Along Coastal Alaska
  
• Life History and Distribution Patterns of Fishes and Cephalopods: A Window into the Foraging Ecology of Pinnipeds
  
• Pushed to the Edge: Soviet Catches of Right Whales in the Eastern North Pacific
  
• The Endangered Beluga Whales of Cook Inlet, Alaska
  
• First Winter Capture and Tracking of Adult Female Steller Sea Lions in Southeast Alaska
  
• The Long and the Short of It: A Simple Photograph-based Approach for Discriminating between Free-ranging Long-finned and Short-finned Pilot Whales off the East Coast of the United States
  
• Completion of Endangered Species Act Status Reviews for Ringed and Bearded Seals
  
• Northern Fur Seal Research in 2010
  
• Mary Ann Sherman: The Life and Death of a Whaling Wife
  
• NMML Researchers Census Harbor Seals Along Coastal Alaska
  
• NMML Scientists Participate in St. Paul School's Bering Sea Days
  
• Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Analysis of Northern Fur Seal Telomeres
  
• Guadeloupe Humpback Whale Satellite Tagging Project
  
• Research Cruise Aboard the McArthur II in the Central Bering Sea, April-May 2010
  
• Probabilistic Modeling of Northern Fur Seal Movement
  
• How Fast Do Whale Populations Grow? Investigating the Plausibility of Humpback Whale Rates of Increase from Life-history Data
  
• Blood-Oxygen Capacity of Ribbon, Spotted, and Bearded Seals
  
• Habitat Use and Seasonal Movements of Adult and Sub-Adult Bearded Seals
  
• Alaska Northern Fur Seal Demographic Research, 2009
  
• Aerial Surveys to Study Bowhead Whale Feeding Ecology
  
• Additional National Marine Mammal Laboratory quaterly reports

Publications

• Ver HOEF, J. M. 2012. Practical considerations for experimental designs of spatially autocorrelated data using computer intensive methods. Stat. Methodol. 9:172-184. 
  
• WILSON, K., L. FRITZ, E. KUNISCH, K. CHUMBLEY, and D. JOHNSON. 2012. Effects of research disturbance on the behavior and abundance of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) at two rookeries in Alaska. Mar. Mammal Sci. 28:E58-E74. 
  
• CALL, K. A., and R. R. REAM. 2012. Prey selection of subadult male northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) and evidence of dietary niche overlap with adult females during the breeding season. Marine Mammal Sci. 28(1):1-15. 
  
• IVASHCHENKO, Y. V., P. J. CLAPHAM, and R. L. BROWNELL, Jr. 2011. Soviet illegal whaling: the devil and the details. Mar. Fish. Rev. 73(3):1-19. (.pdf, 4.96 MB).  Online.
  
• CLAPHAM, P. J. 2011. Mr. Melville's Whale. Am. Sci. 99:505. 
  
• Ver HOEF, J. M. 2011. Practical considerations for experimental designs of spatially autocorrelated data using computer intensive methods. Stat. Methodol. 9:172-184. 
  
• PHILLIPS, C. D., T. S. GELATT, J. C. PATTON, and J. W. BICKHAM. 2011. Phylogeography of Steller sea lions: Relationships among climate change, effective population size, and genetic diversity. J. Mammal. 92:1091-1104. (.pdf, 948 KB).   Online.
  
• PITMAN, R. L., J. W. DURBAN, M. GREENFELDER, C. GUINET, M. JORGENSEN, P. A. OLSON, J. PLANA, P. TIXIER, and J. R. TOWERS. 2011. Observations of a distinctive morphotype of killer whale (Orcinus orca), type D, from subantarctic waters. Polar Biol. 34:303-306. 
  
Additional National Marine Mammal Laboratory Publications

Posters

• Habitat and Ecological Processes Research (HEPR) Program
  By:  MIKE SIGLER, MANDY LINDEBERG, CRAIG FAUNCE, MICHAEL CAMERON, BEN LAUREL, TOM HELSER
  Conference:  non-conference use
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 1.14 MB)   Online.
  
• Predators and Persistent Prey in the Southeastern Bering Sea
  By:  MIKE SIGLER, KATHY KULETZ, PATRICK RESSLER, NANCY FRIDAY, CHRIS WILSON, ALEX ZERBINI
  Conference:  Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas (ESSAS) Open Science Meeting (2nd), Seattle, WA, May 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 1.56 MB)   Online.
  
• Intraspecific Comparison of California Sea Lion (Zalophus californianus) Diet Assessed Using Fecal and Stable Isotope Analyses
  By:  ANTHONY J. ORR, GLENN R. VanBLARICOM, ROBERT L. DeLONG, VICTOR H. CRUZ-ESCALONA, SETH D. NEWSOME
  Conference:  Wildlife Society, Washington Chapter / Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology joint meeting, Gig Harbor, WA, Mar 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 1.09 MB)   Online.
  
• Estimation of Survival Rates for Branded Steller Sea Lions on the Kuril Islands, Russia
  By:  ALEXEY ALTUKHOV, RUSSEL ANDREWS, VLADIMIR BURKANOV, THOMAS GELATT
  Conference:  Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 2.38 MB)   Online.
  
• Bringing CHAOZ to the Arctic
  By:  CATHERINE L. BERCHOK, SUE MOORE, JEFFREY NAPP, JAMES OVERLAND, PHYLLIS STABENO
  Conference:  Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 1.11 MB)   Online.
  
• Winter Steller Sea Lion Abundance in the Far Western Stock: Winter Use in the Commander Islands
  By:  VLADIMIR BURKANOV, RUSSEL ANDREWS, DONALD CALKINS, THOMAS GELATT
  Conference:  Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 5.77 MB)   Online.
  
• Freshwater Harbor Seals of Lake Iliamna, Alaska - Do They Pup and Over-Winter in the Lake?
  By:  DAVID WITHROW, KYMBERLY YANO, JENNIFER BURNS, COURTENAY GOMEZ, TATIANA ASKOAK
  Conference:  Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 2.3 MB)   Online.
  
• BOWFEST Aerial Survey 2010
  By:  JULIE A. MOCKLIN, KIMBERLY T. GOETZ, DAVID J. RUGH, LINDA VATE BRATTSTROM
  Conference:  Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2011
  (2011 poster, .pdf, 3.4 MB)   Online.
  
Additional National Marine Mammal Laboratory Posters