Research Fisheries Biologist, NOAA/NMFS Auke Bay Laboratories
John's role in Gulf Watch Alaska:
Pelagic Ecosystems Humpback Whale Program Co-Principal Investigator
Important skills for his position:
"You definitely need patience, you need to be very tolerant of weather, and just being able to endure things and not really give up."
Challenges in his work:
"Being on a small boat when it’s really rough, battling the weather, wind and rain, having your expensive camera getting salt spray on it... and then the whales just not cooperating."
John's advice to young people interested in science: "I would take math and English. Those are two things that I didn’t really think I needed very much that are very important. Work hard, do things that people don’t want to do. You’re not going to go out and tag whales on your first day, but if you're entering data or doing some of the more tedious things, then you make yourself very useful. And it’s a good way to meet people, a good way to get your foot in the door."
John Moran describes some of the fun and frustrations of tracking humpback whales in the Gulf of Alaska. (0:50)
When things change, like this last winter we thought we knew where all the whales were going to be in Port Gravina, and we got out there and they weren’t there. And we were just so sure of ourselves, we’ll just get out there and get a bunch of IDs, it’ll be nice & protected, and we were completely wrong. So when things jump out as being unusual that’s when it gets interesting. You think you have things figured out and you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
I really like driving the boat for some reason, I don’t know why maybe it’s the control issue, but for doing photo Id or biopsies especially or tagging, and I do disentanglement work in Southeast and just being the one that maneuvers the boat, gets the boat close to the whales while somebody else maybe does the other things, you feel like you’re the one literally in the driver’s seat.