July 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
Juneau, Alaska is one of the most popular whale watching tourism destinations in the world. Roughly 1.3 million tourists visited the city in 2019 via cruise ship, and more than 330,000 of those visitors participated in local whale watching trips during their port-of-call.
In 2020, cruise ships did not visit Juneau due to COVID-19, and whale watching companies lost a majority of their business. This provided a rare opportunity for scientists to study humpback whale behavior and health in the absence of vessel traffic and heavy whale watching tourism.
Heidi Pearson of the University of Alaska Southeast partnered with Shannon Atkinson of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and NOAA scientists Suzie Teerlink and John Moran to collect baseline data during this unusual time. Their research will help us understand how changes in vessel activity potentially impact whale behavior and health.
The scientists are currently in the second year of the study. Field crews from the UK’s BBC visited Juneau during last year’s field season to collect footage of the collaborative research project that they have now compiled into a featurette that is being circulated around the globe.