They're on a Boat Part 3: Marine Data Management and Surprising Discoveries

In this episode of Wildly Curious (formerly For the Love of Nature), co-host Katy Reiss introduces the third part of the mini-series featuring Allison Black aboard a NOAA research vessel. This time, Allison interviews Mary Applegate, a marine mammal observer and data manager. Mary shares her experiences managing data for marine mammal sightings and acoustic recordings while revealing some of the exciting and unexpected sightings from the ship, including false killer whales and a fascinating hypopigmented sperm whale.

Perfect for marine biology lovers, ocean enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the behind-the-scenes work of marine research.

Transcript

Katy: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to for the love of nature podcast, where we tell you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know. Today we are going to continue our mini series with the third episode as we join Alison Black and other scientists aboard one of NOAA's fleet. 

Just another reminder, just like our other minisodes Alison and her guests. They are recording this while they are on the ship. So the audio can be a little choppy and a little weird at times. So we did the best we could in editing it, but just bear with us and hope you guys enjoy. 

Allison: Okay, I have Mary here. Mary, can you introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Mary Applegate. And what do you do on the ship? Mary? 

Mary: I am a marine mammal observer, but I also am our data manager. Um, so I am responsible for all the. Quality assurance, quality control, um, data checking on board, as well as our master data recording, uh, between our two [00:01:00] platforms 

Allison: of observers.

When you say two platforms of observers, what do you mean by that? Um, so 

Mary: on this survey in particular, we have two teams of observers. One on the flying bridge, which is a deck above the bridge on top of 

it. 

Allison: And the bridge is where all the. Where the ship is 

driven from. 

Mary: Yes. Where the ship is driven from.

And then, a set of observers on the bridge deck as well. So they're separated by about eight meters, and roughly 40 to 50 meters above the water. 

Allison: Feet. 

Mary: Feet. Yeah. 

Allison: Feet. Okay. So what does a day on the ship typically look like for you?

Mary: So it typically starts if I am in my Uber position, which is what we call our master data recorder. We get there, 10 or 15 minutes before the observers are ready to set their watches. So our day starts about 10 to 15 minutes, before the first rotation of observers start their watch. Meaning when they are actively on effort, we set up the computer.

[00:02:00] Usually one of us goes and helps the acoustic person if there is one, to, deploy their acoustic array. , and then we get our computer ready, get all of the appropriate people in the right spots in their rotation, get the weather conditions and get all of our details of how the day looks, what transect we're on, communicate with the bridge about getting surveys started.

And then the rest of the day is recording sightings as we go on. So once a rotation of observers start, they are actively watching for the rest of the day and we are responsible for recording everything that they see. So if it's mammals, there's a much bigger protocol, but otherwise it's sharks, vessels, fishing gear, anything, of note basically in the ocean goes into our computer program.

Allison: Great. Can you explain the acoustics part real quick? When you say you're putting acoustic measurements in the water, 

Mary: I can do my best, but not my specialty. Basically, depending on the, acoustic project [00:03:00] portion, they're deploying either an active listening array where somebody's monitoring it, or in this case we're deploying an a single recorder, which will record.

All ship noise, ocean noise, mammals, et cetera, for the entire day. And it gets towed behind the ship, , at depth, which I'm not certain what the depth is on the new recorder, but, it gets towed at depth and records basically throughout the day. And then that will be analyzed after the project is done, to see what they heard, if we saw dolphins or whales, or if they heard something we didn't see.

And they basically do a side by side comparison with the visual data. 

Allison: Okay, great. So it's listening. It can pick up the sounds of dolphins and whale. 

Mary: Mm-hmm. Yep. 

Allison: Awesome. Okay. Could you tell me how long you've been doing 

this work? 

Mary: I started in 2011. I started with an internship and shortly after it was, there was a lot of work at that time because it was deep water recovery still.

So I, was on the ship for the first time in 2011. [00:04:00] On a survey like we're on now, just as a volunteer basically. And then after that I started aerial survey. So the other component of these projects we're doing is the same sort of idea, but from an aerial platform. So they will fly the insure portion of where we're working, and do aerial surveys for marine mammals and turtles.

And so I did that for about. Five years straight and then switched back over to shift work in 2016. 

Allison: Awesome. So you've been in the biz a while. 

Mary: It's been a minute now. 

Allison: So what's your favorite part of this kind of 

work? 

Mary: I think my favorite part in general is we get to see a portion of things that, some people will maybe see on a documentary or.

In a book. But for us it's our day-to-day life, so to speak. So we are getting to see these animals that are rarely seen in the wild or often seen, but in a very different way. Especially from an aerial platform, just your, the viewing you get, you're seeing a lot more of that footage with drones now.

But before we had drones and [00:05:00] stuff, the only way to see those animals from an ar aerial perspective was at. On a survey or something. So just getting those unique experiences and every sighting is so different. Animals act, different all the time and it's just can be like one little thing that doesn't seem like much to anyone can really just be spectacular.

Allison: Yeah, that's a really, that's a really good point. What about your least favorite part about this kind of work? 

Mary: Least favorite. It can get monotonous, I guess is the hard part. You can go through days of low density area and not see a thing and I think if I'm on visual rotations, that's just draining.

You're staring with a very astute focus for things cuz you think you're just looking. But you have to be really, really paying attention to pick up things. Cuz we're looking up to eight miles out with our binoculars. So picking up little nuances in the water. You have to be really mentally focused.

And that can get pretty draining. And if you're not seeing anything, the reward part of that is very low. Other than that, I think it can [00:06:00] be hard, depending on how active you are in your family life. Being away for huge portions of time can take away, time. And as time goes on and you have more family, and I have nieces and nephews now, missing little things that you might get to be a part of if you had a quote unquote normal job can be a little tricky.

But I mean, I wouldn't. I wouldn't give it up.

Allison: I understand. 

What has been a highlight of this trip so far for you? 

Mary: Highlights in my data portion, cuz I've been pretty much in the lab the whole time. I've been low. , it's been, the same routine, but we've had some really good sightings where I've been able to get outside for them and go see them or try to at least, We're on a passing load survey, so we don't get to turn on animals.

But we've had a few circumstances where we have, so we had some false killer whales the other day. That was a big highlight for me. We did have a, dead sperm whale, which I find really interesting. I started in Necropsies. So [00:07:00] that portion of things is always interesting to see and needs to be reported.

So, the mystery behind that is always, Interesting. 

Allison: And it had hypopigmentation, which was really interesting. 

Mary: Hyperpigmentation. 

Yeah, we thought it was sun bleached, but it had some very interesting pigmentation so that when I dug into the photos on that, I just go down a rabbit hole of interesting facts.

So yeah, I think those parts have been great, in a different kinda way. And then, this survey has had its challenges, so the fact that we've been able to do as much as we have, I think has been. Really good thing. 

Allison: Yeah. And getting to meet me. Of course. 

Mary: Duh, 

Allison: obviously. 

Major highlight of your life.

Honestly, 

Mary: I'm forever changed. 

Allison: What do you think people would be most surprised to find out about what life on a ship is really like? 

Mary: I think for me the thing that's the most surprising is our mealtimes are shockingly early. We eat lunch at 11 o'clock, which, that's normal, but dinner's at four, [00:08:00] 4:00 PM.

So that's, adjusting to that schedule and then back from that schedule is very interesting. Yeah. When you go back to your normal life, so to speak, I'm always a late eater too, so I have a very hard time adjusting to the 4:00 PM dinner and figuring out, do I eat again? Now what, what happens? And 

Allison: we just finished lunch and we basically have three hours until we have dinner again.

Mary: Put the child bag back on so that, that part is, , Interesting. And then I think just the nuances of how people live. I always find interesting, everyone has their own little techniques 

Allison: especially even on a ship like, the way I do things on at sea or even different than when I do it on land.

It's like you have two different lives that you live, kind of. 

Mary: Yeah, definitely. 

Allison: Cool. 

Mary: Walking down the hallway in really poor conditions is always very funny. Yeah. I wish I had more videos of that. 

Allison: Tipping back and forth. Yeah. Ship life, you know. Well, thanks so much Mary. Thanks for chatting with me. I appreciate it.

Mary: Thank you.