{"id":2267023,"date":"2024-06-13T14:59:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T18:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/size-matters-oregon-state-study-finds-pacific-coast-whales-have-shrunk\/"},"modified":"2024-06-13T15:03:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T19:03:02","slug":"size-matters-oregon-state-study-finds-pacific-coast-whales-have-shrunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/size-matters-oregon-state-study-finds-pacific-coast-whales-have-shrunk\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon State study reveals shrinking Pacific coast whales"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsize-matters-oregon-state-study-finds-pacific-coast-whales-have-shrunk%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2267023&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Gray \u200dwhales in the Pacific \u2063Northwest have suffered a\u200d significant reduction in body size, shrinking by 13% over the \u200cpast two \u200cto three decades, according to research from Oregon State University. Specifically\u200b analyzed were\u2064 130 \u200cwhales from the Pacific Coast Feeding\u2062 Group, which \u2063inhabits <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tsunami-warning-issued-after-usgs-records-massive-earthquake-on-pacific-floor\/\" title=\"Tsunami alert issued following huge quake on Pacific seabed, says USGS\">shallow coastal waters<\/a> along Oregon and California.\u200b Measurements show\u200c that whales born in \u20632020 are approximately 5 feet, 5 inches shorter\u2062 than\u200d those born before 2000. This decrease in size parallels a woman shrinking \u200bfrom 5&#8217;4&#8243; to 4&#8217;8&#8243; in just 20 years. These <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/members-of-congress-outperformed-the-stock-market-in-2023\/\" title=\"Congress members beat the stock market in 2023\">findings raise concerns<\/a> about the overall health,\u200d reproductive success, and survival of the population, which numbers\u200c about 200 along Oregon\u2019s coastline, part of a broader North Pacific population of approximately 14,500 whales. Researchers suggest that\u200d the reduced size may impact the whales&#8217; ability to store energy and reproduce effectively, potentially affecting their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-go-to-war-against-joe-bidens-450k-payouts-to-border-crossers-civilizational-homicide\/\" title=\"Republicans Go to War Against Joe Biden's 0K Payouts to Border Crossers: 'Civilizational Homicide'\">long-term viability<\/a> and the ecological balance of their habitat.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Gray whales that feed in the shallow waters off the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/pacific\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Pacific Northwest<\/a> coast have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/climate-change\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>shrunk<\/a> in size by 13% over the past 20 to 30 years, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/oregon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Oregon<\/a> State University <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/gcb.17366\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>study<\/a> found.<\/p>\n<p>Once reaching maturity, gray whales belonging to the Pacific Coast Feeding Group located in the more shallow coastal waters along Oregon and California can grow up to 49 feet long. However, the Marine Mammal Institute\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/mmi.oregonstate.edu\/gemm-lab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna<\/a> collected photos via drones of 130 individual whales with known or estimated age. Researchers found that a full-grown whale born in 2020 is expected to reach an adult body length of about 5 feet, 5 inches shorter than a gray whale born before 2000. This accounts for more than a 13% loss in their total length.<\/p>\n<p>To put that into perspective, this would be the equivalent to the average height of a woman going from 5\u20194\u2033 to 4\u20198\u2033 in the span of just 20 years. <\/p>\n<p>There are about 200 gray whales that reside in the shallow waters of Oregon\u2019s coastline. They belong to a larger North Pacific gray whale population of around 14,500.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/today.oregonstate.edu\/news\/gray-whales-feeding-along-pacific-northwest-coast-are-smaller-their-counterparts-who-travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Studies<\/a> from Oregon State reveal that whales belonging to the Pacific Coast Feeding Group are smaller and in overall worse body condition than gray whales inhabiting deeper waters of the Eastern Northwest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn general, size is critical for animals,\u201d\u00a0Enrico Pirotta, lead author of the study and a researcher at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.st-andrews.ac.uk\/biology\/people\/ep343\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>University of St. Andrews<\/a> in Scotland, told Oregon State\u2019s newsroom. \u201cIt affects their behavior, their physiology, their life history, and it has cascading effects for the animals and for the community they\u2019re a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smaller gray whale sizes will have a negative impact on reproductive success.<\/p>\n<p>With whales being smaller, there are questions about how effectively these Pacific Coast Feeding Group gray whales can store and allocate energy toward growing and maintaining their health. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre they able to put enough energy toward reproduction and keep the population growing?\u201d, KC Bierlich, co-author of the study, said. <\/p>\n<p>With the gray whales\u2019 shrunken size, researchers are led to question their ability to recover from injuries. <\/p>\n<p>Researchers are also concerned about what the whales\u2019 diminished size may reveal about the ocean\u2019s ecosystem. The study tracked the Pacific coast\u2019s cycles of upwelling and relaxation which regulate food availability. Upwelling sweeps nutrients from deeper to shallower regions, whereas relaxation periods will keep those nutrients in shallower areas where light allows for the growth of plankton, a food source for gray whales. Data show that whale size declined concurrently with changes in the balance between upwelling and relaxation.<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s not clear to researchers if climate change is affecting these patterns<a href=\"https:\/\/today.oregonstate.edu\/news\/pacific-coast-gray-whales-have-gotten-13-shorter-past-20-30-years-oregon-state-study-finds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>, researchers say<\/a> it is impacting wind patterns and water temperature of the Northeast Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>Shrunken sizes have also been recorded in the North Atlantic within right whale populations. A 2021 study found that 5-year-old and 10-year-old whales were about the size of 2-year-old whales.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Joshua Stewart, a quantitative conservation ecologist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, told the <em>New York Times<\/em> that he attributes the shrunken size to the thousands of fisherman traps that are along the route of the whales migratory patterns, causing some to get stuck. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we think is going on here is that dragging these big trailing heaps of gear is creating all this extra drag, which takes energy to pull around, and that\u2019s energy that they would probably otherwise be devoting to growth,\u201d Stewart told the outlet.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study by Oregon State University revealed that gray whales feeding in the Pacific Northwest&#8217;s shallow waters have decreased in size by 13% over the last 20-30 years. These whales, part of the Pacific Coast Feeding Group, inhabit the coastal shallows of Oregon and California<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2542,"featured_media":2267024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/AP24092639721059.jpg.optimal.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2267023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/AP24092639721059.jpg.optimal.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2267023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2267024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2267023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2267023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2267023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}