E-Mail: joswald@mail.sdsu.edu
E-Mail: joswald@mail.sdsu.edu
During the summers of 1995 and 1996, I volunteered at the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station, located on the Island of Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada. While there, I assisted with the harbour porpoise project headed by Dr. Andy Read of Duke University. A vital part of this study is the 'Harbour Porpoise Release Program' which was put into place in order to free harbour porpoises that become trapped in the herring weirs around the island. This program offers the unique opportunity to obtain data from live free-ranging harbour porpoises. The aim of these data collection efforts is to find ways to reduce the incidental take of harbour porpoises by the sink gillnet fishery.
I joined the Cetacean Behavior Lab as an intern in August, 1997. I spent a large part of my internship working with Greg Campbell, analyzing photoidentification and acoustical data collected by him in Turneffe Atoll and Spanish Bay, Belize. In particular, I helped develop a Spanish Bay dorsal fin catalogue and began the process of documenting the occurrence and quality of vocalizations in Greg's acoustical recordings from Belize and San Diego. Most recently, I have been trained in piloting the CBL's 19ft Chaparral boat, and am often the pilot on both acoustical and photoidentification surveys. 
Since becoming a CBL graduate student in January, I have also become the CBL's internship coordinator. This is a position that I enjoy very much. It gives me an opportunity to correspond with all applicants to the internship program, answering their questions and helping them complete the application process. Once an intern is accepted into the program, I work with them in ironing out the details of their move to San Diego and transition into the program. Last but not least, I coordinate the scheduling of each internship semester. At the end of August 1998 I will leave San Diego to join the second leg of the National Marine Fisheries Service Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) Marine Mammal cruise. The main focus of this five month cruise (I will be involved in one month of the cruise as well as data analysis afterwards) is to determine what impact the ETP tuna fishery currently has on spinner, spotted and common dolphin populations. There are also several auxiliary projects taking place. During the cruise I will aid in the recording of vocalizations of all marine mammal species that we encounter.
I am interested in examining the nature of broadband pulse vocalizations produced by free-ranging bottlenose dolphins. Most of the work done on burst pulses up to the present time has been limited in bandwidth to below approximately 22 kHz. Whitlow Au and Marc Lammers (University of Hawaii) have recently developed a portable broadband data acquisition system that makes it possible to record vocalizations up to the 130 kHz range. I will be collaborating with them and using a version of their system in order to explore the relatively uncharted territory of free ranging bottlenose dolphin burst pulse vocalizations.
Last updated on September 2, 1998.
