NUWC Division Newport marine biologist studies fin whale stranding in Rhode Island

NUWC Division Newport marine biologist studies fin whale stranding in Rhode Island

By NUWC Division Newport Public Affairs

NEWPORT, R.I. -

A 42-foot, 25,000-pound fin whale that had to be euthanized in February after a stranding in a Rhode Island pond could help the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport biologists and engineers learn more about collisions between marine mammals and U.S. Navy vessels.

On Feb. 29, the Animal Rescue Program (ARP) team at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, in collaboration with the R.I. Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM), responded to a hotline call of a large whale lodged on rocks in Potter Pond in South Kingstown. Upon arrival, the rescue team came across a juvenile female, which was "found to be emaciated and in a compromised state," RIDEM reported.

The agencies consulted with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other experts, and it was decided they would wait until high tide to see if the whale could dislodge itself.

Once it became apparent the fin whale could not refloat and leave the area, it was euthanized.

Monica DeAngelis, a marine mammal biologist in the Corporate Operations Department at Division Newport and certified volunteer member of the Mystic Aquarium rescue team, said this type of whale stranding, where the animal is still alive, is not common on the East Coast.

DeAngelis said a minke whale was stranded alive before dying in Little Compton, Rhode Island, in June 2024. Before that, though, the last one she could recall occurred in June 2004, when a juvenile fin whale got separated from its mother and was spotted in shallow water off the shore of Newport.

"Most of the time what we get here are animals that have already passed and they wash up," said DeAngelis, a resident of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

While the death of the young whale saddened many, the carcass provided a "unique" opportunity for scientists, DeAngelis said. Alongside representatives from Mystic Aquarium, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, DeAngelis assisted in performing the necropsy at an RIDEM facility the day after the animal was euthanized.

"As things start to decompose and deteriorate, and you're on the clock, you start to lose some of the information that you could obtain. This whale could not have been any fresher," she said. "We were able to obtain fresh tissue samples, fresh muscle, fresh blubber. We were able to extract every possible sample that you could think of."

Among the rare items to be collected were the ear bones of the whale, which DeAngelis herself removed. Fresh tissue and follicles inside of the ears of a whale can help scientists determine if the animal had suffered any damage due to undersea noise.

"I was talking to the executive director of the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society and he asked, 'Have you ever extracted whale ear bones before?'" DeAngelis said. "I said yes, and he asked if I had my gear. I always have my gear in my car, so he said, 'Suit up.'"

DeAngelis was raised in Newport, Rhode Island, and attended the University of New Hampshire before landing in San Diego, where she supported the NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service in marine mammal research and policy for 22 years. In 2016, she joined Division Newport in a similar capacity.

Over the past two years, DeAngelis has been involved in a research project that seeks a better understanding of collision effects between a vessel or turbine blade and a marine mammal, specifically a seal or a whale. Included in the project are co-principal investigator Dr. Emily Guzas and associate investigators Dr. Irine Chenwi and Maruti Kolluru, all members of the Undersea Warfare Platforms and Payload Integration Department.

The area of the euthanized fin whale crucial to the research is the thoracic wall, or rib cage, because "in doing some analysis, we found that seems to be the most prevalent area that is damaged on a marine mammal in a collision with a vessel," DeAngelis said.

This fresh tissue, "which did not think we were going to get," will allow the research team to create artificial simulants based on the material characteristics of the whale. Those simulants then will be outfitted with sensors for in-water testing under a number of scenarios and variables, including hull size and shape, speed and water conditions.

The data collected could be used to improve risk models used by Division Newport and the U.S. Navy to improve environmental compliance and coordination with regulatory agencies to minimize potential obstacles for military readiness training and testing. Additionally, this research would increase in-house knowledge on collision physics, physics-based modeling of biological collisions, soft material behavior, and novel flexible pressure or force sensors.

To date, marine mammal collision risk management largely has focused on reducing ship speeds in specified areas or seasonal closure mandates. This one-size-fits-all approach, derived for large whales, is applied to all species as a mitigation measure to reduce the likelihood of a lethal outcome.

Based solely on population density and speed, the existing risk models do not include physics-based data for a given collision scenario. This research will conduct physics-based modeling of biological collisions to improve data inputs of current risk models.

The results could lead to a change in "incidental take" and other policies authorized by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the regulatory body that has a hand in managing the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

"At NUWC, I essentially do what I did for the National Fisheries Service, which is looking at environmental compliance," DeAngelis said. "I used to review what the Navy put together and recommend for authorizations, and now I'm writing the documents to inform the regulatory agencies what we're requesting."

Projects like these, DeAngelis said, truly underscores the Navy's "stewards of the sea" mantra aimed at protecting the environment.

"The Navy is, and has been for decades, the primary source of funding for marine mammal research, stemming from potential sonar impacts and things that were going on 25 years ago," she said. "To the Navy's credit, they recognize that the activities that they need to do for testing and training could impact the oceans. The oceans belong to everyone, so they foot the bill for scientific research."

NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.

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