So the Marine Mammal Institute has been around
just 11 years now.
Within the university we're an international
center of excellence and we're very proud
of that.
We also see the group growing to about double
it's size we hope in the next 5 to 10 years.
And we can go into an area where theres almost
nothing known and very quickly find out pinniped
ecology of seals and sea lions, genetics,
whale behavior, energetics, and together we
can make an incredible difference not only
in what's known in Oregon but around the world.
So in Oregon we have 'Whale Watching Spoken
Here' which only takes place during winter
break between Christmas and New Years and
spring break.
We often have thirty-five to fifty-give thousand
people come to the coast and talk to one of
our 'Whale Watch Spoken Here' volunteers.
That's amazing.
But that's how much interest there is.
Those animals in the ocean they're air breeders,
they give birth to live young, they suckle
their young with milk, they have warm blood.
And yet we look at that and go 'wow', that
isn't our environment at all.
But these animals went into the ocean from
land animals originally, and I think most
of us are in awe of that.
Theres a certain amount of mystique or charisma
about understanding animals that operate at
such a foreign environment for us.
So theres a basic part of our research as
well that's trying to understand how those
animals get by and how they've developed over
millions of years to be as successful as they
truly are.
