{"id":20484,"date":"2025-03-28T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=20484"},"modified":"2025-05-15T13:33:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T17:33:28","slug":"whale-watcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/whale-watcher\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale Watcher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brooke van de Sande knows the locations of the cetaceans. With a long-lens camera in one hand and a headset mic in the other, the naturalist on the Jersey Shore Whale Watch vessel Jersey Girl calls out \u201c10 o\u2019clock!\u201d to alert passengers to a humpback whale lunging from the sea in the distance. Multitasking, she shares details about the behaviors and feeding habits of humpbacks over the PA system while trying to capture closeup photos of unique markings on the whale\u2019s tail that can ID individual animals like a massive fingerprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The images and precise location will be shared with the nonprofit Gotham Whale, which is compiling a catalog of all of the whales spotted along the New York and northern New Jersey coasts. The organization has amassed data on hundreds of individual animals over the last decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But van de Sande is also determined to learn about the whales she can\u2019t see. The senior marine and environmental biology and policy major has been conducting research on how effective trace genetic materials floating in the water\u2014known as environmental DNA, or \u201ceDNA\u201d\u2014can be for detecting humpbacks in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While interning aboard the Belmar-based vessel in 2023, van de Sande collected a sample of ocean water every time there was a whale spotted within 100 feet. She then filtered out the organic materials from the bottles at a campus lab and tested them for humpback whale DNA. In every case, there was a match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow we know that there is a strong correlation between DNA samples taken in the water and the visual sightings,\u201d van de Sande said. \u201cIf we take a sample and see that there were high numbers of humpback whale DNA, then we can assume that there was a whale in the area, even if we didn\u2019t see one. It\u2019s a really non-invasive technique to monitor whales in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van de Sande presented her work last spring at the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Marine Mammal Symposium at the Duke University Marine Lab in North Carolina, where she garnered the top prize for undergraduate speed talks, and again in October at the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Conservation Symposium, which was held at Monmouth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her work has been guided by faculty mentor Jason Adolf, endowed professor of marine science; Sam Chin, former environmental DNA\/marine fisheries senior scientist and current NOAA biologist; and Danielle Brown, Gotham Whale\u2019s director of marine mammal research. A grant from the Urban Coast Institute\u2019s Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars program supported her research and conference travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her classroom studies on coastal zone management and policy issues have given her added perspective on the importance of the research. She said waters that the Jersey Girl tours are busy with human activities such as cargo ship traffic and recreational boating, and it all needs to co-exist safely with the whales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOcean urbanization and ocean planning is a big thing right now, especially in New Jersey, with all of the whales that have been showing up here over the past few decades,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important that we\u2019re learning about all of the speed restrictions and laws going into place to protect the whales, and we\u2019re planning for the future of the ocean in New Jersey and New York.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about van de Sande’s work with whales in this short video<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brooke van de Sande uses cutting-edge DNA techniques in her research tracking whales off the New Jersey coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":20486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":56,\"y\":41}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[91,98],"class_list":["post-20484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currents","tag-alumni-student-faculty","tag-student-profile"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Currents","issue":"Spring 2025","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20484"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21325,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20484\/revisions\/21325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}