The Whalenerd‘s Podcast

We all went to Slater's all day trip! We had an awesome time with some great whale people. We caught up on recent sightings and a little but of whale news as well. 

We had Adam Ernster as a special guest today since Eric was out of town again! He gave us a run down of his summer experience in the San Juan Islands.  We also briefly talked about sightings in Monterey. Slater's all day trip is tomorrow and we are all going to be on it!  We also discussed the pros and cons of whale watching, new regulations in the Salish Sea, the use of drones and photo rights as...

Eric is back from his trip in the North Atlantic! We heard all about his cruise through Norway, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and Canada. We also all gave an updated sighting report from Monterey. We will all be on Slater's all day trip on October 11th - there are a few seats left - join us! Katlyn FINALLY SAW CASPER. After years of poor timing, she got to see Casper twice in the...

Slater is back from his trip to the San Juan Islands! What an incredible two days he had for his group up there. Katlyn was holding down the fort in Monterey and Eric is still on his trip in the Atlantic. We chatted about some of Slater's take aways and reflections from his latest trip up north. We also talked about some conservation topics and a little bit of politics toward the end - register to...

Slater and Katlyn are holding down the fort in Monterey while Eric is on vacation. We caught up on recent whale reports including Slater's recent trip on the whale entanglement response this week. Loads of blue whales have shown up this week south of Monterey! We answered a question from one of our instagram followers. Katlyn also reported in on the law we referenced when we talked about Long Gone...

We are back after a two week hiatus! We have been pretty busy with work and had a hard time coordinating our schedules.  We covered a lot of topics and sighting reports to catch up from where we left off in Episode 34. We took a whale quiz sent to us from one of our followers. We also talked about fossils, mola species, new beaked whale species, a ship strike incident in the port of San Francisco,...

SPOILER ALERT! We talk about the new film Sea Of Shadows for most of this episode. If you don't want us to ruin some of the suspense, watch the film before you listen to this episode. We also gave our usual whale report from Monterey. Eric also had some info on an internship opportunity with Cascadia Research Collective. 

We are late this week because Eric and Katlyn have been slammed with work! August is the busiest month in Monterey for whale watching and we have had such nice weather that all of our trips have been getting out. We had a few pieces of humpback whale news this week from California and Oregon.  Weather and whale watching has been incredible in Monterey this week. Get out on the water if you can! (a...

We attempted our first round of marine mammal trivia. Please send us more questions so Slater can quiz us! We also gave an updated whale report and some tips on what to do when you see an entangled whale in the US.

This week we talked about the movie Long Gone Wild that just came out this month. We all watched it together last week. We also gave a recent sightings report from Monterey.  Next week Slater wants to quiz Eric and Katlyn on whale trivia so send him some questions on instagram!  

Whale action is ramping up in a big way this week in Monterey! We all had great trips this last week.  We had several questions about dolphins from our followers on instagram. Eric also found a cool paper about bottlenose dolphins and melon headed whales. 

Slater is back from his awesome trip up in the San Juan Islands. He had excellent weather conditions and excellent sightings! Eric and Katlyn had great trips from Monterey as well. Yes, Eric saw a leatherback sea turtle while Katlyn was out on the water... and she did not get to see it. :( We answered a few questions from our instagram followers this week! We covered some topics about marine resou...

We covered a little bit of everything in this episode! The day we recorded this episode was International Vaquita Day. The new film about the plight of the vaquita called Sea of Shadows premiers world wide on July 12th.  We gave a recent update of whale watching in Monterey Bay and some updates from San Juan Islands. The day this episode airs, Slater will be touching down in the Pacific Northwest!...

This week we talked about the 2018 whale entanglement report from NOAA in addition to other whale news. We talked about beluga whales being moved to a whale sanctuary in Iceland and the recent coverage of the narluga skull that was in the news.  We also gave an updated trip report from Monterey Bay - lots of humpbacks and dolphins!  Thank you to Robbie, our newest Patreon follower! Send us your to...

 We all had an excellent week of sightings this week! We have seen killer whales most days out in the bay. Katlyn got to see killer whales attack and chase Pacific whitesided dolphins. Eric has encounters with several different matrelines including some killer whales from the Pacific Northwest. All three of us were able to go on the boat together this week as well and watch two groups of killer wh...

This week we talked about famous whales and dolphins, historical and present, from all around the world. We also gave a trip report from Monterey Bay. Eric and Slater had some great whales, killer whales and dolphins out on the bay. Katlyn taught middle schoolers about ocean animals this week from land too! What famous whales and dolphins do you know about that we didn't get to mention? Send us a...

We had another special guest this week! We welcomed Pete on to the podcast - he's new to the Monterey area and has joined on as a naturalist and deckhand with a whale watch company. We asked him about his previous experience and wildlife tours in New Zealand. Sightings in Monterey Bay have been excellent lately! Eric, Pete and Slater have had several great encounters with the CA 51's, a well known...

We are a little behind schedule this week, but for good reason! Slater took off to San Juan Islands last minute this weekend for a quick trip up north. He had an excellent trip up there and got to see a rare young killer whale! Eric also had an incredible and rare sighting of Baird's beaked whales in Monterey! Katlyn saw three blue whales last week too. Exciting things! As a reminder the beach cle...

This week we caught up on the recent whale watching reports from Monterey Bay and the north bound gray whale migration which has been a re-occuring topic.  We also chatted about the issue of marine debris in the ocean. We have two solutions we are going to work on as the whalenerds: participate in a beach clean up and we are going to promote whalenerds reusable water bottles! We have designed a re...

We had some friends visit us in Monterey for a few days! Sarah and Jeff from Maya's Legacy in Washington joined us for an episode during their visit. We all chatted about the trips they went on in Monterey, including Slater's All Day trip.  Sarah and Jeff shared a lot of information about their experiences with whale watching in the Salish Sea. They also shared a lot of information about the South...

Katlyn is back from her trip to Massachusetts! The day she left there was a gray whale predation event in Carmel Bay which Slater, Eric and Katlyn all got to see at some point during the day. Slater got on it first on the boat and the Katlyn drove down to watch from land, when Eric got off work he went down there to check it out too! While in Massachusetts Katlyn had great sightings of whales from...

Eric is back for this episode! He gave us the full report from the gray whale predation that he was watching while we recorded episode 18. Slater also had a great encounter with the 51's, 51A's, 49C and 50B this week. Killer whale season is ramping up in Monterey Bay! Katlyn's cool sighting for the week was the early morning salp invasion in Monterey harbor.  We had some random facts thrown in the...

We had another special guest this week! We are also missing one host. :( Eric was still out on the water the night we recorded until sunset - he was watching the first gray whale predation of the spring season! We can't wait to hear his report next episode. Slater had his first spring all day trip this past week and whale watching action around the bay has been awesome. Our guest Eva was visiting...

We had our second special guest this week! Adam Ernster, one of our podcast listeners has been whale watching in Monterey a few times the past month or so and he recently started a new job in Santa Barbara.  Adam claims that he had the best whale watch week ever last week, so we made him give us his trip reports to prove it! He did get to see Southern Resident killer whales, CA 122 transient kille...

This week we compiled trip reports from several places around the US that were interesting to us. Right whales in Massachusetts, basking sharks and killer whales in Santa Barbara, blue whales in Newport and all the fun in Monterey Bay.  Slater and Katlyn went to a screening of the documentary Mission Blue which Sylvia Earle was in attendance for! Eric and Slater also chatted about the new Netflix...