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| Nathalie Jaquet joins PCCS | ||
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Provincetown, Cape Cod, MA) – Peter Borrelli, Executive Director of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, has announced that following a nationwide search Nathalie Jaquet, Ph.D., a specialist in marine mammal ecology, has joined the staff as a Senior Scientist. Dr. Jaquet, a native of Switzerland, holds a master’s degree in marine ecology from Aberdeen University, Scotland. She earned her doctorate in marine ecology from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Her most recent position was at Texas A & M University in Galveston where she served as a research scientist in the Department of Marine Biology. Dr. Jacqet has assumed the directorship of the Right Whale Aerial Survey Program which conducts intensive surveys of Cape Cod Bay - roughly 8,000 nautical miles per year - to monitor and photograph endangered right whales that feed on plankton there in winter and spring. Photos complement an extensive database PCCS scientists and researchers maintain on the endangered North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and add to the understanding of the whales’ behavioral and feeding patterns. The aerial survey program, which operates out of Chatham Airport, runs from January to May and is funded by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Each flight, weather permitting, lasts three to five hours and follows precise paths that transect 15 East-West tracks over Cape Cod Bay, and one pathway along the eastern shore of Cape Cod. The flights, coordinated with the United States Coast Guard, operate under a special permit from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries to fly 750 feet over endangered right whales at about 100 miles an hour. The PCCS Right Whale Aerial Survey Program runs in conjunction with Right Whale Habitat Studies, which studies plankton, the food of right whales. There are fewer than 350 right whales left in the world and Cape Cod Bay is a designated critical habitat of the endangered species. Since 1976, scientists and researchers at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies have studied marine mammals and the coastal environment and have sponsored educational programs on conservation and scientific research. To learn more about our science programs, or to become a member of PCCS, please visit us on-line at www.coastalstudies.org |
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