SMM 2015 Communications Monday

Delegates at the Conference of the Society for Marine Mammalogy were menaced today by a giant fur seal pup.

Or .... Nancy Baron of  COMPASS moderates a session on
Communicating Science

 The 'How to make your Science Matter panel:

An impressive line-up of experts - from the right:
Jane Lubchenco, USA Marine Envoy for the Oceans (now there is a title!);
Nick Gales (President of the SMM - without his scarf);
Marcia McNutt, Science, Editor in Chief;
Charles Littnan, Haiwaiin Monk seal scientist;
David Malakoff, deputy editor, Science
Ken Wiess, Journalist

Some 2000 people attended the session and were asked if they -

1. believed communicating science was part of their job;
2. It was important to them that their marine mammal work had impact; and
3. Did they want to change the world.

(Everyone did - let's hope that we all want to change it for the better.)

Much good advice was dispensed and a question and answer session followed.

And here is Englishman-at-large, Andrew Wright poised to ask what would undoubtedly have been an excellent question... but time ran out
.

Elsewhere - there was accute competition for lunch at surrounding restaurants and cafes when delegates piled out in the lunchbreak an we learnt that exposure to oil is really bad for cetaceans in many many ways in an extensive report-back on many excellent investigations into the effects of the Deepwater Horizon Spill in the Gulf of Mexico - and also that this is not necessarily the official view of the relevant USA agencies (yet). These investigations should finally put the nails in the coffin of the old and much promulgated idea that cetaceans avoid oil spills and so are not affected by them!