Webinar: Unlocking Whale Hormones Beyond Blood

Watch the webinar as we delve into how endocrine analysis of alternative samples enhances our understanding of whale biology and their responses to environmental changes.

watch the webinar!

We invite you to watch our webinar titled "Beyond Blood with the Great Whales: Deciphering the Stories of Individual Whales via Endocrine Analysis of Alternative Sample Types."

About the webinar

In this webinar, you'll explore how endocrine analyses of cetacean feces, respiratory vapor, baleen, and even teeth have advanced our understanding of whale biology, including how whales are impacted by environmental change and human activities. Examples will include the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, WWII-era Antarctic blue whales, Alaskan bowheads from the 1800's to today, and Pacific Coast gray whales. Additionally, the webinar will provide a broad overview of how hormone immunoassays can be adapted and validated for various vertebrates and alternative sample types.

Our Speaker

Dr. Kathleen Hunt is a comparative endocrinologist who has studied stress and reproductive hormones in wild vertebrates for over thirty years. Though her career began with analysis of traditional plasma samples from small birds, she now works with species so large and so powerful that collection of blood samples can be difficult or impossible. Fortunately, the field of wildlife endocrinology has been transformed by the discovery that hormones are also detectable in many "alternative" (non-plasma) sample types.

Watch the webinar