Marine Mammals: the Evolving Human Factor

Neuroethological background of marine mammal complexity.- Social extremes and their relation to anthropogenic stress.- Lone, sociable marine mammals and their influence on human attitudes.- Efforts of conserving marine mammals (spaces excluded).- Conserving marine mammal spaces and habitats.- Conservation relevance of marine mammal social learning and culture.- Marine mammal migrations

Dr. Bernd Würsig has degrees from Ohio State University (BS, 1971) and Stony Brook University (PhD, 1978); spent 3 years as an NIH/NSF postdoctoral fellow at University of California at Santa Cruz (1978-1981), and 9 years going through the professor ranks at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (1981-1989). He came to Texas A&M University as professor of marine biology in summer 1989. He is now Regents and University Distinguished Professor (Emeritus since Nov. 2016). He has taught courses in Marine Bird and Mammal Biology, Marine Vertebrates, Bio-Statistics, Behavioral Ecology of Cetaceans, and Study Abroad courses in Mexico, Greece, and New Zealand. Würsig has published 185 peer review papers, chapters, and seven books; and been senior advisor to 70 graduate students and 14 movies on nature interpretation. He was nominated for an Academy Award for an IMAX movie on dolphins. He, his students, and postdocs have studied marine mammal and sea bird foraging, sexual, and social ecology on all continents, with present work on social strategies of dusky dolphins in New Zealand and Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins in Hong Kong. Recent books are "The Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals, Ed. 3" (Senior Editor, 2018), and "Dusky Dolphins; Master Acrobats off Different Shores" (with Melany Würsig, 2010), both Academic Press/Elsevier. He and Melany enjoy their gardens in New Zealand, the Arizona desert, and coastal south Texas, three marvelously-different biomes.

Dr. Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara is a marine conservation ecologist who has contributed for over 40 years to the advancement of knowledge of the natural history, ecology, behaviour and taxonomy of marine mammals and cartilaginous fishes. He obtained in 1985 a PhD at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California, San Diego) with a thesis on the taxonomy and ecology of manta rays (of which he described a new species, Mobula munkiana). Later, he progressively moved from science