NEWPORT – Nearly 10,000 Oregonians have purchased gray whale license plates since they went on sale a year ago, providing critical support for Oregon State University researchers studying gray whales that frequent Oregon’s waters.
The license plate, with the image of a gray whale mother and her calf, went on sale at Oregon Department of Motor Vehicle offices on Feb. 1, 2019. The plates cost $40 to order or renew, with approximately $35 of each sale going to OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute based at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.
Through December 2019, the license plates generated about $300,000 for the institute.
The license plate sales offer a potential stream of revenue for years to come. The gray whale plate will remain available for purchase as long as 2,000 new plates are issued each year, and the institute also will receive funds when existing plates are renewed. For more information about the plates, visit: whaleplate.com.
“Because these funds are generated through sales of Oregon license plates, we are committed to using the proceeds to support Oregon-focused projects,” said institute director Lisa T. Ballance.
Balance said the institute is using a three-pronged approach of education, outreach and research as it uses the money.
“Our ultimate goal is to connect Oregonians across the state to the science and conservation of whales here in Oregon,” she said.
Marine ecologist Leigh Torres, an institute assistant professor, was the first beneficiary from the plates’ sales. Torres was awarded funds to continue research focused on Oregon’s “summer resident” gray whales during 2019.
Most gray whales migrate from breeding grounds in Mexico to feeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska, where they spend the summer. The Pacific Coast feeding group, as Oregon’s gray whales are known, spend the summer months feeding in coastal waters of Oregon, as well as northern California, Washington and southern Canada.
Torres and her team conduct “health check-ups” on the whales by collecting photographs and video from small boats and drones and fecal samples using nets. Torres is collaborating with the institute’s cetacean conservation and genomics lab, which will analyze the collected whale fecal matter to determine which species of prey are important for gray whales.
“We want to understand how health varies in these long-lived animals,” Torres said. “The data we collect through these check-ups will ultimately allow us to better protect this population and their habitat to ensure that future generations of Oregonians can enjoy seeing them in our coastal waters.
Funds from plate sales also will allow Torres and her team to continue monitoring gray whales this summer off the coast of Port Orford. In Port Orford, researchers team with local high school students and OSU undergraduates to study whale behavior and their prey along the coast. At the end of every field season, the research team shares its findings and experience with the community.
In addition to gray whale research projects, license plate funds will strengthen a Newport-based whale entanglement response team to aid whales caught in debris such as fishing gear.
“Entanglement in fishing gear is currently a threat to whales throughout U.S. waters and elsewhere,” said Ballance, a marine ecologist who assumed the helm of the institute in October.
There is a network of responders along the West Coast who respond to reports of whales entangled in hear. The Newport-based institute is responsible for reports along the Oregon coast.
“License plate funds will enhance our training opportunities and provide essential equipment to enable us to be more responsive and effective in our disentanglement response,” Balance said in a news release.