Meet Kate Longley

The summer of 2007 marks Kate’s third season with the Dolphin Fleet. Kate received a degree in from Wesleyan University in 2006 where she focused her coursework on behavior and ecology. During a summer off from Wesleyan, she worked for Maine Audubon where she gained an appreciation for the bird and marine life of the Gulf of Maine. After spending the summer of 2005 interning with the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, she was excited to return to Provincetown the following year as a naturalist on the Dolphin Fleet.

Kate spent the previous winter working for Wildlife Trust as a Right Whale Aerial Observer, participating in aerial surveys off the coast of Georgia. The calving grounds of the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale happen to be near several major shipping lanes in the southeastern United States. The goal of the aerial survey program is to identify the locations of right whales for to alert area mariners. The program also provides a great deal of data on population size, structure, and the extent of the right whale’s habitat. Ideally, this data will be useful in identifying further conservation strategies on behalf of these animals.