John Calambokidis
JOHN CALAMBOKIDIS is a research biologist at Cascadia Research, a non-profit organization dedicated to the study primarily of marine mammals, but also other animals, especially those they can help serve through protection and conservation. Cascadia Research is based in Olympia, Washington.
John was born in Cairo, Egypt to a Greek father and American mother who met in Egypt. He and his family came to this country when John was about ten years old. They lived on the east coast where John grew up. John came to the west coast and Olympia, WA to attend Evergreen State College in 1974 and has been on the west coast ever since.
John got his Bachelor of Science degree at Evergreen where he was introduced to research, in his second year. He produced several papers from that project, then moved on to studying harbor seals, which also resulted in several scientific papers.
John started Cascadia Research in 1979 and notes that none of the founders had advanced degrees, all simply had Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degrees. Today the organization also has researchers with PhDs.
John’s interest in marine mammals started early in his career. Back then he was particularly interested in the effects of human activities and pollution on wildlife, especially pollutants like PCBs, which were recognized as a problem in the 1970s. John suspected they were having an impact in the marine environment.
He initially started studying harbor seals, which ate a lot of fish in Puget Sound, an area with lots of contamination. But John began to realize it was hard to study about pollutants when we knew so little about the animals’ biology. Over time his studies started to get more into the basic biology of the animals. Then in the 1980s, he graduated to the big whales.
By 1986, after seeing his first whale, John was pretty hooked on blue whales. Something about their size, their beauty and their mystery captivated him, and he focused his research on large blue whales, humpback whales, and gray whales.
All the whales John studies move up and down the feeding grounds along the west coast. One of the most productive areas runs from the bluff of the Farallon Islands to Monterey Bay. His focus has been on the central California coast including Monterey Bay, as well as the Southern California bight. John notes that region of the world is one of the best for feeding blue whales. Monterey Bay is unique not only due to the abundance of wildlife there, but it is also somewhat protected from weather, which always provides a window to operate in the morning in Monterey Bay. John often focuses his studies there due to ease of access, instead of trying to get out to the Farallon Islands, where the weather may be problematic. He finds he can focus his efforts in Monterey Bay, because he can work there a greater proportion of the time.
