Nancy Black
NANCY BLACK is a marine biologist and killer whale researcher with the California Killer Whale Project. She’s also owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch, which runs multiple whale watching trips daily out of the Monterey Harbor.
Nancy was born in San Carlos, California, and grew up there. She attended University of California at Davis (UCD) as an undergraduate and came to Monterey Bay to attend graduate school at Moss Landing Marine Labs. There she studied Marine Mammalogy in the Marine Sciences program in the Birds and Mammal Lab. She received a Masters Degree in Marine Science from Moss Landing.
While at the lab, Nancy had different part-time jobs to help pay the bills. She got her start working as a naturalist during the gray whale season on boats out of San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, and at Randy’s in Monterey.
During that time, Nancy started running her own whale watching trips for school children to earn additional income. She chartered the boats and worked as the guide. The program was so successful that some schools are still bringing students out 25 years later.
During her time as a grad student, Nancy also worked in the Bahamas over four seasons, summer and fall, with the Oceanic Society, helping on wild Atlantic spotted dolphin trips. They took groups out at sea on a sailboat for a week at a time to swim with the dolphins and assist with research. Nancy was a biologist/naturalist for that program.
This gave her the idea to do something similar in Monterey Bay. Overlapping with her time working on the Bahama’s project in the early 90s, Nancy collaborated with Cascadia Research Collective out of Washington State on a program in Monterey Bay. The program was similar to the Oceanic Society’s and to Earthwatch projects. Nancy took 10-15 people out on the Bay on the Pt. Sur Clipper where the participants helped with data collection and photo ID. They mostly focused on humpback and blue whales, but they gathered data on killer whales, too, if the whales showed up.
Nancy still captains the Pt. Sur Clipper, taking out passengers on All-Day trips searching for killer whales.
