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Abstract I describe my path through a series of opportunities that provided stepping stones from childhood years in the landlocked US Midwest to a 45-year-long career focused on cetacean behaviour and ecology. My early interest in the ocean and dolphins led me to switch from majoring in journalism to biology during my undergraduate years. While pursuing a master’s degree focused on bioacoustics, I was employed as a contract scientist with the US Navy’s marine mammal laboratory. During 20 years there, my work ranged from dolphin calling behaviour to marine mammal distribution in Alaskan waters, culminating in a Ph.D. dissertation on cetacean habitats in the Alaskan Arctic. Subsequently, I enjoyed a 20-year career with the US NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service. There, I developed and advanced the idea that marine mammals can act as sentinels of ocean variability. To interpret the messages that marine mammals convey about the ocean, we must broaden science discourse to include Indigenous Knowledge and lessons from the experiences of people whose livelihoods depend on the sea. My advice to students and young professionals is to follow your passion while seeking the perspectives of colleagues from a variety of disciplines and people from all cultures and backgrounds. Coupled with a healthy dose of luck, this approach worked for me. 

Changes in gray whale ( Eschrichtius robustus ) phenology and distribution are related to observed and hypothesized prey availability, bottom water temperature, salinity, sea ice persistence, integrated water column and sediment chlorophyll a , and patterns of wind-driven biophysical forcing in the northern Bering and eastern Chukchi seas. This portion of the Pacific Arctic includes four Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) sampling regions. In the Bering Strait area, passive acoustic data showed marked declines in gray whale calling activity coincident with unprecedented wintertime sea ice loss there in 2017–2019, although some whales were seen there during DBO cruises in those years. In the northern Bering Sea, sightings during DBO cruises show changes in gray whale distribution coincident with a shrinking field of infaunal amphipods, with a significant decrease in prey abundance (r = -0.314, p<0.05) observed in the DBO 2 region over the 2010–2019 period. In the eastern Chukchi Sea, sightings during broad scale aerial surveys show that gray whale distribution is associated with localized areas of high infaunal crustacean abundance. Although infaunal crustacean prey abundance was unchanged in DBO regions 3, 4 and 5, a mid-decade shift in gray whale distribution corresponded to both: (i) a localized increase in infaunal prey abundance in DBO regions 4 and 5, and (ii) a correlation of whale relative abundance with wind patterns that can influence epi-benthic and pelagic prey availability. Specifically, in the northeastern Chukchi Sea, increased sighting rates (whales/km) associated with an ~110 km (60 nm) offshore shift in distribution was positively correlated with large scale and local wind patterns conducive to increased availability of krill. In the southern Chukchi Sea, gray whale distribution clustered in all years near an amphipod-krill ‘hotspot’ associated with a 50-60m deep trough. We discuss potential impacts of observed and inferred prey shifts on gray whale nutrition in the context of an ongoing unusual gray whale mortality event. To conclude, we use the conceptual Arctic Marine Pulses (AMP) model to frame hypotheses that may guide future research on whales in the Pacific Arctic marine ecosystem. 

In response to dramatic seasonal sea ice loss and other physical changes influencing biological communities, a Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) was proposed in 2009 as a “change detection array” to measure biological responses to physical variability along a latitudinal gradient extending from the northern Bering Sea to the Beaufort Sea in the Pacific Arctic sector. In 2010, the Pacific Arctic Group (PAG) initiated a pilot program, focused on developing standardized sampling protocols in five regions of high productivity, biodiversity, and rates of change. In 2012, an academic team received funding to sample all five DBO regions, with collateral support from the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) DBO Collaboration Team. The IARPC team met monthly from 2012 to 2016 and advanced the DBO from a pilot phase to an implementation phase, including 1) the addition of three new sampling regions in the Beaufort Sea, 2) the goal of linking the observatory to existing community-based observation programs, and 3) the development of a plan for a periodic Pacific Arctic Regional Marine Assessment (PARMA) beginning in 2018. The long-term future of the DBO will depend on active involvement of international and national partners focused on the common goal of improved pan-Arctic assessments of regional marine ecosystems in an era of rapid change.