{"id":5618,"date":"2023-11-16T15:55:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T15:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whalescientists.com\/?p=5618"},"modified":"2023-11-16T15:55:34","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T15:55:34","slug":"whale-scientists-story-clare-andvik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whalescientists.com\/whale-scientists-story-clare-andvik\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale Scientists Story \u2014 Clare Andvik\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clare Andvik is a 33-year-old marine mammal toxicologist from the UK. She is currently doing her PhD at the University of Oslo, Norway, studying the effects of pollution and other stressors on Norwegian orcas. She is also mother to a 2-year-old (with another on the way!) and tells us what it is like to combine being a whale scientist with raising a family – including bringing her daughter on orca fieldwork in northern Norway and Western Canada. Here is her story\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Credit: Clare Andvik<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An unconventional start<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite always wanting to be a whale scientist, my journey to become one was unconventional. Some not-so-encouraging teachers convinced me that I\u2019d never find a job studying whales, so I decided to do a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Durham (UK), as I loved reading, writing, and debating. After my degree, I worked on a horse and husky farm in Lapland, taking tourists to see the Northern Lights, and then backpacked in South America for 6 months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scuba diving in the Galapagos islands re-ignited my passion for marine biology, and I remembered my childhood dream of studying whales and dolphins. I had lined up a graduate scheme working as a forensic accountant in London, and this actually turned out to be the final catalyst I needed to follow my dream! In fact, hated the job so much that I spent all my spare time googling how to re-train as a marine biologist. I landed on Norway\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning Norwegian and studying in Norway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I decided to come to Norway to study for a few reasons. Firstly, education is free here (even for non-Norwegians!) and I had found out that to become a marine biologist I needed to do at least half of a bachelor’s in biology, and the tuition fees in the UK were eye-wateringly high. Secondly, Norway was a beautiful country and had a plenty of whales and dolphins! Thirdly, I had met a Norwegian whilst traveling (my now husband) who showed me the healthy and family-friendly work culture in Norway that was a far cry from corporate London. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got into a bachelor degree in biology at the University of Oslo in 2014, that also included a (completely free) year of Norwegian language course. This was because (almost) all bachelor degrees in Norway are taught in Norwegian, so to increase the number of international students coming, they offered a year of Norwegian language with the aim of getting you fluent enough to start a bachelor at the end. It was hard but also rewarding studying in Norwegian (luckily all the textbooks were in English!) and I only needed to do two years of the bachelor due to already having a bachelor in philosophy. I am extremely grateful today to have had that time to devote to becoming fluent in Norwegian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internship that changed everything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, and towards the end of my bachelor’s degree, I was lucky enough to work with the Norwegian Orca Survey (NOS) for the summer in northern Norway. NOS is a non-profit research organization that is dedicated to studying orcas in Norway through all seasons, and is curator of the Norwegian orca ID catalog. I assisted with their photo-ID work, and learned a lot about how to study orcas both on the field, and all the work that happens when back on shore! NOS had just received a permit to start taking biopsy samples to learn more about the diet and levels of pollution in the local orcas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They knew I was interested in ecotoxicology and asked if I would be interested in doing a master’s thesis with them. This was a dream project! After a bit of organization, I began my master’s project in 2017 with Professor Katrine Borg\u00e5 from the University of Oslo as my main supervisor, and Director \/ principal scientist Dr Eve Jourdain from NOS as my co-supervisor. It would turn out that this incredible internship and opportunity was the start of all my research in Norway!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Incredibly, this was my very first orca encounter! \u2013 Credit: Norwegian Orca Survey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clare\u2019s research in Norway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For my master project, I investigated the levels of lots of different pollutants in Norwegian orcas and how this varied with diet. We found out that some orcas in Norway were at higher risk of health effects from pollution than previously assumed, because they eat marine mammals as well as fish. After finishing my degree, I worked as Research Assistant at the University of Oslo for a year. I published my thesis as an article<\/a> and then analyzed pollutants and stable isotopes (diet) in lots <\/em>of samples from whales that had stranded along the coast of Norway and had been collected by NOS. One of these samples was from a very young orca<\/a>, estimated to be just 10 days old, that had very high levels of pollutants in his body. This will have been unwittingly passed from the mother, primarily in her fatty milk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the pollutants we found are still being produced and used every day, and this kind of data can help authorities to ban and regulate them. I learnt more about the regulations of chemicals in Europe when I worked in the chemicals department at the Norwegian Environment Agency<\/a> for a year afterwards. Whilst not academia related, this was such a valuable experience and some of the knowledge I gained from that year I still use in my PhD today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n