Bergman had shown great interest in deep-sea ecology<\/a> and had gotten a grant from the Barnegat Bay Foundation to study flat fish, such as flounder, in their habitat on the Jersey shore.<\/p>\n\u201cShe\u2019s a very motivated person,\u201d Hunt said.<\/p>\n
That motivation was important because the daily schedule aboard the ship was demanding. Hunt and Bergman worked with scientists from Japan and Europe using underwater cameras to record hundreds of hours of deep sea life as well as other instruments for collecting data such as ocean temperatures and chlorophyll amounts. The shifts were eight hours on and eight hours off, with sometimes just a few hours of sleep a day.<\/p>\n
Hunt will be sharing his data with other scientists on the trip and expects some of the findings to be published in international scientific journals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe probably have six to 18 months of pretty grueling analysis to really go through the data,\u201d he said. There might be an opportunity for other ESU students to help with that analysis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis cruise is part of a larger international effort and anything that gets published, if we\u2019re part of it, ESU\u2019s going to have its name alongside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At age 20, Bergman was the youngest person on the trip and proved to be a worthy addition to the scientific contingent.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe did fantastic,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cI asked her to just stay alert and jump in when she was able to do it. Once people realize you\u2019re capable, they\u2019ll start giving you more trust and more responsibilities. She worked hard and she was there when people needed her.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to aiding Hunt, Bergman worked mostly with a German scientist researching plankton and a French scientist studying organisms in the ocean sediment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to build up the trust a little bit but by the end everyone knew that I was serious and that I knew what I was doing,\u201d Bergman said. \u201cI am really thankful that I got to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hunt worked for JAMSTEC in Japan 1996-2001 and has gone on research cruises with the organization about every two years since then. His research focuses on how changes in ecology influence the way organisms, such as jellyfish, alter their behavior and change their migration patterns.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, scientists hope to figure out why the Aleutian Magic happens when and where it does.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our goals of the study is to figure out what\u2019s causing these events,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cYou have these moments in your career where you realize you have a professional duty and you\u2019re trying to record as much data as you can as a scientist. But there also are these times you just get to stand back and realize that you\u2019re in a very fortunate position to see something so few people get to see. And if you\u2019re doing it correctly, in between the science you should be appreciating the beauty and wonder of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are veteran marine scientists who never get to see what\u2019s called \u201cAleutian Magic\u201d \u2013 a sudden feeding frenzy of humpback whales and sea birds in the Bering Sea near the Aleutian Islands south of Alaska. East Stroudsburg University junior Leah Bergman and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Jay Hunt, Ph.D., saw the phenomenon twice while on a three-week research voyage this summer.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":16184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,143,20,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-community","category-esu-success-stories","category-ospr-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16181"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16192,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16181\/revisions\/16192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Birds](\"http:\/\/quantumnew.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/whale-tail.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cYou see these swarms of hundreds of thousands of birds coming in and just diving into the water to eat the fish,\u201d Bergman said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd then the whales come and you see all these whales just breaching and blowing. It was absolutely beautiful. I\u2019ll never forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n