Ocean Alliance/Pride Stride

Joey – 

Since we’ve had people asking us who we are and what we do, and we’re participating in Pride Stride, we were wondering if you could run this? 

Gracias!

KT

Why Support Ocean Alliance? Because We Rock, That’s Why!

It’s almost time for Pride Stride again! Like last year, we’ll have a team of walkers from Ocean Alliance and we are hoping that you will either join us on the walk, or support our cause.

Our problem, sometimes, is that as an organization, we focus on our work and we’re almost too quiet about what we bring to the table! And since we’re new to town, and we’re out on the water off Rocky Neck, it seems like we can be nearly invisible! But we have so much to offer Gloucester, and donations help us further our goals both locally and globally. We’ve been around since 1971, and were based in Lincoln, MA for decades. Our founder, Roger Payne, is a hugely influential researcher who, along with his research partner Scott McVay discovered whales sing songs – a massively important finding that turned around the public perception of whales and started the “Save the Whales!” movement. When our CEO, Iain Kerr, saw the Paint Factory decades ago, he determined it was the perfect location for Ocean Alliance’s headquarters. Pulling together the necessary funding, Ocean Alliance was able to buy the Paint Factory with the intention of restoring & repurposing the buildings for use as waterfront oceanographic research, education and innovation center. Community focused, the buildings would be open to the public, with a robotics laboratory, meeting space, and much more. But as of now, we only have one building completed – we all work in two rooms, and we’re a bit cramped! We have plans this year to complete more work, but we still need funding to complete the entire project.

So what do we DO here at the Paint Factory?

-We are heavily involved in marine mammal toxicology, studying ocean pollution as a whole, by researching whales. Most recently, we spent the past five years in the Gulf of Mexico on our research vessel, the Odyssey, doing independent research on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster upon ocean ecology. In addition, some of our toxicology work, specifically the toxin loads of dolphins killed for their meat, was featured in the Louie Psihoyos documentary the Cove.Finally, as part of our robotics program with Olin College of Engineering, we developed a project called SnotBot, a small drone flown over whales as they surface, to collect DNA data from their breath.

-We have a robotics lab! It’s an old shipping container that had been repurposed into a pop-up retail store, and now it’s re-repurposed into our lab! We have a weekly meeting of our Paint Factory Flyers club down there, and we’re teaching kids and adults alike how to build a controllable plane and fly it via a simulator, as well as our drones.

-We still help save the whales! We offer whale adoptions and team up with Seven Seas Whale Watch. Bringing awareness of these beautiful animals to thousands of people, as well as their endangered status, is what makes us tick! This year, we are also teaming up with NOAA’s Whale Entanglement Response Network – if a boater sees a whale entangled in marine debris, we will be called to track the whale visually with one of our small dinghies. But, our boats need work this year to be operational.

We hope you’ll consider donating to Ocean Alliance for Pride Stride. We’re here to make Gloucester awesome!