
Peter Corkeron, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist and Chair, Kraus Marine Mammal Conservation Program
T: 617-973-0257
pcorkeron@neaq.org
Media Inquiries: Members of the media may direct all inquiries to Media Relations at psnyder@neaq.org or 617-973-5213.
Education
B.Sc., Zoology, The University of Queensland, 1982
Ph.D., The University of Queensland, 1989
Links:
Peter Corkeron, Ph.D., now leads the whale research team at the Kraus Marine Mammal Conservation Program of the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. His current work focuses on the status of North Atlantic right whales, understanding the anthropogenic drivers of their decline and the ecological influences on their movements, and ensuring that management efforts are informed by the best science available. Peter’s Ph.D. was on the ecology of inshore dolphins in the waters off Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Awarded by the University of Queensland in 1989, it was the first Australian Ph.D. on the biology of living cetaceans.
Peter has studied whales, dolphins, dugongs, and seals, with occasional forays into the behavior of fruit bats and wallabies. His research has taken him from the Ross Sea in Antarctica to within 300 miles of the North Pole, and many places in between. He believes in using science to understand how we impact marine wildlife, and the working to solve the problems we create.
Select Publications
Pace III RM, Corkeron PJ, Kraus SD. 2017 State-space mark-recapture estimates reveal a recent decline in abundance of North Atlantic right whales. Ecol Evol. 7:8730-8741. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3406
Corkeron PJ. 2004. Fishery management and culling. Science.306:1891.
Corkeron PJ and Connor RC. 1999. Why do baleen whales migrate? Marine Mammal Science. 15:1228-1245
News
- Six Right Whale Deaths in One Month: "Panicking Seems Appropriate"
- Right Whales "Could Be Almost Immortal" If Not For Entanglement & Ship Strikes
- New Study Confirms North Atlantic Right Whales Declining
- Protecting adult female north atlantic right whales from injury and death key to recovery
- Human activities are impeding population growth of North Atlantic right whales
- As whales die again in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 'a cat-and-mouse game' is under way to save them
- Entanglements hamper reproduction as right whale population slides
- Already on Brink, Right Whales Are Pushed Closer to the Edge
- Concern Grows for Future of Right Whales
Awards
James Cook Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1996 James Cook University, Australia.
US Public Sector Innovation award, 2018, for the North Atlantic Right Whale Protection System
NOAA Bronze Award 2019, for expanding international partnerships to assess changing right whale distributions and revealing causative factors to a tragic population decline.
Affiliations
- Adjunct Associate Professor, Biology Department, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
- Guest Investigator, Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Research Faculty, School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts Boston
- Contributing Editor, Marine Ecology Progress Series
- Editor, Tourism in Marine Environments
- Member, IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group
- Board member, North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium