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Researcher Information

Biography

Chris Perle is an advisee of Dr Barbara Block in the PhD program at Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. He met Dr. Block in 2003 as a scientist on the Sailing School Vessel Robert C. Seamans during Stanford’s inaugural “Stanford at Sea program” (stanford.sea.edu) where he tagged his first large pelagic animal (a Manta Ray). Many years working on the teaching staff of that program (www.sea.edu) has left Chris with an undying affection and respect for the open sea. Fortunately, graduate work in the Block Lab provides both an opportunity to study the open sea and the magical animals that inhabit it, and to effect change in the way society values and impacts it.

Chris has a Master of Science degree from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, where he used GIS to study the effects of global climate change on barrier islands in the South East United States. His first academic interest in pelagic predators began while he applied those GIS skills as a research associate for the Highly Migratory Species Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service. It was there, working diligently on Essential Fish Habitat delineations to meet the mandate of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, that he first became interested in the habitat utilization characteristics of large marine predators. He is now combining his technical skills with his love and curiosity of the pelagic environment to answer questions about how TOPP animals use the ocean.

Contact Information:
100 Oceanview Blvd.
Pacific Grove, California USA
Phone: (831) 655-6237

Selected Publications

Highly Migratory Species Management Division.1999. Final Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Tunas, Swordfsh and Sharks. Vol II. Department of Commerce. NOAA. NMFS.

Affiliations

Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University