Christoph Richter - Adjunct Associate Professor

Research: I am mainly interested in the way animals react to and deal with human activities and the environmental changes that are associated with these activities. In particular, I have concentrated on the impacts of anthropogenic activities on cetaceans.  Impacts can range from the obvious, such as accidental catches in fishing gear, to the less obvious, such as behavioural changes in response to approaching boats, and I have worked on a range of species, from harbour porpoise to sperm whales. Although in the field we measure short term reactions and changes, the ultimate goal is to assess their biological costs and thus, their long-term consequences. The final step usually deals with humans again: how can we manage our activities in order to reduce or eliminate our effects on cetaceans? I am also interested in the social behaviour of cetaceans, in particular sperm whales.

»» Lab Website »« email: richterc@queensu.ca »« telephone: 613-533-6000 x77334 ««

Some Recent Publications:

• Richter, C., Gordon, J., Jaquet, N. and Würsig, B. in press. Social structure of sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Gulf of Mexico Science.
• Richter, C., Dawson, S., and Slooten E. 2006. Impacts of commercial whale watching on male sperm whales at Kaikoura, New Zealand. Marine Mammal Science 22: 46 – 63.
• Richter, C.F., Dawson, S.M. and Slooten, E. 2003. Sperm whale-watching off Kaikoura, New Zealand: effects of current activities on surfacing and vocalisation patterns. Science for Conservation 219. Department of Conservation, Wellington, New Zealand. 78 pp.
• Hood, C., Daoust, P.Y., Lien, J., and Richter, C. 2003. An experimental study of postmortem ocular fluid and core temperature analysis in incidentally captured harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena). NAMMCO Scientific Publications, Vol. 5: Harbour porpoises in the North Atlantic (ed. by Haug, T., Desportes, G., Víkingsson, G. A., and Witting, A.): 229 – 242.
• Letteval, E., Richter, C., Jaquet, N., Dawson, S., Slooten, E., Whitehead, H., Christal, J., and McCall Howard, P. 2002. Social structure and residence in aggregations of male sperm whales. Canadian Journal of Zoology 87: 1189 – 1196.