Misty Niemeyer

On any given day, you can find Misty Niemeyer knee-deep in the mud, rescuing a dolphin that has stranded away from a pod or she could be on the beach trying to disentangle a seal that has been wrapped up by fishing gear. She can also be found in the necropsy (animal autopsy) lab trying to determine how a marine mammal died. The work never seems to end for a member of the Marine Mammal Rescue team.

Misty has had a love of learning and protecting the oceans from her earliest days, growing up in San Diego. The environment around her was rich with marine life, where she would go tide pooling with her dad and whale watching – encountering a gray whale mom and calf pair on her first trip. Misty was born to be a scientist, conducting experiments in the garage so as you could imagine, it wasn’t much of a surprise to her family that her path led her to a career rescuing and researching marine mammals.

The Marine Mammal team has seen a steady increase in strandings over the years and through science, are investigating the threats that marine mammals face today. Her hope is that this work will shed light on how we as humans have impacted these species and contribute to solutions to protect them.