12 Facts About Michael Bigg

Michael Andrew Bigg was an English-born Canadian marine biologist who is recognized as the founder of modern research on killer whales.

Michael Andrew Bigg was born in London in 1939, and his family moved to the west coast of Canada when he was eight years old.

Michael Bigg attended Cowichan Senior Secondary School in Duncan, and then the University of British Columbia, where he studied falcons, water shrews, and harbor seals.

Michael Bigg's PhD, awarded in 1972, was based on the reproductive ecology of harbor seals.

In 1970, Michael Bigg became head of marine mammal research at the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo and was given the task of the census.

In 1976, Michael Bigg submitted his report, indicating that the rate of captures from such a small population was unsustainable and recommending restrictions on the capture of killer whales from Canadian waters.

Still, Michael Bigg continued his research on his own time for 14 years.

Michael Bigg traveled the coast on his own time, soliciting help from anyone and everyone with his infectious fervor.

One of the key discoveries of Michael Bigg's team was that there was divergence in sympatric pods of killer whales living near the British Columbia coastline between residents which ate almost exclusively fish, and transients which hunted marine mammals and other warm-blooded prey.

Michael Bigg researched northern fur seals in British Columbia and the Pribilof Islands of Alaska.

In 1972, Michael Bigg organized a sea otter conservation translocation of Pacific sea otters from Alaska to Vancouver Island, a population that continues to thrive.

Michael Bigg conducted research on Steller sea lions, California sea lions, and harbor seals.