Jacklyn has her undergraduate degree in
Marine Biology with honours from Dalhousie
University and is a marine naturalist. She
has guided for two consecutive summers with
commercial whale watching operations around
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Her responsibilities included being a
deckhand on mono-hull and catamaran vessels,
spotting marine mammals and sea birds in a
variety of sea conditions, and providing
education to the passengers. This involved
presenting a variety of information about
the marine mammals that utilize the waters
off the Pacific Northwest, to passengers
with different educational backgrounds and
life experiences.
People with whom Jacklyn has worked with
agree that she has a unique ability to
correctly identify species and individuals
even when she has only once before observed
that species or individual. This skill
quickly makes Jacklyn valuable at any
location.
The
waters upon which Jacklyn has been fortunate
enough to work have as wide a variety of
cetaceans, pinnipeds and birds as found
almost anywhere else in the world. This has
given her experience in identifying
individuals among large groups, as well as
many different species in the course of a
short period of time. On one three hour
trip, Jacklyn identified a Grey Whale, three
Humpbacks, a Minke, several hundred Steller
and Californian Sea Lions, a Northern
Elephant Seal, Harbour Seals, Dall’s and
Harbour Porpoises, Transient Killer Whales,
and six species of marine birds. 
Jacklyn has, in the course of two years,
quickly developed a knowledge of individual
killer whales, both resident and transient,
in the Pacific Northwest. She was also
involved in the humpback whale sightings
network around Northern Vancouver Island. It
involved recording the humpback sighting,
whether it was a known or unknown animal to
the area and obtaining photo-identification
shots of tail flukes, for the humpback whale
identification catalogue.
Jacklyn plans to return to the academic
world as a graduate student, researching
bioacoustics in transient killer whales,
after broadening her worldly knowledge and
experience.
