Marine Vertebrate Ecology Lab
Dr Krista van der Linde
Dr van der Linde completed her PhD in 2016 as part of the Cetacean Ecology Research Group under the supervision of Professor Karen Stockin and Dr Matthew Pawley. Her PhD examined the use of photo-identification for gregarious delphinids, focusing on determining the abundance, site fidelity and movement, social structure and anthropogenic stressors for common dolphins (Delphinus sp.) in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand.
Currently, Dr van der Linde is employed as the Marine Mammal Research Programme Manager at Whale Watch Kaikōura. She co-founded LeopardSeals.org - a non-for profit organisation focused on research, education and management of leopard seals in New Zealand waters. She also founded Moana Mark - a non-for-profit organisation focused on connecting tourism providers and marine researchers to enable conservation projects on our moana. She conducts her own research while co-supervising and mentoring graduate students on a variety of marine mammal projects. Since 2025, Dr van der Linde is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wollongong.
Research
Dr van der Linde’s research focusses on the use of photo-identification to examine the occurrence, residency, movement and abundance of marine mammals within New Zealand, with an emphasis on their conservation and management. To date, her research has examined a number of New Zealand marine mammal species including Bryde’s whales (Balaenoptera edeni), common dolphins, killer whales (Orcinus orca), leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx), Māui Dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui) and pygmy blue whales (B. musculus brevicauda). Her current research is primarily focused on sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus).
She is interested in projects that utilize citizen science data to generate baseline information for marine mammal species. Other interests include the use of mark-recapture techniques to estimate population parameters and the use of computer vision and machine learning / AI to identify and catalogue individual marine mammals.