Day of the Dead ~ 8th Annual Tribute

The Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is about honoring those who have passed on - every year, I take a moment on this day to remember the Southern Residents we have lost in the previous year. You can see the whole series of blog posts here. Over the years these posts have gotten harder to write, as the population continues to decline. But now more than ever, as we continue to fight for the survival and recovery of the Southern Residents, it's important not to forget the stories of the whales we have lost along the way.

J2 ~ Granny

We all knew we would lose this great matriarch one day, but that didn't make it any easier when the day finally came. The oldest living Southern Resident Killer Whale, Granny's estimated birth year was 1911. While we will never know her exact age, we do know she lived through all the major changes the Southern Residents have experienced in the last many decades, including the live capture era, the commercial fishing boom, the rise of whale-watching, and the crash of Chinook salmon. Of all the whales, how I most wished I could have a conversation with Granny.

The iconic J2 Granny, with her half-moon notch

Granny was a leader in a the true sense of the word. We suspect she held and shared important communal knowledge for the Southern Residents, such as where to travel and forage in different times of year and different seasonal conditions. We know she was often out in front, literally leading the way as her pod traveled from place to place. It wasn't uncommon to see Granny a mile or even several miles ahead of everyone else as they went up and down Haro Strait.

While at times she seemed to be "all business", other times she definitely showed that even an old gal can "kick up her heels" and play, too.

Inverted tail slap by Granny

 For many years Granny's most constant travel companion was J1 Ruffles. The two were so close, it was assumed they were mother and son. Genetics have indicated this may not be the real story; it begs the question what kind of relationship they had, and if J1 wasn't finding in Granny something similar to what the orphaned L87 Onyx would find from her years later.

For many years, J1 Ruffles and J2 Granny were the symbols of the Southern Residents

Granny regularly associated with many different whales. Whenever whales from outside of J-Pod would travel with Js for a period of days or weeks, it was often Granny's group they were associated with.

Granny, the foremost whale, was a central figure in Southern Resident social networks

Granny wasn't only an important whale in her whale community, she was an important whale among the human world as well, including to me personally. She was the first whale I saw swimming through the kelp at Lime Kiln, an image forever etched into my memory. She was the whale I chose to get tattooed on my arm, and the one I painted a mural of on my family's houseboat. When we bought our boat and had our first-ever Southern Resident encounter, she was the one who came out of no where and circled around us, giving us what felt like a proper "christening".

On our first whale encounter aboard Serenity, Granny came out of no where and circled our boat

Even after another full season has passed, it still feels bizarre to see J-Pod without Granny. It will likely take years for us to see what the result of her passing might be, if we will ever know. One thing we can say is that she lived a long life, and we can only hope her descendants get a chance to do the same.

K13 ~ Skagit

Just like the loss of J14 Samish last year, the death of K13 Skagit really came as a surprise to me. She was another productive mother just as the end of her reproductive years, who had the potential to enter to the matriarch role for her pod, and then, out of no where - gone. Because K-Pod was so scarce in inland waters this year, it took a while before we knew for sure if she was gone or not. I held out hope as long as I could, but when her whole family came by Lime Kiln without her, there was no mistaking her loss.

K13 Skagit actively foraging off Lime Kiln in 2016

Having been born in 1972, Skagit likely just narrowly escaped being taken into captivity for the marine aquarium industry. Instead she went on to become a mother of two sons and two daughters, and also lived to see the birth of her first two grandsons. While her daughters are past due to give birth to their second calves, I had really hoped Skagit would be around to see her family and her pod grow.

I'm anthropomorphizing here, but with Skagit's loss I was most worried about her older son, K25 Scoter, who has always been such a mama's boy. He was rarely more than a few body lengths away from her in recent years, and we know that the likelihood of survival for males goes way down after the loss of their mothers. It was good to see Scoter this summer, and according to the photogrammetry research team he was looking pretty plump, but it must be a hard adjustment for all the remaining K13s.

K13 Skagit and her oldest son K25 Scoter

I wonder if Skagit's loss had anything to do with the fact K-Pod was barely around this year? Will their travel patterns completely change without her?

J52 ~ Sonic 

Sonic was the first-born calf to J36 Alki and part of the amazing stretch of births that occurred between December 2014 and January 2016. Sadly, in recent months he became the latest "baby boom" calf not to make it, bringing us down to just five survivors among the ten known births during that time. To me, it felt like his birth was the one that made it a baby boom. We had J50 and J51 after nearly 3 years with no live births, and then within the same 3 month span J52 was born and I remember my reaction was one of disbelief: "No way....another one?!" His arrival was especially hopeful because he came to a young first-time mom. So many young females that should and could be having calves are not, and it was reassuring to see Alki have her first calf at a "normal" age.

J36 Alki and J52 Sonic

Sonic was a spunky little whale, and he regularly found willing playmates not only in his mom, but in his sisters J42 Echo (who liked to babysit him) and J50 Scarlet, who was just a few months older than him. His faint saddle patch was just visible enough to see that it was an open check-mark shape like several of his other family members, and I had been excited to see what it might look like as he grew older.

It took me nearly a year and a half to get the photo I was hoping for after these two calves were born into the same matriline - J50 Scarlet and J52 Sonic, seen here passing near the rocks at Lime Kiln this summer

Sonic's decline was pretty rapid. In my last few encounters with him he looked okay, but the photogrammetry team documented him with peanut head in September and the Center for Whale Research has a final encounter with him where he was very lethargic and clearly malnourished. His mom Alki had looked skinny in the spring of 2016 (not totally unusual for a nursing mom) but recovered, and I was thankful at least that the photogrammetry team thought she looked "okay" this fall. The fact that he was so thin and she wasn't makes me wonder if a disease or something played a complicating role in his demise. As with most orca deaths, we will never know for sure. What I do know for sure is that the J16s won't be the same without him.

Breach from J52 Sonic in summer 2017

When will the next birth happen?

Usually in these blog posts I also take a moment to acknowledge the new whales that have joined us, but there are no new Southern Residents to welcome this year. After the birth of J49 in 2012, we went over 2 years before another live calf was seen, and over 3 years until the next calf survived. We had the baby boom from the end of 2015 through 2016, but again we're coming up on 2 years without a live calf seen. Meanwhile the population has dropped to just 76 whales, a 30 year low. The situation is dire.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that the state of emergency the Southern Residents are in is beginning to be acknowledged on both sides of the border. In October, the federal government of Canada held a workshop to assess actions to be taken on behalf of the Southern Residents. The San Juan County Marine Resources Committee also held a workshop to brainstorm immediate actions that can be taken at the County level. Two days later we had our 5th CALF (Community Action - Look Forward) workshop, also focusing on citizen actions to help the whales. Washington Governor Jay Inslee has indicated his concern, and willingness to take unprecedented action. The first action to come out of all this was Canada adopting at 200 meter vessel rule to match the 200 yard limit in the US; additionally the Canadian government promised lots of funds towards continued ocean noise monitoring. While dealing with vessel noise may help the whales hunt more efficiently, the fact is that even silencing our oceans entirely won't give the whales enough fish to eat. If the Southern Residents are going to have a fighting chance, major actions need to be taken to address Chinook salmon recovery. It remains to be seen is what concrete actions will be taken regarding salmon. Yesterday, the Puget Sound Partnership  passed a resolution to accelerate Chinook salmon recovery efforts on behalf of the whales. Let's hope this is just the first of many such efforts in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the whales continue on, and so must we. The writing of this blog post was delayed by the unexpected appearance of the Southern Residents in Haro Strait this evening.  After hearing them on the Lime Kiln hydrophones, I went out to the west side. Even though they were several miles offshore, it was obvious they were in party mode, as there were breaches and tail slaps galore. When it got too dark to see, I came home and am still hearing all three pods (and many more percussives) on the hydrophones right now as I finish this post. We didn't have a true superpod all summer, where the entire Southern Resident community was together, but I wouldn't be surprised, with all the crazy vocals and surface activity, the first Salish Sea superpod of 2017 is underway today. 

Day of the Dead isn't part of Southern Resident Killer Whale culture, but how fitting if today they too are coming together in celebration. It never ceases to amaze me that despite their losses, they still carry on and clearly still know how to have a good time. I have no doubt they remember their ancestors, and here's hoping some new calves are being conceived among all that partying tonight!

August 26 - September 14: Catching Up On Whale Sightings!

Yikes, it's been too long since I've blogged again! Just because I've been super busy in all aspects of my life doesn't mean the whale sightings haven't continued to happen. Here's another catch-up blog with some photos and brief descriptions of some of the black and whites I've seen over the last three weeks...

On August 26th, the J17s and J22s spent the afternoon foraging on the west side of San Juan Island. The J17s were off Land Bank, where I got to see every member of the matriline over the course of an hour - including J28 Polaris, who was reported to be looking very thin. It was hard to see her in this condition, but after concerns that she might be living out her last days, I was very grateful to see her at all! This photo (taken from shore) shows depressions around her blowhole and eyepatches that are signs of a malnourished whale.

An unhealthy looking J28 Polaris on August 26th

Fast-forwarding ahead for a moment, J28 - as well her dependent calf J54 (just named Dipper) and older daughter J46 - are all still with us. While she still shows a bit of a depression, in my opinion she looks a little more rounded out like perhaps she's been gaining some weight. The fact that she's made it this long after looking in poor health attests to her fighting spirit! We're all still sending her and her little family lots of strong healing energy and love.

J28 Polaris (left) and a big tail slap from her daughter J46 Star on September 14

On August 28th, after hearing there were transients nearby, we jumped in the boat to get a glimpse of them near Spieden Island. It was the T36s and T99s, and while we were only with them briefly, we caught a little bit of action!

On the evening of August 29th, nearly all the Southern Residents made their way back into inland waters. They split up and spread out as they neared San Juan, so we only saw a few of them from Lime Kiln, but a small mixed group of Js and Ls gave us a nice close sunset pass:

L82 Kasatka and J31 Tsuchi

It was also cool to see a couple small resting groups offshore; resting is a behavior we're, for some reason, not seeing as much of as we used to. One of the groups was the J22 matriline:

J22 Oreo flanked by her sons J38 Cookie and J34 Doublestuf

On August 31st, I was thrilled to be able to share a short but sweet pass by some Ks and Ls at Lime Kiln with my visiting family. 

L86 Surprise

L118 Jade and the youngest member of L-Pod, L123 who was just named Lazuli

While they seemed to be in travel mode, we got treated to a spectacular cartwheel - I don't think I've ever photographed one from this angle before!

It was followed up a moment later by a big breach from L118 Jade:

L118 Jade

On September 2nd Jason and I headed over to Vancouver Island to visit family and take care of some things over there, and amazingly, some whales followed us! We got lucky to get a glimpse of two transients, T2B and T60D, make their way deep into Saanich Inlet. Then, we got even luckier after we traveled around the other side of the inlet and were in the exact right place at the right time to get a close shore-based pass right in Mill Bay! It was extra special to share it with Jason, who grew up going to that beach, but had never even seen orcas before this year.

12 year old male T60D

37 year old female T2B

As a result of being away there was then a week gap in whale sightings for me, remedied on September 10th when the Southern Residents came back in. Technically, it was a superpod - with all the Southern Residents here - and not the first such day of the year. But, I feel like I haven't experienced a true superpod yet this year. They've all been in inland waters at the same time, but SO incredibly spread out. For instance, on this day, spread from Trial Island to Active Pass! To me, a superpod brings up images of a party scene of 80+ whales in tight, intermingling groups...still waiting for that this year! Our September 10th encounter was more indicative of what it's been like this year. Over the course of an hour we saw 7 whales representing members of all three pods, but not even all members of a single matriline and no other fins in sight!

L110 Midnight

K26 Lobo

J42 Echo

On September 11th we saw a distant pass from Lime Kiln, the most notable moment of which was when a humpback whale came cruising north while the whales traveled south. The humpback, who I identified as BCY0409 Yogi, seemed to take exception to the fish-eating whales, trumpeting on every surfacing. Earlier in the day, some other whale watchers had documented humpback whales interfering on a transient killer whale attach on a Steller sea lion...I couldn't help but wonder if this was one of the same humpbacks, just ticked off at orcas in general that day even though the resident orcas posed no threat to it.

On September 14th we had an occurrence that used to be common but hasn't been so much any more - ALL of J-Pod and ALL of K-Pod traveling together! That really shouldn't be a shock, but it's because a rarity these days. J53, who was just named Kiki, was super active at the surface as she often is, and did several half breaches with her mouth open! It's not too often you get to see orca teeth!

J53 Kiki showing her teeth

As usual, K25 Scoter was right with mom!

K13 Skagit and K25 Scoter

We only caught the second half of the pass at Lime Kiln, but the vocalizations were so great we decided to hop in the boat to see if we could get more recordings further north. Wow, did we ever! Not only were the whales very vocal, but something about the water conditions made the calls really resonate so we could hear everything very clearly even from far away. At one point we set up about 1/4 mile off shore from whales foraging along the cliffs at Kellett Bluffs, and recorded for about 20 minutes - quite long for a boat-based recording! We hardly saw any dorsal fins during that time, as the whales were doing long dives and were pretty far away, but the calls made it sound like at times they were talking right into the hydrophone! Take a listen here for a sample of what we heard. 

L87 Onyx

It's been interesting to see such an increase in active foraging behavior over the last couple weeks. Whales aren't just stopping to opportunistically catch a salmon as they travel, they're hanging out in one area for long periods of time and regularly pursuing fish, apparent from their fast surface lunges. Hopefully that's indicative that they're finding more to eat, though their pattern has pretty much been one day up to the Fraser, one day down, one day out.

Even though he was far away at this point, I had to crop this photo because I love this perspective so much - the trailing edge of the dorsal fin of L87 Onyx!

K20 Spock

K20 Spock was one of the whales we saw actively foraging, but she took a moment out of her day to roll at the surface and wave her fins in the air while upside down!

As we tried to make our way back to port we were forestalled by the whales grouping up in Open Bay. While waiting for them to pass, it was neat to see them all together again after having been so spread out for the previous hour. There was a lot of intermingling among whales from both J and K Pods, and apparently they were saying their goodbyes? A bit later I heard K-Pod went back south, while J-Pod continued up to the Fraser River.

Some of the many whales together in Open Bay

Okay, last time I posted a blog post providing a mass update on belated whale reports, it was followed the next day by one of the most spectacular whale encounters of the summer that definitely needed it's own blog post! (In case you missed it, you can see that post here.) Fingers crossed the same thing repeats itself for me tomorrow :)

As we reach the back half of September, thoughts of a long, mostly whale-less winter loom ahead, so every whale encounter becomes extra special. You just don't know when it might be your last for the year! But I'm not ready to pack it in yet, as I'm hopeful for at least two more good weeks of "whale season"!

August 20th: A Whale of a Day With All Three Pods

On the evening of August 19th, after a day with no whales in the area, we heard about a large group of residents heading in from out west. With hopes of perhaps our first real superpod of the season, we headed out to the west side on the morning of August 20th with word of whales heading up towards Lime Kiln. The first marine mammal sighting of the day, however, wasn't an orca but this harbor seal pup in the kelp:

With the potential for all the whales to be in the area and no idea at all who's out there, it always takes a bit to figure out just who we're looking at. The whales being all mixed up makes it a little bit harder, too! The first whales we saw were some members of the K13s with some members of the L47s.

K25 Scoter and L47 Marina

If you were surprised like I was to not have J2 Granny in the lead group as usual, turns out that's just because she was so far in the lead she passed Lime Kiln before sun-up. I heard later that Granny's group of J-Pod was way up in Swanson Channel already with the L4s at this time.

The mixed group of Ks and Ls hung out for a long while in front of Lime Kiln, apparently actively foraging. They were spread out, but we saw lots of surface activity, including some impressive lunges as they presumably pursued a salmon.

Awesome surface lunge by K13 Skagit

Even though they weren't as close to shore as a couple days ago, the morning light was again awesome for seeing photographing all their surface behavior.

Tail slap by K25 Scoter

As a few more whales came north to join the group, they all converged and were zipping around in tight groups. They don't really cooperatively hunt for salmon as far as we know, but it sure looked like the feeding was good in that spot for everyone!

An odd combo: K20 Spock and baby L122

A couple of foraging whales zoomed past this boat (who had cut their engines - the whales approached them), wowing the people on the board. I particularly love the look of disbelief from the woman on the left as she experiences a moment she'll never forget! The girls on top look pretty thrilled, too.

K27 Deadhead and another whale thrill these onlookers

The photos didn't really capture the excitement of the foraging whales, but we had our hydrophone in the water, and the vocalizations sure did. Check out a clip of what we heard here. 

After a time this group of whales continued north, and next to pass us were K38 Comet and K34 Cali to complete the K13 family group.

K38 Comet heading north to catch up with the rest of his family

Next came some more L-Pod whales, including a couple I haven't seen much of at all this year, like L72 Racer and L105 Fluke!

L105 Fluke - who has grown so much since last year that I had to do a double take when I saw him!

After a few more Ls went by, we thought that was probably it, as no other whales were in sight to the south. Perhaps all the whales that were coming in the night before hadn't stayed? We headed home to have a late breakfast, and then heard from a friend that other whales were heading towards the south end of San Juan Island from offshore! We headed back out to the west side, but the only whales that made it north past Lime Kiln were the J16s - all the other Js, Ks, and Ls stayed near False Bay or further south.

J16 Slick and J50 Scarlet make a mid-afternoon pass by Lime Kiln

In the evening, the seas remained flat calm as they had all day, so after an early dinner we decided to head out on the boat to see if we could meet up with the whales off False Bay. Surprisingly, we ended up finding whales right near Open Bay! The J16s were on their way back south. But even more surprisingly, they weren't alone! I had seen all the members of the J16s when we spotted another male offshore. I took a photo to figure out who it was, and you should have heard my excitement when I realized it was L84 Nyssa, a member of the greater L54 sub-group of L-Pod who don't generally spend much time here at all.

You wouldn't think this average photo would cause so much excitement, but....L84 NYSSA!!!

After he passed we swung around to the outside of him to get a better shot of his other side lit up by the evening light.

L84 Nyssa about one and a half miles offshore of San Juan County Park

I figured it was unlikely he would be there without the others in his sub-group, and sure enough we found two more of them. (The other two were apparently well to the south with the other whales - it's a mystery how these guys made it up to the J16s seemingly undetected, though they were so far offshore maybe it's not surprising.) I love getting to spend time with these guys, the members of the Southern Resident Community that I know the least well.

L108 Coho with the Lime Kiln Lighthouse in the distance

We dropped the hydrophone a couple times, and while they were mostly just echolocating we did get a few vocals from L108. He stopped a couple times to actively forage, and we saw more surface lunges much like we saw from the other group first thing this morning.

I always love abstract whale shots with cool lighting/reflections, so check out this heavily cropped photo of L108 and the water in the amazing evening light:

The tip of the dorsal fin of L108 Coho as he submerges

We saw our first whales of the day around 8 AM and our last whales of the day around 8 PM! By the time it got dark out we were exhausted, but not complaining in the least! We wondered if we would be in for another whale-filled day today, August 21st, but what a difference a day makes. Yesterday there were whales on the west side all day and flat calm seas. Today, no whales nearby, and heavy winds with rough seas! A good time to stay at home and go through all the photos, data, and recordings we collected yesterday!