This is When We Use the Term "Epic"

When watching whales you can easily run out of adjectives as much of what they do is awesome to witness. Around here the word "epic" is usually reserved for those rarest, most memorable observations - like the one we had yesterday afternoon.

The T123 family group has been around for a couple days, and upon hearing they were headed towards San Juan Island it was too nice a day not to head out to try and see them. The first amazing sight awaited us before we even left the bay, however. Something about this bird made me do a double take, and I'm glad we did a U-turn to get a better look - it was a yellow-billed loon!

This species usually occupies the far north, and while they're occasionally seen in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and outer coast of Washington, I personally have never seen one outside of Alaska! Normally that sighting alone would be enough to make my day, but with transients nearby and potentially heading away from us, we only took a short look to take some pictures before continuing on our way.

Not a bad day to be on the water!

When we met up with the T123s in San Juan Channel, they were heading south, but shortly after we arrived they turned back north, which was good news for us. This family group, which has been around a lot this spring, is made up of three whales: mom T123 Sidney, her adult male son T123A Stanley, and her five year-old daughter T123C Lucky.

They made a turn into Spieden Channel, and out of no where, started hot pursuit of a Steller sea lion. These sea lions, which can reach weights of up to 2000 pounds, are regular prey for transient killer whales but no easy meal to take down. The Ts harassed this one for about 15 or 20 minutes, but it looked like he got away, as they didn't stick around long enough to feast. The chase, however, was indeed one of epic proportions. Not all hunts are dramatic, as sometimes they can take a seal and eat it without much indication of a predation event at the surface at all. This one, however, had it all, with many aerials like dolphin leaps and surface lunges creating huge splashes of water in all directions.

T123 Sidney shows her raw power

The Vancouver Aquarium research team was on the water with their drone, which they use in part to help assess body condition in Southern Resident Killer Whales. By chance, they had launched their drone right before this attack took place - I can only imagine what the whole thing looked like from the air, and hope they share it at some point!

The research boat "Skana" retrieving their drone

We were left speechless by the hunt, but as the whales seemingly gave up and moved on their way, the rest of the Steller sea lions at Green Point had plenty to say as they ganged up to make sure the orcas moved along.

Things calmed down considerably after that, as many of the boats on scene headed home and the whales entered into a slow, comfortable travel doing long dives between surfacing tight together.

We had agreed to stay for one more surfacing and slowly motored along paralleling the track the whales had been on for the previous half hour or more. The minutes ticked by: 5...6....7...8, when I caught a disturbance out of the corner of my eye behind us. The whales had changed course and were right behind us, so we cut the engine and drifted as they approached.

Any close pass is a memorable one, but on very rare occasions, there is some mutual curiosity shown by the whales towards humans. The youngster T123C Lucky emerged out of the depths alongside our boat, and turned on her side as she moved past us, looking up at us as we looked down at her. It was brief, but for a moment time was frozen. Somehow I decided to take it in with my eyes rather than through the camera lens, though I was still shooting from the hip and snapping away without thinking. Amazingly, I lucked out and captured this shot, which will undoubtedly go down as one of my all-time favorites:

Without breaking the surface, she turned and continued on north after the rest of her family. Again, we sat drifting in the boat, speechless, until they surfaced again nearly 10 minutes later a quarter-mile away. Epic, indeed.

September 7th: New Calf L122! And drone research

On September 7th, all three pods came back in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and spread out over many miles in Haro Strait. I headed out in Serenity with a friend to see who we could find, and the whales were so spread we saw just 4-5 animals in the hour we were out there. Luckily for us, we stumbled upon the newest addition to the population: newborn L122, the first calf of L91 Muncher:

L91 Muncher and her newborn calf L122

This is exciting news, being the fifth calf born into the population in the last 9 months. There's been a lot of media attention around the "baby boom" the Southern Residents have been experiencing this year, and while it's exciting it's important to keep the bigger picture in perspective. We at the Orca Behavior Institute decided to send out a press release after the Center for Whale Research announced the birth of the calf, putting the good news of the new babies in the context of the larger struggle the Southern Residents are facing. Here's what it said:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Orca Calf Underscores Importance of Salmon Recovery
Five births coincide with Southern Residents being identified as one of the eight species at greatest risk of extinction
Friday Harbor, Washington – September 7, 2015

As K- and L-Pods made their way into Haro Strait on Labor Day, researchers and whale-watchers spotted a new addition to the community: L122, identified by the Center for Whale Research as the first-born calf of 20 year-old L91, also known as Muncher. This new baby is the fifth one born to the endangered Southern Residents in the last nine months, following a period of over two years without a successful birth. While the whale community is understandably excited about the births, their arrival also means there are more mouths to feed. In May of 2015 NOAA featured the Southern Resident Killer Whales as one of eight “Species in the Spotlight”, a report to Congress that identifies listed species at the greatest risk for extinction in the near future. The reality is these little ones will only survive and thrive if the biggest issue facing the Southern Residents is addressed, and soon. Without an increase in abundance of their primary prey, Chinook salmon, it is unlikely this population of whales is going to recover.

The Southern Residents were listed under the Endangered Species Act ten years ago, however their population has continued to decline. The Salish Sea is known as the core summer habitat for the Southern Residents, but in fact they regularly range from British Columbia to California and rely on all the major salmon rivers in the region, particularly the Fraser and Columbia-Snake River Basins. Many of these salmon stocks are also listed as threatened or endangered, and millions of dollars of recovery efforts have yielded little in the way of results. “There's a lot of cutting edge research being done by NOAA scientists and others to determine exactly what these whales are eating when and how it's affecting their nutritional status,” said Monika Wieland, executive director of the Orca Behavior Institute in Friday Harbor. “With the Southern Residents being featured in the Species in the Spotlight, it's clear that these studies need to inform immediate management actions to help these whales. If there isn't enough data to take action, then there needs to be more funding to help this important research expand.” 

One of the biggest actions that could be taken to recover Pacific Northwest salmon is to breach the four Lower Snake River dams. These dams are widely recognized as no longer serving their intended purpose and as being costly both in terms of taxpayer dollars and their negative impacts on wild salmon. President Obama has been briefed on the issue, and has the power to issue an executive order to breach the dams, which would directly and immediately benefit people, salmon, and orcas. The newly formed Orca Salmon Alliance (OSA), a group of ten regional, national, and international environmental organizations, brings together many different voices advocating for more salmon on behalf of the Southern Residents. OSA will be hosting “Intertwined Fates: The Orca-Salmon Connection in the Pacific Northwest” at the Seattle Aquarium in October 7th, 2015, with keynote speaker Dr. Carl Safina.

“We are ecstatic to have a new calf in the population, but it's important to look at the bigger picture,” said Orca Behavior Institute lead researcher Michael Weiss. “This new calf, if it survives, makes 5 calves this year. We know from the Center for Whale Research census data that the average for the last 35 years has been just over 3 calves per year, but this year follows over two years in which we had no new surviving calves. The whales are barely breeding at replacement rate, when what we really need is population recovery. For this population, and L122, to grow and flourish, the main limitation, a lack of food, must be addressed.”

It was exciting for us to see our first press release get some attention from the regional media. Our article was featured as a guest column in the San Juan Journal, and also referenced by articles in the Kitsap Sun, the front page of the Victoria Times-Colonist, and even by Care2. 

Not only did we get to meet the newest calf, but we got to see some cool research in action. NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center has a photogrammetry team led by John Durban and they're using a hexacopter drone to take aerial photos of orcas as a way to assess the health and growth rates of the Southern Residents. It's pretty amazing research; I got to hear John Durban give a talk about it at The Whale Museum a few weeks ago. Basically with a known altitude and focal length on the camera they can calculate the scale in the image and take measurements of how long and wide the whales are. They've even determined ways to detect pregnancy from the air. It's amazing science, not to mention astounding photography. You can read more about it and see some of the images here.

John Durban controlling the hexacopter from the research vessel Skana

They were taking images of the mom and calf (see one of their shots on Facebook here), but we also saw them take a "calibration" measurement on the Center for Whale Research boat. Each trip they take aerial measurements of an object of known size to see how accurate their measurements are for that day. Turns out they're pretty darn accurate - within about 1%, or 5 centimeters of the actual length of the boat.

The drone (can you see it?) over the Center for Whale Research boat

In Canada with the Northern Residents they've also been commissioned by DFO to look for any behavioral impacts of the drones. They operate at over 100 feet to take photogrammetry photos, but flew at some lower altitudes for study flights and found no evidence of any behavioral modification of the Northern Residents in response to the drone. That's not to say everyone should be able to fly drones low over the whales, but it's good evidence that when done properly this is a very non-invasive research technique.

August 16th: The Reed College Killer Whale Department, Drones and Killer Whales, and Resting Ks and Ls

On August 16th, the Reed College biology professor who advised my senior thesis and is about to advise the senior thesis of my research partner Michael was up on San Juan Island, and thankfully the conditions aligned for us to be able to get her out to see whales (right after her ferry arrived)! Reed isn't exactly known for studying killer whales, but maybe that's about to change? :) There's one other student who published a killer whale thesis in the 1980s (and is now a well known whale scientist - Rus Hoelzel), but this photo compromises most of the unofficial Reed College "Killer Whale Department".

It was a bit of an unusual whale encounter for several reasons. First of all, more often than not, when there are Southern Resident Killer Whales in inland waters, at least some J-Pod whales are among them. Not so on this day - J-Pod was out west, and remaining "in" were the K13s, L4s, L26s, L47s, and L95. Another unique social group! And even more unexpectedly - they were resting! For whatever reason, we've seen less traditional resting behavior from the Southern Residents in recent years, where they get into a tight, slow-moving line and stay in resting formation for hours at a time. Presumably they've shifted to resting more at night, perhaps due to there being fewer disturbances then. This was the first real resting line I had seen this summer. It's one of the more impressive sights, because all the whales tend to surface close together and within a few seconds of one another, meaning you get to see LOTS of dorsal fins at once. The only downside was the whales are quiet while they're resting, so we didn't get any vocal recordings of this interesting social group!

 If disturbances are what's causing the whales to shift when they rest (and that's purely speculation on my part), this sure didn't seem like a great day for resting either. Consensus from many people on the water was that it was one of the worst days for private boater behavior of the summer, with multiple boats repeatedly driving right through or in front of the resting whales. Being an August weekend, there were plenty of boats out in general, behaving the rules, on both sides of the whales. Oh, and add in the fishing and shipping traffic and Haro Strait didn't exactly seem like the best place for a nap!

One of the not-so-quiet freighters that regularly traverses Haro Strait

 The whales seemed to think otherwise, however, and continued on their way seemingly unperturbed. One of the other things we witnessed, however, was definitely seen by us humans as a potential nuisance: we saw two boats launch and fly drones within about 30 feet of the orcas. Look in the top right of the image below to see the drone:

Many people who witnessed this were outraged, and it led to many discussions and false accusations after the fact. I personally wasn't sure what the rules were about flying drones around the orcas. I've done some research since then. It turns out there aren't any regulations in place in Canada at this point in time, while in the US they're defining drones as "aircraft" which means in Washington State the same vessel regulations apply to drones as apply to whale-watching boats: that it's illegal to fly them within 200 yards of an orca. The two folks responsible for the incidents on August 16th found this out the hard way - both were slapped with $1025 fines by WDFW.

WDFW (right) pulling up to a private boat to hand out a citation - notice the drone hovering above

It wasn't pleasant to watch the drones flying right over the whales, but I think that was mostly a visual thing for me. In all honesty, I suspect the whales didn't even have a clue the drones were there. At worst, they're a very, very minor annoyance compared with everything else the whales have to deal with. I'm perhaps somewhat in the minority here, but while I suppose drones should be regulated, I wish less attention was being focused on that and more on the more pressing issues these endangered whales are facing. There's no doubt that the resulting footage is stunning - you can see a clip one of the fined operators got here. Drones will undoubtedly play an interesting role in research, with amazing possibilities for more affordable aerial photogrammetry research, etc. going forward. Right now I just don't think the science is there demonstrating any impacts of drones on marine mammals, but clearly private operators need to obey the existing vessel guidelines when flying drones near orcas.

But back to the whales! The other great thing about resting whales, aside from seeing so many dorsal fins close together at the surface at once, is being there when they wake up! Often, they all get going all at the same time, and go through a very active spurt at the surface. This time was no exception! One captain on the water commented that it was one of the best "awakenings" he had ever seen, and I would have to agree. It's not often you see orcas breaching and cartwheeling as much as these guys did over the next five or so minutes!

This was right off Open Bay, and as the whales passed Kellett Bluff, they changed behavior yet again, fanning out and going into foraging mode. We got a nice last look at L95 Nigel before heading back in:

It was another beautiful, whale-filled day on the water, and we at the Orca Behavior Institute were happy to be able to share it with one of the professors that helps make our research possible!