Watching Our Water Ways

I recently stumbled on a series of cartoons created for the Public Broadcast System that features wild animal babies exploring the natural world. Geared to very young children, “Wild Animal Baby Explorers” appeals to children’s basic curiosity, and I can see how it could get kids interested in animals and ecosystems.

For adults, the cartoon may be more annoying than amusing, but if you have youngsters you may want to give it a chance.

I have never seen this series on our local affiliate, KCTS, but I may have just missed it. I also cannot find any local programming information about the show, which was launched at the end of 2010. See news release. If you know more about the show, feel free to comment.

The program is based on a children’s magazine published by the National Wildlife Federation. The ongoing website offers educational materials and, of course, a line of products for people to buy.

One can check out the video page for short clips taken from the 13-minute cartoon segments. Meet the individual animal babies on video, and learn more about their personalities through brief written descriptions by clicking on the rotating banner on the home page.

If you like what you see, DVDs of the series can be purchased from online retail stores.

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As you probably know if you follow this blog, a team of researchers attached a satellite tag to one of the Southern Resident killer whales a few days ago (Water Ways, Feb. 22). But the transmission stopped sometime after Thursday morning, following three days of transmissions used to track J pod in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Pacific Ocean.

Bell M. Shimada, the research ship now in search of killer whales. / NOAA photo.

The researchers, led by Brad Hanson of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, are now trying to locate J pod during the day to determine whether the tag fell off or simply stopped transmitting.

I received this e-mail from Brad yesterday:

“We have been unable to locate them during daylight hours the last two days. We detected the whales on our towed array on Thursday evening after sunset near the west end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca but we were not able to stay with them until daybreak because they stopped vocalizing and echolocating about 0130 on Friday.

“We spent most of Friday searching the central Strait of Juan de Fuca before heading to Port Angeles late in the evening to avoid an approaching storm. J pod calls were detected off San Juan Island late Friday evening. We are waiting for winds to subside and will resume our search as soon as possible.”

A decision about whether to attach a transmitter to another orca in J pod will wait until the researchers get a look at J-26 to see what may have happened to the transmission. No more than two tags per year may used to track any one pod. Specific whales were selected for tags, generally avoiding females that could contribute to the population.

The ability to track the whales by satellite makes the research work easier, but it does not change the priorities. Figuring out where the Southern Residents travel in winter remains a primary goal of the ongoing research. Two years ago, the crew went to sea looking for the whales without the option of tagging, using the same acoustic equipment being used now to find them.

The cruise also is collecting data on birds, zooplankton and oceanographic conditions, as with the cruise in 2009, Brad told me. The ability to use the satellite data to track the whales allows researchers to collect information along the track where the whales had been.

Without information about the location of the whales, the researchers tend to follow systematic track lines with their research vessel. When the whales are picked up on the acoustic array, the effort to locate the animals takes precedence over data collection. At night, changes in ship speed and heading limits the type and quality of data that can be collected.

The risks of tagging can be debated, and I’ve tried to share the concerns. Still, it is easy to see why researchers wish to have this tool available to them as they try to figure out where the whales go in winter.

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A humpback whale, first seen in Hood Canal three weeks ago, was spotted again today.
Photo by Connie Gallant, Greenfleet Monitoring Expeditions

History repeated itself today on Dabob Bay, where Connie and JD Gallant were conducting research when a humpback whale surfaced nearby — just as events unfolded three weeks ago when the couple first reported the animal. See Water Ways, Jan. 31, for the initial report and some background on humpbacks.

Connie called me early this afternoon from her boat on Hood Canal’s Dabob Bay, then she sent a photo and e-mail with this description:

“We spotted it close to 12:20 p.m., and it put on a nice little show for about 10 minutes, then disappeared — same pattern as on 1/27. It was playing in same area, between Taylor Shellfish Labs and Broadspit.

“I was again on the computer inputting data as we headed north on Dabob Bay when JD yelled the same, ‘Whale off the port bow!’ This time, I did not hesitate flying out of the cockpit, grabbing camera on the way.”

Connie has a hunch that the whale likes her boat, the Sea Turtle:

“If you take a peek at the contour of the bottom of the Sea Turtle (see Greenfleet website), you will see that it has 2 keels and a skag on the stern. We think that this shape must be of interest to the whale, and it is saying ‘hello’ to the Turtle!

“And, just as the last time, it was totally awesome to watch it frolic. I absolutely cannot believe our fortune.”

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UPDATE: Tracking J pod from 6 p.m. Monday to 9 a.m. Thursday, using a satellite tag attached to J-26. This is the northwest corner of Washington state, with Vancouver Island to the north.
Map: National Marine Fisheries Service

A team of killer whale researchers is tracking J pod by satellite, after attaching a special radio tag to J-26, a 21-year-old male named “Mike.”

Brad Hanson, who is leading the research team from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, said the tagging occurred Monday without incident as darkness fell over the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

“This is really exciting,” Brad told me today by cell phone from the NOAA research ship Bell M. Shimada. “This is something we have been planning on doing for quite a few years now. Everything worked out to encounter the animals in decent weather condition.”

The map above shows where the whales have traveled since Monday afternoon. A website showing the tracks, including an explanation of the project, will be updated roughly once a day.

The goal is to learn where the Southern Resident killer whales go in winter, what they’re eating and why they choose certain areas to hang out. Until now, these questions could not be answered well, because winter sightings were fairly limited.

When I talked to Brad about 4 p.m. Wednesday, the Shimada was towing an acoustic array near Port Angeles, as the researchers listened for the sounds of killer whales that might venture into the strait.

J pod was fairly spread out Monday during the tagging operation, and visibility was low Tuesday during heavy rains. As the whales headed out into the ocean, the crew decided to stay in the strait to avoid 20-foot seas and heavy winds off the coast. They could have followed the whales out, Brad said, but the satellite tag allows the crew to keep track of their location. In rough seas, there’s a risk that the research equipment will be damaged.

“Everything is weather-dependent,” Brad said. “Our plan is to try to catch up with them as soon as we can.”

The goal is to collect fecal samples and fish scales — as the researchers do in summer when the whales are in the San Juan Islands.

“That data is extremely valuable in determining the species of fish,” he said, “and if it’s chinook, what stocks are important.”

The satellite tagging has been controversial among some researchers and killer whale advocates, but it was approved following a study of the potential risks and benefits. See Water Ways entries from 2010:

Orca tagging raises questions about research, Dec. 8, 2010

Orca researchers divided over use of satellite tags, Dec. 28, 2010

The researchers are scheduled to be out with the whales until March 7.

“We’re keeping our options open,” Brad said. “We will spend as much time with Js as we can. It looks like we could get one low-pressure system after another, as is typical for February, but we might get a break on Friday. Sometimes we’ll get these holes in the weather system.

“Right now, we’re basically hanging out in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. If other animals come in, we hope to detect that.”

The tagging permit allows for up to six orcas to be tracked each year, but nobody expects the number of tagged animals to be close to that.

Data from the satellite transmitter is relayed to a weather satellite as it passes over. The information is then transferred to a processing center that determines the location of the transmitter. Through the process, the information gets delayed a few hours.

Also on board the research vessel are seabird biologists and other experts taking samples of seawater and zooplankton and collecting basic oceanographic data.

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When one of our resident killer whales, L-112, was found dead north of Long Beach on Feb. 11, people wondered immediately if the death might be related to a sonar incident reported a few days before.

Could the two events be linked or could the timing be just a coincidence?

The two-year-old killer whale, L-112, was laid out after death and prepared for a necropsy.
Photo by Cascadia Research

So far, I have been unable to find a ship that was deploying sonar off the coast. At the same time, it appears highly unlikely that L-112 could have been injured by sonar in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then somehow swam out of the strait and down the full length of the Washington coast, succumb to death and then wash up on the beach, all in less than five days.

New evidence may come to light, but for now I would caution that we need to wait for an investigation by the National Marine Fisheries Service and not jump to conclusions over our concerns about sonar.

I discussed the investigation with marine mammal expert Lynne Barre of NMFS. She said the endangered listing of Southern Residents has heightened interest in all killer whale strandings, particularly unusual deaths like that of this 2-year-old female orca.

Lynne seems to confirm the idea that the investigation will proceed along three tracks. First, there’s the physical condition of L-112, as will be determined through careful examinations. Second, there’s the question of where L-112 and her family group were located during the time of injury. And, third, investigators need to locate ships with sonar capabilities and determine whether any of them had been using them in the time period in question.

Jessie Huggins of Cascadia Research and Dyanna Lambourn of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife provided an initial report from the necropsy:

“The whale was moderately decomposed and in good overall body condition. Internal exam revealed significant trauma around the head, chest and right side; at this point the cause of these injuries is unknown.”

Jessie told me that the whale was probably dead two to four days before it washed up on the beach. Trauma to the head was consistent with a blunt force, such as a boat collision or an attack by another large animal. The report mentions the prospects for what researchers may learn from various tissue samples taken from the whale.

Of particular interest to the sonar question is the skull, which has been frozen for the time being. Lynne Barre said it will undergo a CT scan with the hope of obtaining information about the condition of the inner ear and the delicate tissues involved in echolocation. Damage to those tissues could be an indication of trauma from a sound source, but experts will need to account for any decomposition after death. These issues are more complicated than they might seem.

As for the location of L-112 and her family, that probably will never be known unless one of the hydrophones picked up and recorded calls from L pod. Scott Veirs, associated with OrcaSound, has been working tirelessly the past few days to locate any orca sounds that may have been picked up throughout the area.

Scott has noted that killer whale calls consistent with K and L pods were picked up on two hydrophones in the San Juan Islands on Monday, Feb. 6, just 18 hours after a Canadian frigate, the HMCS Ottawa, transmitted loud pings throughout the area (Water Ways, Feb. 11). The two hydrophones picked up the sounds one after the other, suggesting that those whales were heading south toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca (OrcaSound, Feb. 8).

The next day, Tuesday, Feb. 7, some members of K and L pod were spotted in Discovery Bay between Sequim and Port Townsend, according to reports to Orca Network. Nobody can remember seeing Southern Resident killer whales there before. Could they have gone into the bay one day earlier, seeking refuge from the sonar? We may never know.

But if we’re talking about the death of L-112, subsequent IDs of the whales in Discovery Bay suggest that the group probably did not include L-112 or her family. I’m still trying to learn which whales likely would have been with L-112 around the time of her death. But chances are she and her family were out in the ocean when all this excitement was taking place in Puget Sound.

So that leaves the question of whether a ship could have been using sonar off the coast when L-112 was within range. I have been in touch with both U.S. and Canadian Navy public affairs officials, and both have denied that their ships were using sonar in the ocean during this time.

Lt. Diane Larose of the Canadian Navy confirms that two sonar-equipped Canadian Navy ships, the HMSC Ottawa and the HMCS Algonquin, were out at sea before entering the Salish Sea at the time of Exercise Pacific Guardian. But neither ship deployed their sonar before reaching the Salish Sea on Feb. 6, when Ottawa’s pinging was picked up on local hydrophones, she said. Navy officials say they followed procedures to avoid harm to marine mammals and have seen no evidence that marine mammals were in the area at the time.

A lot of gaps remain to be filled in, including the source of an unusual explosive-type sound at the beginning of the hydrophone recording that includes the Ottawa sonar, which Scott Veirs discovered (OrcaSound, Feb. 6).

Lynne Barre of NMFS agreed that the best thing for now is to wait until the investigation begins to answer some of the lingering questions. Sometimes the cause of death may include contributing factors, such as weakened immune systems that lead to disease that ultimately lead to a physical injury of some kind.

This is the third dead killer whale to be found in the vicinity since November. The others were a newborn calf from an offshore group of orcas and a very decomposed adult orca from the offshore population.

In all the discussions about sonar, we should not forget that the loss of this young female killer whale is significant for a variety of reasons. I remember the optimism that came with her birth back in the spring of 2009. See Kitsap Sun, March 5, 2009. L-112 also was one of the orcas who received two names, in this case Sooke and Victoria, because Ken Balcomb also named some whales at the time. (See Water Ways, Aug. 25, 2010.)

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Izumi Stephens of Bainbridge Island, who appeared in the program “Whale Wars” last year, has returned to her native Japan as a “Cove Guardian” for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Izumi Stephens

Izumi left yesterday, traveling with her daughter Fiona, who will be 14 in April and who shares her mother’s passion to save whales and dolphins.

Cove Guardians are volunteers who document and photograph the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, a town made famous by the award-winning documentary “The Cove.”

I talked to Izumi Wednesday before she flew out. She was excited and a little nervous. As a Japanese citizen who has lived in the United States 19 years, she was not sure how she would be received by Japanese residents when she stands alongside Sea Shepherd volunteers.

A year ago at this time, Izumi was serving aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin as it followed Japanese whaling ships and disrupted their activities in the Southern Ocean of Antarctica. Izumi translated messages between the Japanese whalers and Sea Shepherd and helped coordinate coverage by Japanese reporters.

Izumi was the first Japanese translator who did not conceal her identity from the photographers filming “Whale Wars,” a weekly reality program on Animal Planet. Izumi appeared in several scenes but was not a major character. Check out my initial story for the Kitsap Sun on Oct. 31, 2010, with follow-up reports on Water Ways: Jan. 4, 2011 … Feb. 22, 2011 … and June 1, 2011.

Izumi says her language skills may come in handy in Taiji. Also, her understanding of Japanese values may help her build a “bridge of understanding” with the Japanese people. Many see no difference between killing dolphins and killing fish to eat, she said, yet dolphins are intelligent mammals, and the rate of hunting cannot be sustained.

“To them, killing dolphins is a tradition,” she said, “but every country has its horrible traditions. Spain gave up the bull fight, and Japan can give up this.”

Izumi said her daughter Fiona put together a school project about the anti-whaling conflict last year, so she understands the arguments on both sides.

Cove Guardians say they are careful to obey the local laws as they document the daily killing of dolphins, which they claim is about 20,000 per year. Besides documenting and filming the deaths of dolphins and the movement of fishing boats, the general goal is to create a sense of shame among the hunters and local residents, they say.

Suzanne West of Seattle, whose husband Scott is coordinating Cove Guardians in Japan, said Izumi may receive increasesd attention from the Japanese media. Some people will be surprised at her opposition to the hunt. By now, most Japanese are fairly used to seeing Western visitors speaking in opposition to the events in Taiji, said Suzanne, who coordinates efforts in the U.S.

“A big thing is making them aware that the world is watching,” Suzanne said. “We got a lot of footage last year of them actually killing the dolphins.”

Now, the hunters are conducting the slaughter behind tarps, she noted, “but we can still count the actual bodies going in with none coming out.”

Izumi will return to Bainbridge Island on Thursday, March 1. Two days later, she will participate in a gathering of Sea Shepherd supporters at Casa Rojas Mexican restaurant, 403 Madison Ave., on Bainbridge Island. The event is free, with donations going to Sea Shepherd. For reservations, e-mail Seattle Sea Shepherd.

Izumi’s arrival in Japan coincides with the release from jail of Cove Guardian Erwin Vermeulen of the Netherlands, who was arrested in December during a pushing incident while trying to photograph dolphins in the cove.

A judge ruled that Vermeulen should pay a fine of 1,000 euros ($1,315 U.S.), but he cannot leave Japan pending an appeal by the prosecutor. Officials with Sea Shepherd say they may file formal proceedings to protest the two-month detention for a minor crime. See Expatica News.

Update, Feb. 18: After I posted this blog entry, I received an e-mail from Sea Shepherd’s media department that provides additional details and clarifies the Expatica report. See News Release (PDF 24 kb)

"The Cove," Taiji, Japan / Sea Shepherd photo

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The U.S. Navy has developed a policy against using active sonar during training exercises in Puget Sound, but the Canadian Navy has no such policy — as we learned this week when loud pings were heard around the San Juan Islands.

After Monday’s incident, whale advocates were in an uproar over concern for killer whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. Jeanne Hyde was the first to raise the alarm and later placed a sample of the sound on her blog, “Whale of a Porpose.”

Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Defense Council railed against the Canadians’ use of sonar in his blog on “Switchboard”:

“The simple fact is that these waters should not be used for sonar training. Period. Even the U.S. Navy — which has thus far refused to protect marine mammal habitat anywhere else on the west coast — has effectively put the area off-limits to sonar use.

“NRDC will appeal to both the Canadian and U.S. governments to ensure that this patently dangerous activity does not happen in this place again.”

The U.S. Navy policy against sonar use during training was solidly confirmed in 2009, when the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a permit for the Navy to use sonar off Washington’s coast. The permit did not include inland waterways.

When I inquired about this, Navy officials confirmed that they never requested authorization for training in waters east of Cape Flattery. For details, check out the story I wrote for the Kitsap Sun, July 29, 2009.

Contrary to some beliefs, the Navy did not say it would never use sonar in inland waters under any circumstances. In fact, in April of 2009, the USS San Francisco, a fast-attack submarine, left Bremerton after a refit and conducted “required training dives,” including the use of sonar that was reported as unusually intense. See Kitsap Sun, April 10, 2009.

How did that happen? The federal permit, according to the Navy, makes an exception for sonar related to “safety and navigation; testing; maintenance; and research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).”

The San Francisco incident fell under “safety and navigation,” according to Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray.

I’m not sure whether the Navy has ever answered the question of how it intends to address potential harm to marine mammals when sonar is used outside approved testing ranges, for which environmental reviews have been conducted. Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups has sued NMFS for failing to protect marine mammals within testing ranges along the West Coast. Check out the news release by NRDC.

And so we return to this week’s incident with the Canadian Navy, which has no restrictions on where sonar can be used in training exercises, although the Navy follows a written procedure designed to protect marine mammals, according to Lt. Diane Larose of the Royal Canadian Navy. Download the procedure here.

That policy was followed early Monday morning when the Canadian frigate HMCS Ottawa deployed sonar in Haro Strait on the Canadian side of the border, Larose told me. The protection measures, said to be consistent with those of other NATO navies, include watching (with night-vision equipment if necessary), listening with passive sonar and other gear, and searching with airplanes, helicopters or submarines, if available.

It would be interesting to conduct a test to determine if these precautions really work. Can sentries aboard a ship find and identify a few killer whales in the dark across miles of water where islands may impede visual sightings? If not, then someone needs to rethink these procedures, because these are the conditions that were present on Monday when the Ottawa was using its sonar.

Scott Veirs, who helps maintain the Salish Sea Hydrophone Network, pieced together information from Monday’s incident with the help of Jason Wood, research associate with The Whale Museum. Here’s a summary of the analysis on his blog Orca Sound:

“Below are the compressed (mp3) recordings and coarse spectrograms of the sounds that were auto-detected this morning. They begin with a series of low frequency sounds and echoes that may have been from an impulsive source, like a detonation or explosion. Then the series of high-frequency pings occurs between 4:42:50 and 5:08:17 at three network locations: Lime Kiln (13 pings), Port Townsend (1), and Orcasound (1).

“While we are not yet sure if pings were detected at Neah Bay or on the NEPTUNE Canada hydrophones located near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it appears that the sonar ensonified a good portion of the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca and southern Haro Strait.” (Emphasis added by me.)

Before the end of that same day, killer whales could be heard on hydrophones in the area and were later identified as our local K and L pods, according to reports made to Orca Network. The proximity of the whales to the exercise was disconcerting.

“It would have been more comforting if we had not seen them for a couple of weeks,” Scott noted.

The question on everyone’s mind relates to potential injury to killer whales and other marine mammals from the intense sound of sonar pings. During the 2003 incident with the USS Shoup, killer whale researchers in the area reported J pod fleeing the sound in a confused pattern, though Navy biologists reviewing the video denied that the orcas were acting unusual.

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research reviews that incident on a video for Earthjustice. Equally revealing but with less commentary is the raw video of the incident.

Studies are ongoing to consider the effect of sonar on a variety of marine mammals, but Scott Veirs points out that Navy’s sonar is most powerful at a frequency of about 7 kilohertz, which is within the sensitive part of a killer whale’s hearing range — “not the most sensitive, but close to it,” he told me.

“Mid-frequency sonar is a bit of a red flag, because the frequency overlap is really quite complete,” he said.

I was wondering whether the sonar pings heard Monday in Puget Sound were of any concern to the Canadian Navy. I shouldn’t have expected any introspection. Lt. Larose pointed out that nobody has reported seeing any marine mammals in the area at the time.

Will the Canadian Navy reconsider its policy in light of the U.S. Navy’s policy against training with sonar in Puget Sound? I posed the question and got this response from Larose:

“The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) takes its role as environmental steward very seriously. The RCN’s Marine Mammal Mitigation Policy is reviewed annually to ensure that it reflects current scientific data, the capacities of Royal Canadian Navy equipment and environmental concerns. It is applicable to all Canadian military vessel wherever they may operate.

“Sonars found on board Canadian ships, submarines, and maritime aircraft, are different from that of our allies and therefore call for country specific mitigation policy.”

For years, more than a few marine mammal experts have been calling on the U.S. Navy to use its network of hydrophones to track endangered killer whales and other vulnerable species. It’s not enough, they say, for the Navy to post a lookout during training exercises when the Navy’s listening buoys have the potential of knowing with some precision where the whales are.

Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth, says the Navy spends plenty of money filtering out biological sounds to detect the sounds of enemy ships. Similar algorithms could inform us when marine mammals pass within hearing range of Navy hydrophones.

“We’ve met with at least three admirals through the years to present them with explicit proposals,” Fred said. “They never said ‘no,’ but they never gave us an answer.

“Now that they are asking for permits from NOAA, they should be willing to make an obligation to help advance our understanding of the whales. The Navy knows this domain better than anybody. They are the best listeners on the planet.”

The Navy has been requesting and receiving “take” permits from NMFS with not much more mitigation that putting someone up on deck to look for marine mammals, Fred said, expressing his ongoing frustration.

He added, “It’s about time that the Navy stop asking for ‘takes’ and start finding ways of giving.”

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Killer whales are not people, so they cannot benefit from full protections provided to humans under the U.S. Constitution.

That was essence of a ruling handed down yesterday by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller. The case was brought in the name of five captive orcas by a group that includes People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

I had not planned to write about this case, because the outcome seemed rather obvious. But I must take note of how seriously Miller handled this constitutional claim. In a seven-page ruling, he reviewed the history of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, and found that it applies only to humans. The following is the conclusion of the decision, the full text of which can be downloaded by clicking here:

“Even though Plaintiffs lack standing to bring a Thirteenth Amendment claim, that is not to say that animals have no legal rights; as there are many state and federal statutes affording redress to Plaintiffs, including, in some instances, criminal statutes that ‘punish those who violate statutory duties that protect animals.’ … While the goal of Next Friends in seeking to protect the welfare of orcas is laudable, the Thirteenth Amendment affords no relief to Plaintiffs.”

SeaWorld, which holds the five orcas, issued a statement noting that the judge took little time to issue his ruling, which “provides reassurance of the sanctity of the 13th Amendment and the absurdity of PETA’s baseless lawsuit,” according to the statement quoted by Huffington Post reporter Joanna Zelman.

A statement issued today by PETA shows no disappointment in the outcome of the case:

“There is no question that SeaWorld enslaves animals, even though the judge in this case didn’t see the 13th Amendment as the remedy to that. Women, children, and racial and ethnic minorities were once denied fundamental constitutional rights that are now self-evident, and that day will certainly come for the orcas and all the other animals enslaved for human amusement.

“This historic first case for the orcas’ right to be free under the 13th Amendment is one more step toward the inevitable day when all animals will be free from enslavement for human entertainment. Judge Miller’s opinion does not change the fact that the orcas who once lived naturally, wild and free, are today kept as slaves by SeaWorld. PETA will continue to pursue every available avenue to fight for these animals.”

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Hood Canal has lost one of the region’s original environmentalists.

Andy Rogers

Andy Rogers, who died two weeks ago at age 94, might be surprised that I would call him an environmentalist — and he probably wouldn’t like it.

But when it comes to nature, few people could match Andy’s love for Hood Canal. He worked as a trapper, logger and fisherman and often talked about the bounty once found in Hood Canal but now lost to the advance of our civilized society.

Andy would never deny someone the right to move to the Hood Canal region, to build a house, to enjoy the water and woods. But he understood better than most about what development has done to the natural world.

“Every time anybody moves here, it gets worse — and that includes me,” he once told me. “You can’t do anything about it. People have rights. It seems our rights are going to kill us in the country.”

If Andy were alive this week, he’d be one of the first I would call to ask about whether humpback whales — like the one observed on Friday — ever showed up in Hood Canal. (See yesterday’s Water Ways.) Other longtime residents I contacted could not remember seeing humpbacks anytime in the past.

I once asked Andy about resident killer whales — the ones that eat fish. The National Marine Fisheries Service was about to designate “critical habitat” for our endangered orcas, and the agency was not listing Hood Canal as a critical place for them to live.

Andy thought back and remembered watching killer whales when he was younger — and even hearing them breach before he could see them. “We called them ‘blackfish’ in those days,” he said.

I relied on Andy Rogers to put Hood Canal into historical perspective for me while writing a series of articles called “Hood Canal: Splendor at Risk,” a project that grew into a book by the same name.

Much of the Hood Canal region was logged before Andy was born, but he lived to see many second-growth harvests and some areas that grew into harvestable trees for a third time. As a child, Hood Canal was a wilder place.

“When I was 10 or 11 years old,” he said, “I saw a sign that said, ‘No trespassing.’ I went and asked my mother what that was, because I had never seen that before. People went where they wanted to go.”

Some wild animals have been displaced by logging, but the changes were not permanent. Rogers told me that humans remain in control and can decide whether to tolerate cougars, wolves and bears. In days gone by, he said, the answer was simply to kill them on sight.

“Man’s the only one of the species who can control how many there are going to be,” he said.

Andy recalled when salmon were plentiful and arrived on a regular schedule.

“I knew the salmon would start up the creek about the 20th of August,” he told me. “Pert’ near all these stream were full of salmon by Labor Day.”

I think the loss of the salmon saddened him. He once suggested that all fishing be stopped for four years — something that seemed out of character for Andy, a fisherman. But the result, he said, would be an abundance of salmon. People would be able to see the possibilities and learn how to manage salmon for the larger numbers that were possible.

Andy lamented the loss of steelhead. He told me that he remembers when they were thick in all Kitsap County streams. At the time, I wasn’t sure I believed that, because steelhead are so scarce today. You generally go to coastal rivers to find them. But later, after steehead were listed as a threatened species, state biologists told me there was no apparent reason for steelhead not to survive here — except for the fact that there are no fish left to breed.

Rogers said it was poaching that wiped them out. He remembers a man who ran a black market for the prized fish, and this “outlaw” foolishly netted the streams until all the steelhead were gone.

Andy supported reasonable efforts to protect wildlife habitat, “but you cannot shut the door and keep people out,” he insisted.

I concluded my profile of Andy with a comment he made: “Id sure like to stick around and see what this place is like in 50 years.”

If that were only possible, I’m sure many people — including Andy’s coffee and card friends at Seabeck Store — wouldn’t mind listening to his stories a little longer.

At Andy’s request, no services are planned. A military honor ceremony was held today with his family in attendance. Andy Rogers was an Army veteran of World War II.

Survivors include his children, Albert Rogers, Jo Ann Belis, Barbara Smith and Charles Rogers, along with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Jo Ann told me that she wanted to offer a special thanks to members of the Seabeck Community who had supported Andy through the years. His family placed an obituary in the Kitsap Sun on Jan. 25.

Andy Rogers offered many memories of Hood Canal through the years. This photo, taken in 1991 on Stavis Bay near his home, appeared in the book Hood Canal Splendor at Risk.

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UPDATE, Feb. 18

The humpback whale in Hood Canal may still be around. I received an e-mail from Barbara Clark, who spotted the whale yesterday (Friday) about 1:50 p.m. Both she and her husband Jim saw it this time, in the very same spot that Jim noticed it on Jan. 30 — specifically, just north of the Great Bend of Hood Canal toward the eastern shore.

Susan Berta of Orca Network told me that someone else saw the whale in southern Hood Canal about the same time.

These latest sightings only reinforce the mystery of the humpback whale that must still be swimming around Hood Canal but not making itself very obvious.
—–

A humpback whale made a rare appearance in Hood Canal’s Dabob Bay at the end of last week, then mysteriously disappeared from sight.

A humpback whale was sighted Friday in Dabob Bay by researchers Connie and JD Gallant.
Photo by Connie Gallant

As far as I can tell, Connie and JD Gallant, who were doing research on the bay Friday afternoon, were among the very few to see the humpback, or possibly two of them.

It makes you wonder how often large whales, such as humpbacks, come into Hood Canal without anyone seeing them, or at least reporting them.

“I was so thrilled,” Connie told me this morning as she described the encounter.

JD was motoring their 40-foot research vessel, the Sea Turtle, near Broadspit in the northern part of the estuary when he spotted one or more whales surfacing. JD stopped the boat, pulled up the water-testing meter, and yelled, “Whales off the port bow!”

Connie, who was below deck inputting data into a computer, ran up and began shooting photos. JD told Connie he believed there were two whales, but Connie only saw one.

Personally, I can’t remember anyone reporting humpbacks in Hood Canal. I phoned several folks I know who live on the canal, and nobody seems to recall ever seeing humpbacks. It is quite a different situation when one talks about visits to Hood Canal by gray whales or killer whales, which I’ve reported through the years.

My most memorable experience was in 2005, when a group of six transient killer whales spent more than five months swimming up and down the shorelines of Hood Canal, feasting on seals and sea lions whenever they got a chance. Those orcas stayed so long I thought they might make the canal their permanent home.

John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research told me that he has a general recollection of a humpback showing up in Hood Canal years ago, but he could not locate any written reports of the sightings. If someone was able to snap a picture of the underside of the fluke (tail) of a humpback, John said he might be able to identify the whale from a photographic catalog of humpbacks on the West Coast.

John tells me that a January sighting of a humpback whale is unusual, because most of the population is now on the breeding grounds near the Hawaiian Islands or else off the coast of Mexico. A few humpbacks are always around, he said, but it is worrisome when any animal shows up in a place where it is not expected.

Historically, one population of humpbacks spent the winters in the inland waters of northern Washington and southern British Columbia, but they were largely wiped out by commercial whalers, he said.

The West Coast population of humpbacks has been growing at about 7.5 percent a year since the early 1990s, according to Calambokidis. The general population now stands at about 2,000 animals, compared to about 500 more than 20 years ago.

As for the recent humpback sighting, I would like to get a report from anyone who may have seen this whale (or two) in Hood Canal or from anyone who may have seen one in the past.

Connie said the whale or whales that she observed Friday appeared to be “frolicking” — that is leaping out of the water, twisting and turning. She said they seemed to be about the size or her boat, about 40 feet long. That would make it a fairly young humpback.

The encounter lasted about 15 minutes, then the whales seemed to disappear, she said.

“We hung around for about an hour,” she said, “but they didn’t surface again.”

Connie and JD, who operate Greenfleet Monitoring Expeditions, have been collecting water-quality data — including information on dissolved oxygen — from Quilcene and Dabob bays.

The humpback whale spotted in Dabob Bay disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived.
Photo by Connie Gallant

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