Watching Our Water Ways

I woke up this morning listening to radio reporter Greg Allen’s story about Miami Seaquarium on National Public Radio. My competitive side immediately wondered how his story would fit in with my story about the Seaquarium, published in today’s Kitsap Sun.

The aquarium in Miami has been getting some local publicity lately after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that weathered oil has a pretty good chance of catching the Loop Current and making it all the way to Miami’s Biscayne Bay on the eastern shore of Florida.

Greg Allen got a stronger quote than I from general manager Andrew Hertz: “We pull our water for our animals straight out of the bay. And we filter it and we give them clean water. But the quality of our water is only as good as the quality of the bay.”

A new filtration system installed over the past five years apparently would not be enough to prevent serious illness or death to the animals in the aquarium.

What Allen failed to bring up in his report was the growing concern for Lolita, the killer whale, as well as numerous other marine mammals housed in the aquarium. As I point out in my story, folks like Howard Garrett of Orca Network and Ric O’Barry of “The Cove” are raising alarms about the dangers of oil and declaring that it is time to bring Lolita back to her original home in Puget Sound.

Hertz said he will do what it takes to protect animals in the aquarium, and his staff is working on a contingency plan, which may involve financial support from BP. But how quickly can something be built? I guess we’ll have to wait to see the specific plans.

Meanwhile, local biologists have put together a draft plan for returning Lolita to Puget Sound, if circumstances allow. The plan was developed a number of years ago and might need to be updated. But if this oil spill fails to stir up enough action to move Lolita, it seems highly unlikely that she will ever return to Puget Sound.

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A new calf born in K pod is seen swimming with its mom, K-12, also known as Sequim.
Photo by Emma Foster, courtesy of Center for Whale Research

Everyone I know who studies and loves killer whales is pleased to see a continuing series of births among all three pods that frequent the Salish Sea. It’s a good sign to have such a variety, and the calves seem to be surviving at a high rate.

The population is gradually rebuilding itself, with the latest news being a new calf in K pod. Here’s the story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun, which was posted on the website:

FRIDAY HARBOR — A new orca calf has been born in K pod, one of the three groups of killer whales that frequent the Salish Sea and Puget Sound, experts say.

The young calf, designated K-43, was spotted Tuesday swimming with K-12, presumed to be the mother, according to biologists with the Center for Whale Research. It is the third calf born to the three Southern Resident pods this year.

K pod returned to the San Juan Islands this week by way of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but apparently turned back. All three groups are beginning to settle in for a summer of fishing in and around the islands. J pod and portions of L pod have already arrived, but both pods have been coming and going, apparently not finding many chinook salmon, experts say.

The new whale apparently was spotted by observer Jeanne Hyde on Feb. 21 while K pod traveled with J pod in the San Juan Islands. At that time, the calf could not be positively confirmed, but it now looks to be five months old.

K-12, the new mother, is believed to be 38 years old.

She was a young animal when Ken Balcomb, the center’s director, began to identify individual whales and maintain an annual census. She has two other offspring, K-22 and K-37.

The new birth brings the number of whales in K pod to 20. J pod has 28 whales, and L pod 42. Final counts for this year won’t be made until all the whales have returned.

For the past few years, the Center for Whale Research has been reporting births and deaths as they are observed. It is much easier to take note of births, because the young whales are quite obvious. Deaths are tougher, because it takes time to decide whether a whale is gone for good or just off somewhere else. A good count of the whales traditionally comes in summer, when all three pods are around long enough for Ken Balcomb and his crew to make a complete tally.

As of now, the total count of the three pods stands at 90, according to a running tally kept by Orca Network, based on reports from the Center for Whale Research. That number was last reached in 2004. (See chart by Orca Network.) A recent high of 96 animals was reached in 1996, the year before 19 members of L pod spent a month in Dyes Inlet. If I recall, the number of killer whales was estimated to be close to 200 before the decline brought about by capture for aquariums during the 1960s and early ’70s.

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UPDATE, FRIDAY, MAY 28, 8:25 a.m.

On Thursday, it appears the transient killer whales started the day in Poulsbo’s Liberty Bay, passed by Illahee and went out Rich Passage about 10 a.m. I heard from researcher Mark Sears that they had spent the day traveling around Vashon Island, ending up at 8 p.m. at the south end of Bainbridge Island. Check out my story in today’s Kitsap Sun for a few more details.
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I’ve been hearing about transient killer whales in Puget Sound all year. Dozens of these seal-eating orcas have been sighted in small groups here and there throughout the region. Check out Orca Network’s Archives for reports made to that organization.

Transients have come and gone quickly from Sinclair Inlet near Bremerton a few times this year. But, as far as I know, yesterday was the first time since 2004 that they made it all the way into Dyes Inlet.

It was a good chance for me to talk a little about transients with the help of Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research and Howard Garrett of Orca Network, as you can see in a story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun.

By the way, the last report we had last night was at 7:30 in Ostrich Bay, but an observer reported them at 9:20 p.m. on the west side of Dyes Inlet and posted a comment on the story. (Appreciation goes to “rgdimages#217099.”)

Howie informed me this morning that a group of four transients was seen coming out of Liberty Bay near Poulsbo at 6:45 a.m. We’ll try to report whether those are the same animals as the ones in Dyes Inlet and where they go next. To report to Orca Network, one can send an e-mail, info@orcanetwork.org, or call (866) ORCANET.

It seems to be a big year for the transients. Why this is happening is open to speculation, which is always risky, but I appreciate Ken’s willingness to think out loud sometimes and kick a few ideas around. I mean, if scientists are unable to come up with hypotheses, there is nothing to test for.

So one possible explanation is that transients are here because residents are somewhere else. Residents may be somewhere else because there aren’t many salmon here right now. On the other hand, maybe seals and/or sea lions are finding enough to eat, and transients are finding success in hunting the smaller marine mammals.

This whole notion raises all kinds of questions for me, and I’ll try to explore these ideas in future stories. For example, if there are fish for seals and sea lions, why aren’t the resident killer whales eating them? Maybe the smaller marine mammals are concentrating on smaller fish? If fish are in short supply, will the population of seals and sea lions crash, or will these animals go somewhere else, too? And, given the cyclic nature of salmon populations, what is happening to the entire food chain — from the forage fish that salmon and seals eat up to the largest predators, the killer whales?

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Transient killer whales apparently attacked a gray whale near Whidbey Island yesterday, an encounter caught briefly on video. But the orcas seemed to back off before killing the larger marine mammal.

The footage was captured by Wendy Hensel of Chilliwack, British Columbia, who was aboard the whale-watching boat Mystic Sea out of La Conner. KING 5 TV posted the video on its Web site.

The boat’s skipper, Monte Hughes, told King 5 reporter OWEN LEI that whale watchers were observing a gray whale between Whidbey and Camano islands when a group of orcas raced up from behind in a direct line headed for the gray whale.

All the animals disappeared beneath the waves. When the gray whale surfaced, it was belly up. Moments later, the large whale jerked as if being struck from below.
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UPDATE: MARCH 20, 2010
The transient killer whales moved up into the San Juan Islands for a couple of days, according to commercial whale watchers. Today, they were sighted at the south end of Whidbey Island.
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UPDATE: MARCH 17, 2010
The transient killer whales that have been visiting Puget Sound for about a week may have moved up to the Whidbey Island area, where a group of about five orcas were reported yesterday and today.
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Swift and silent killer whales, known as transients, must be finding a good number of seals or sea lions to eat, because a group of a half-dozen or so of these animals appear to have been swimming around Puget Sound for about a week.

This video was recorded this afternoon in Puget Sound by KOMO News. Although KOMO’s Web site does not say specifically where the whales were sighted, they were reported between West Seattle and Vashon Island.

Orca Network’s recent reports include sightings of T87, 88, 90 and 90B south of Victoria last Tuesday. Later that night, transients were heard on the hydrophone off the West Side of San Juan Island. They stayed around the San Juans on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday, they were spotted in Tacoma’s Commencement Bay and near the ferry lanes on the Fauntleroy-Vashon Island route. From a KOMO video that day, Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research identified T87, T88, T90 & T90B, plus the T30s (which may include a mother and two adult offspring).

Since then, these same whales apparently have been spotted several times in Central Puget Sound. About halfway through the video above, it appears the orcas catch and kill a seal, evidenced by blood in the water.

Transients are orcas that eat marine mammals rather than fish — the primary food of our familiar Southern Residents of the Salish Sea. Transients usually travel in smaller groups and seem to give residents wide berth when they come within range of each other.

Transients roam widely from Alaska to California, though some stay farther north and others farther south. Because they hunt seals and sea lions, which can hear them coming, they are stealthier in their hunting than residents and appear to have a more limited vocabulary of vocalizations.

According to estimates by biologists, transients generally need to eat an average of one or two harbor seals a day to maintain their caloric needs. In that sense, transients are friends to both resident orcas and fishermen, because they eat the animals that eat the salmon.

In 2005, a group of six transients stayed in Hood Canal a remarkable 18 weeks, consuming a feast that amounted to an estimated 700 seals and sea lions. See Kitsap Sun, June 3, 2005.

With the help of Orca Network, we’ll report where these animals go over the next few days.

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I’m happy to share this space today with Kitsap Sun reporter Steven Gardner, who offers his personal perspective on orcas.

BY STEVEN GARDNER

Journalists received what might be deserved suspicion of being haters of George W. Bush. If it’s true, I don’t think it’s for the reason most people surmise, that we’re all socialists at heart intent on killing every American Amendment that isn’t the first one.

If we disliked Bush the younger, it had more to do with his reported statement to Joe Biden that he doesn’t “do nuance.”

Reporters dance in nuance. We eat it. For the purposes of this blog, let’s say we swim in it. When we retire, the hardest thing to unload is all the “other hands” we’ve considered. Dunagan has a file cabinet full of them. When Bush said he didn’t do nuance, it was like he was insulting all our mothers.

Dabbling in nuance gives us room to partake in things we might not otherwise do were we among those who take stands. In late 2007 I took my family to SeaWorld in San Diego. In my heart I’m really troubled by the idea of watching animals that can travel entire oceans confined to pools a little bigger than the one I had in my backyard as a kid. But it was when I was a kid that my affection for orcas began, because of a splashing I got from Shamu.

Growing up in Southern California, it was the only way I was going to see orcas in person. As the years went on, I managed to see probably a dozen dolphin shows. I don’t think I grew to have any angst about it until I was working construction during a summer off from college and was sent to a house in an exclusive neighborhood in Laguna Beach. There, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I could see a school of dolphins (Maybe they were porpoises. I couldn’t swear under oath that they weren’t two-liter soda bottles with fins.) swimming by beyond the waves.

It sounds cliche, but something can happen to a guy like me who suddenly sees something in a different context, particularly a natural context. Not only did it make me feel good about them, it made me feel good about myself, that I live in a world where animals can be in a place they’ve been for thousands or millions of years, that we haven’t institutionalized all of them. It’s not a thought that comes naturally when you spend most of your days winding your way through asphalt and concrete.

That elation came again when I moved here and the Orcas visited Silverdale. Then on Christmas Day in 2004 I was on a ferry to Seattle and saw an orca off in the distance. That chance sighting was better than the sure thing you get in San Diego.

Still, I thought maybe my kids would appreciate the SeaWorld show. They did.

I, on the other hand, had much the same reaction Steve Lopez from the Los Angeles Times did when he went.. I wouldn’t say I was creeped out, but I was uneasy.

I expected a fun, maybe funny presentation. What you get is a full-on, well-orchestrated production that clearly had been crafted following the pressure that must have come once Free Willy was released in theaters.

And yet months later, when another friend shared pictures of her daughter being one of those who got to go out and touch the whale, I was genuinely happy for her.

Of course the idea that she could have been yanked by her pony tail into the water — something that has apparently never happened in the wild — changes all that.

I’d rather see all those Shamus out in the wild. I would have felt so relieved if SeaWorld officials would have said, “We get it now.” On the other hand, maybe the Tacoma Pocket Gopher wouldn’t have vanished in 1970 if someone had made money by teaching a few of them to jump through hoops. On the other other hand, maybe these animals should matter to me even if I never get to see them.

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Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research has announced that the newest killer whale calf, designated J-46, should be known as “Star,” because the young animal has garnered so much attention.

This newborn calf could become a poster child in the effort to save the Southern Residents from extinction.

Ken’s naming announcement came as a surprise to me, because he rarely uses names for our local orcas. Like most killer whale researchers, Ken and other staffers at the Center for Whale Research generally call the whales by the alpha-numeric system set up by researchers many years ago.
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The Samish Tribe recently held a formal ceremony to name J-45, a killer whale first spotted in March. See the Kitsap Sun, March 5. The young orca is the son of J-14, named Samish.

It is becoming a tradition for the Samish Tribe to name the offspring of the whale we call Samish, now a 35-year-old female. Samish is the granddaughter of J-2, or Granny as she is called. Granny is possibly the oldest living orca among the Puget Sound whales.

Officials with The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor participated in the naming ceremony Saturday. They provided the account below, which I think you will enjoy reading.

By the way, some of our local orcas have shown up in Central Puget Sound, where they were sighted this morning between Fauntleroy and Southworth. I have not yet heard if these animals have been identified. (Note: I updated this with a story late this afternoon.)

The Samish Indian Nation Names New Calf J-45

Friday Harbor — On Saturday, October 17, 2009, the Samish Indian Nation held a traditional potlatch naming ceremony for J-45, the newest J Pod calf in the Southern Resident Community of orcas.

The Whale Museum participated in the ceremony by providing ceremonial gifts for the attendees as well as a greeting by Executive Director Jenny Atkinson. The museum was asked to appoint a witness to the ceremony. Because of her role as the Orca Adoption Program Coordinator and the storykeeper of the whales, Jeanne Hyde was named.

“It was an honor to be asked to witness, ” Jeanne noted.
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The comment period for proposed federal regulations to restrict the operation of boats around killer whales has been extended to Jan. 15, pushing back the implementation date.

It looks like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is throwing open the door for “cooperative efforts” that might even include some new on-the-water research this coming year.

“We recognize that by extending the public comment period, we won’t have enough time to issue a final rule before the 2010 summer boating season,” states an e-mail sent out this morning by NOAA.

The statement adds:

“We continue to believe that it’s important to address the adverse effects of vessel traffic on killer whales in the near future. In light of the requests we’ve received for an extension of the comment period, however, we believe additional public outreach will enhance both NOAA Fisheries’ understanding of public concerns and the public’s understanding of the basis for our proposal. This will also allow time for cooperative efforts to refine the proposal. We’ll work toward adoption of a final rule before the 2011 summer boating season.”

The proposed rules would create an enforceable 200-yard protective zone around the whales. That’s twice as far as existing federal guidelines call for. See my July 28 story in the Kitsap Sun.

During three recent hearings, many people raised questions, concerns and objections to the proposed rule. Some even offered suggestions.

Donna Darm of NOAA told me that the extra time would allow biologists to explore and discuss some of the ideas, including issues related to recreational fishing and kayaking within a “no-go zone” off the west side of San Juan Island.

Research is ongoing, she said, and another year of data would not hurt. New on-the-water studies may or may not be proposed. When I raised the idea of an experiment using the entire whale-watch fleet to test various scenarios, she seemed intrigued by the notion.

“We have lots of comments to think about related to this alternative or that alternative,” she said.

NOAA officials were surprised by the number of people who showed up at the three public hearings: 180 or so each in Anacortes and Seattle, followed by about 260 in Friday Harbor, according to NOAA spokeswoman Janet Sears. That compares to between 40 and 60 people at planning meetings before the regulations were announced.

Shane Aggergaard, president of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, said he is pleased to see the willingness of NOAA officials to discuss the issue further. At first, NOAA officials did not seem to be listening, he told me.

“In the first part if it, it seemed like, ‘this is the proposal and this is the way it’s going to be,’” he said. “The fact that they’re looking at our recommendations or anything outside their original proposal is a positive step.”

The outpouring of opposition, including comments collected from passengers of whale-watch boats, has been huge, he said. “I would be surprised if there are not 20,000 comments that they will have to deal with.”

To comply with a strict 200-yard limit, whale-watch boats would need to stay close to 300 yards away most of the time, he said, and that is something that could kill much of the whale-watching business, he said.

The Pacific Whale Watch Association has proposed a combination of two ideas advanced by NOAA. The PWWA option would prohibit vessels within 100 yards under most conditions, though it would allow fishing boats to hold their position and kayakers to let orcas swim by. Other vessels would need to stay out of the path of the Southern Residents and observe a 7-knot speed along San Juan Island from Eagle Point to Mitchell Point out one-half mile.

Some folks have let me know that they are alarmed that strict regulations will not be approved in time to better protect the whales this year. (Washington state law includes a 100-yard restriction.)

Peter Hamilton of the whale-protection group Lifeforce sent this message:

It’s really unfortunate that the orcas will not get more protection in 2010 under improved vessel regulations. But of course enforcement would still be an issue. In order to provide more protection, Lifeforce hopes that NOAA and WDFW (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife) will get more funds to step up enforcement in 2010.
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Two hearings regarding proposed boating regulations to protect Puget Sound orcas from noise and disturbance have brought out a variety of opinions. Folks involved in the whale-watching industry showed up in large numbers, as did sport and commercial fishers.

Scott Veirs, who studies the acoustics of killer whales, blogged about last night’s meeting in Seattle:

“Overall, there were strong objections to the entire suite of alternatives — from the 200 yard viewing distance to the no-go zone. People for Puget Sound went on record saying that a no-go zone was a step too far. And Ken Balcomb (Center for Whale Research) voted for no action.

“I was left with a profound disappointment that so many felt so unfairly burdened by the proposed rules. If the people who most intimately and consistently share the southern resident’s habitat aren’t willing to make a sacrifice to preserve the basis of their livelihoods, how can we expect the public to act selflessly for our regional icons: the orca and the salmon?”

I thought the piece put together by reporter Mark Wright of KCPQ-TV (viewer above right) provided a nicely summarized and balanced perspective on the issue, though it did not examine the scientific issue.

To dig more deeply, take a loot at the extensive list of comments compiled by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2007 when “potential vessel regulations” were being discussed. Information about the proposed rule — including questions and answers — can be found on the page “Regulations on Vessel Effects.”

A few odds and ends in recent days:
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