Watching Our Water Ways

The unusual death of L-112, a young female orca apparently killed by “blunt force trauma,” continues to fuel discussions about what may have killed her and what should be done about it.

Kenneth Hess, a Navy public affairs officer, posted a comment today on the recent blog entry “Balcomb wants to know if young orca was bombed.” In his comment, Hess repeats that the Navy did not conduct any training with sonar, bombs or explosives in the days preceding L-112’s death. He called it “irresponsible and inaccurate” to blame the Navy for “blowing up” the whale.

Another new development today is an e-mail I received from Lt. Diane Larose of the Canadian Navy, responding to my inquiry about any explosive devices used in the days before L-112 was found dead on Feb. 11. Read the e-mail (PDF 16 kb) I received:

“On February 6, 2012 HMCS Ottawa was operating in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, specifically in Constance Bank, conducting Work Ups Training including a period of sonar use and two small under water charges as part of an anti-submarine warfare exercise. These small charges were used to get the ships’ company to react to a potential threat or damage to meet the necessary training requirement.”

In talking to experts involved in the investigation, it seems unlikely that L-112 could have been injured or killed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then wash up dead on Long Beach five days later. So the mystery continues.

In tomorrow’s Kitsap Sun, I’m reporting that environmental groups on both sides of the Canadian border are calling on their respective navies to disclose all the specific activities during the 10 days leading up to the discovery of L-112’s carcass at Long Beach on Feb. 11. The groups also are calling for a complete cessation of sonar use for training and testing in the Salish Sea.

Check out three letters submitted to the navies involved, including one from U.S. and Canadian scientists:
(more…)

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Killer whales of the Salish Sea and Puget Sound returned to the San Juan Islands with a newborn calf yesterday, as I described in a story for tomorrow’s Kitsap Sun.

The newborn orca, K-44, was photographed with his mother in Haro Strait in the San Juan Islands.
Photo: Center for Whale Research

While J pod and portions of K and L pods have been seen in inland waters lately, the major portion of K and L pods have not been around for weeks.

I was ready in early June to write about their return, because that is often when they arrive in Washington state to spend much of the summer. On Tuesday of this week, when L pod was reported off the West Coast of Vancouver Island, I began checking with marine mammal and salmon experts to find out what might be keeping the orcas away.

I was getting ready to write something about the missing orcas and their search for chinook salmon when they suddenly showed up with the new baby. I will save some ideas about the orca-salmon connection until I can put my thoughts into a coherent form. For now, it’s good to celebrate the arrival of the newborn with no apparent deaths among the orcas seen so far.

Of course, nobody knows how long they will stay or where they will travel over the next few months before heading into Central and South Puget Sound in the fall.

The new baby, designated K-44, is one the youngest calves ever identified by gender. (He’s a boy.) Frequently, months or even years will go by before researchers get a good look or photograph of their undersides. Check out diagram at Center for Whale Research (click on “Questions & Answers”) to see how you can tell males from females.

Websites worth watching:

Orca Network’s sightings page (with signup for e-mails)

Salish Sea Hydrophone Network (with links to past and present underwater sounds)

Whale of a Purpose

Center for Whale Research

It's a boy! / Photo: Center for Whale Research

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UPDATE, Nov. 24, 2010
Sometimes it takes a vacation to catch up on things. I always intended to list the new names given by the Whale Museum in this entry. I’m only two months late, after more than 7,500 votes were counted. Nevertheless, here are the new names as announced in a Sept. 15 news release:

J-44: The Whale Museum’s name is “Moby.” Other alternatives were “Kellett” and “Fin.” Ken Balcomb did not announce a name for this one.

J-46: “Star” is the name chosen by Ken, and Whale Museum voters concurred. Other options were “Galaxy” and “Dubhe.”

L-112: “Sooke” will be the name listed by the Whale Museum. Ken had already named her Victoria. The Whale Museum also proposed “ReJoyce” and “Wonder.”

L-113: Ken named her Molly. Whale Museum voters chose “Cousteau.” “Haro” and “Talise” were other alternatives.

I still have not decided whether to list one or both names in my stories or simply call them by their alpha-numeric designations.
—–

Ken Balcomb, who heads the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, has announced new names for six young killer whales that frequent the Salish Sea.

Balcomb’s names apparently will be different from names chosen by the Whale Museum, which has traditionally named the orcas. Could this cause confusion among those interested in whale families?

Since the 1970s, the Center for Whale Research has kept a census of the whales, designating new calves with a letter for their pod (J, K or L), along with the next available number in sequence. Until last year, when Ken named one young orca “Star,” the naming process was left up to the Whale Museum, based in Friday Harbor. See Water Ways, Nov. 19.

By the way, the Whale Museum is currently conducting a public vote to name four killer whales as part of its Orca Adoption Program. Check out the Whale Museum’s site.

Ken told me that people may choose to use his names, or not, as they wish, but he intends to list the names with their designations for identification purposes. As he stated in a blog entry announcing the names:
(more…)

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Killer whale observers are celebrating the birth of a new calf born in L pod, one of the three groups of whales that frequent Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. The proud mom is L-47, also known as “Marina.”

A new calf has been born to L-47, known as Marina. The calf has been designated L-115.
Photo by Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Research

The calf, less than three weeks old, appears to be doing fine, according to Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research. Excitement over the birth is tempered somewhat by the knowledge that Marina has lost five of her seven known calves, with survivors being two of her older offspring.

In phoning Ken to confirm the new calf, I knew I needed to ask about missing orcas — the ones not seen this summer. In the spring, observers will keep looking intently for missing whales. Late in the summer, it becomes time to face the fact that some individuals will never be seen again.

Unfortunately, three killer whales must be placed on the list of those “missing and presumed dead.” Two orcas born in 1986 — L-73 (“Flash”) and L-74 (“Saanich”) have been missing for several months.

Until now, Ken was not quite ready to give up on K-11, “Georgia.” At an estimated age of 77, she was the oldest whale in K pod.

“We’ve been hoping we would see K-11,” Ken told me. “We did see her in May, but she didn’t make it to July, and we did not see her recently. I think that’s enough time.”

So the new total for all three pods drops to 87, from 89 in my previous report.

To end on a positive note, the whales appear to be successfully hunting for salmon this summer in the San Juan Islands and up into Canada. They will likely go into winter with adequate body mass.

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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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Excitement continues to build among killer whale observers, as seven newborn orcas have arrived in the past year. There have been no deaths during that time.

A newborn calf, L-114, is seen swimming with its mother, L-77, named Matia. The photo was taken Sunday in Cordova Bay on the eastern side of Vancouver Island near Nanaimo, B.C. (Click to enlarge)
Photo courtesy of Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research

He’s a story I prepared this morning for the Kitsap Sun Web site:

A new calf has been born into L Pod, one of the three groups of orcas that frequent Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.

The young whale was spotted Sunday in Cordova Bay on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, by Ken Balcomb and Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research. The center maintains an ongoing census of the Southern Resident killer whale population.

The two researchers later confirmed that the newborn, designated L-114, is the offspring of L-77, a 22-year-old named Matia. This is her first known calf, though it is possible she has had one or more offspring that did not survive.

The mother and calf were traveling with another mother-calf pair, L-94, Calypso, and her calf, L-113, born last fall. Calypso is Matia’s sister. The four whales are part of a portion of L pod that often travels together. They have become known as the L-12 subpod.

Balcomb and Ellifrit reported that they observed the newborn calf Sunday afternoon while the whales were headed south in Cordova Bay. At about 5 p.m., they reached the southern shore and headed east toward open water. They appeared to be hunting for fish, with “lots of taillobs, cartwheels and pec slaps,” according to a report on the center’s Web page.

This is the seventh orca calf born to the three Southern Resident pods in the past year. There have been no deaths during that time. This latest birth brings L Pod’s population to 42 animals and the overall population to 89.

“This continues the streak,” said Howard Garrett of Orca Network. “I am at a loss for an explanation. I am just celebrating.”

“It’s great news for the population,” Balcomb said. “So far all of them are doing well.”

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I guess we can quit talking about the Salish Sea as if this body of water has a new, exotic name.

After all, many folks have been using this name for years. In my effort to be formal and proper, I’ve rarely used it. But things have changed since “Salish Sea” became an official, formally approved name at the end of last year.

Now, in the latest development, the American Name Society declared “Salish Sea” the “Name of the Year” last weekend. That should end the discussion for good.

I interviewed the man who conducted the competition and wrote the following for today’s Kitsap Sun:

The name “Salish Sea” has been chosen over “Twitter” as the American Name Society’s “Name of the Year.”

The Salish Sea is defined as the inland waterway in Washington and British Columbia that includes Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia.

“I think it is significant because it is a brand new name,” said Cleveland Evans, who conducted the competition for the American Name Society, an academic organization. “It fits ecological interests, being invented by a biologist. And it has a Native American connection, chosen from a name for a broad ethnic group…”

The Canadian connection didn’t hurt either, Evans said, because his organization has a significant number of Canadian members.

The name “Salish Sea” was conceived a decade ago by Bert Webber, a professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Webber, a biologist, wanted to stress the ecological connections between the branching waterway that crosses the international border. He took “Salish” from Coast Salish, an ethnographic designation for many Northwest native people.

“Salish Sea” became an official name in 2009, when it was adopted by the Washington State Board on Geographic Names, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the Geographic Names Board of Canada.
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Please read the story for information about the names that “Salish Sea” beat out to become the “Name of the Year” and why “Barack Hussein Obama” was chosen as the “Name of the Year” last year.

While the American Name Society gets to choose the “Name of the Year,” its sister organization, the American Dialect Society chooses the “Word of the Year.”

The dialect folks chose the word “tweet,” as the favored “Word of the Year” and “google” as the “Word of the Decade.”

In reading through the ADS announcement about the winners of the word contest (PDF 205 k), I found that the word declared “Most Likely to Succeed” was “twenty-ten,” the chosen pronunciation for the year 2010.

Speaking of 2010, I have noticed something very strange in how people are speaking. It’s not so unusual to choose “twenty-ten” as the pronunciation for this year. After all, we have to call it something. But after nine years of saying “two-thousand-one,” “two-thousand-two,” etc., up to the end of last year, why are a growing number of people suddenly saying “twenty-oh-nine”? Figure that one out.

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“Salish Sea” is now the official name for our inland waterway that stretches across more than 1,400 square miles of Western Washington and British Columbia. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

Salish Sea watershed
EPA graphic

The question now is whether the name will catch on and be used more frequently.

One application that comes to mind is the description of the three pods of killer whales known as Southern Residents. I’ve often referred to these animals as the orcas that frequent Puget Sound. That’s because “Southern Residents” have little meaning to the average reader, who wishes to know why they are “southern” and what I mean by “residents.”

It so happens that the Salish Sea just about defines the range of these whales for a large percentage of the year.

Now I may refer to them as the killer whales that frequent or mainly reside in the Salish Sea — including much of the summer in the San Juan Islands, with winter and fall stints into Puget Sound.

I’m not sure how else I will use this term, but I no longer feel constrained by the idea that the Salish Sea is not a real name and has never been defined by any authority.

Here are some facts about the Salish Sea provided by the SeaDoc Society. (I’ve converted meters to feet and kilometers to miles.)

• Coastline length, including islands: 4,642 miles
• Total number of islands: 419
• Total land area of islands: 1,413 square miles
• Sea surface area: 9,942 square miles
• Maximum depth: 886 feet
• Number of different marine animals species estimated: 20 species of mammals, 128 species of birds, 219 species of fish, and over 3000 species of invertebrates
• Number of species listed as threatened, endangered or are candidates for listing: 64
• Total watershed area, not counting the upper Fraser River area (See Stefan Freelan): 42,000 square miles

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It looks like the Washington State Board on Geographic Names likes the name “Salish Sea” when describing the inland waterway that includes Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I wasn’t able to attend Friday’s hearing on the subject, but Caleb Maki, who staffs the board, told me that the board seems to support the name after hearing a lot of positive comments about it.

In fact the only negative comments, Maki said, seemed to be from people who thought the name “Salish Sea” would replace the name “Puget Sound” or take away something else familiar.

As we’ve discussed before in Water Ways, the proposal is not to take away any names but to add a new one when talking about the body of water that crosses the international border.

In an unofficial poll on this blog, folks were fairly evenly split between liking the name “Salish Sea” and seeing little or no use for it.

If people have strong feelings one way or the other, they should contact the board directly and their comments will be made part of the official record:

Washington State Board on Geographic Names
1111 Washington St. SE, PO Box 47030
Olympia, WA 98504-7030

360-902-1231
Fax 360-902-1778
bogn@dnr.wa.gov

Here’s the story I prepared for tomorrow’s Kitsap Sun:
(more…)

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I’ve closed the poll asking whether we should officially create the name “Salish Sea” for the waters including Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Georgia Strait.

Oddly enough, exactly 100 users answered the poll question. That makes percentage calculations easy, but winners and losers are a little open to interpretation.

We have 44 people who say they don’t see the need for the addition of a new name. That compares to 40 who said they unequivocally liked the name “Salish Sea” to identify the international ecosystem.

Another 14 people said they would support the “Salish Sea” name, but only if the U.S. and Canadian governments went along with it. Another two people said they would support the name if the Canadian government went along with it. With that condition attached, we would have 56 people who support the name change if the U.S. and Canadian governments agree.

I’m not sure whether the Washington State Board on Geographic Names would complicate their decision that way. As I understand it, all state name changes are forwarded to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which can adopt the change, oppose the change or ignore it.

British Columbia has a naming board, which makes such decisions for the province.

I think the Washington board could change the name, effective after adoption by the U.S. and/or B.C. governments. But they may just want a cleaner decision.

For background information, check out the original entry about Salish Sea in Water Ways.

If you’d like to send comments to those who can make a difference, write to:

Washington State Board on Geographic Names
1111 Washington St. SE, PO Box 47030
Olympia, WA 98504-7030

360-902-1231
Fax 360-902-1778
bogn@dnr.wa.gov

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