Killer Whale Tales

Field Season 2009 Begins...

2009-05-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

I headed up to San Juan yesterday, May 11th, to begin Killer Whale Tales 9th field season. I am back working with Soundwatch and the regions researchers, learning all I can and updating the classroom program for the coming school year.

I have a good feeling about the summer, especially since J pod and J27 in particular woke me up! The weather is flawless, contrary to what was predicted, and the wildlife has been abundant: eagles, sparrows, swallows, deer... orca... you name it, we got it!

Talk more soon!

Navy using sonar in Haro Strait on April 7th, 2009

2009-04-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Just got word that a Navy submarine was using it's mid frequency sonar off the west side of San Juan Island last night. Click on the file above to listen to the compilation by our friend John Boyd.

As a side note, the commenting period for the rule making allowing the Navy to use this potentially harmful technology, in the waters designated as critical habitat for the regions killer whales, (not to mention every other organism) is still open. You can visit the other website listed below and let them hear your thoughts.

http://www.nwtrangecomplexeis.com/GetInvolved.aspx

Or call the Navy representative Sheila Murray, Navy Region Northwest environmental public affairs officer, at (360) 340-5398.

Let the navy hear from you, as the whales are definitely hearing from them!

Killer Whale Tales Featured on NPR/KUOW

2009-02-21T18:42:00.000-08:00

Irene Noguchi, a reporter for KUOW's Weekday program, produced an excellent story about Killer Whale Tales. It really captures what we do and how we do it.

Take a listen by pasting this link in your browser:
http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=16948

(Our part starts at about 40 minutes into this excellent program on saving Puget Sound.)

L Pod in South Sound on 2/20/2009

2009-02-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

Our Executive Director and founder, Jeff Hogan, got the privilege again to participate on the "fecal" follow" boat with our friends from NOAA Fisheries. They met up with the members of L Pod, at the Kingston Ferry terminal and stayed with them for nearly three hours as the whales moved northwards. The scientists were trying to collect fecal samples, (yes..poop!) as well as samples left over from predation events.

The scat samples will allow the scientists to measure many things, including hormonal levels in the individual whales, which can indicate many systemic problems in the individual whales, like stress. Check out this link to find out more:
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_052208ENV_orcas_return_KS.1c399d37.html

The prey samples collected will help to narrow down what these animals are eating throughout the year and most importantly where those fish come from. Right now it looks like mostly salmon and mostly Chinook or King at that. The DNA recovered in the sample can also identify exactly which stream those salmon come from and can help to steer recovery of those specific runs. Check out this link for more info:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local384854_orcas25.html

It was a beautiful day to boot!

L57 Missing...

2009-02-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday our program partners, The Center for Whale Research, announced that L57/Faith was missing. While this was not surprising news, as many of us noticed he was missing in the fall, the quasi-official news was disheartening. However, the bad news was balanced with the appearance of two new calves .

Read more by following this link:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008755077_orca19m.html

KWTales Starts Our 2008 Field Season

2008-06-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

KWTales began the annual updating of our program today with a visit from members of J and L pods at Lime Kiln State Park on San Juan Island. The whales hooked up with us at 6:21 am and swam within 20 yards of the beach. We got a good look at both J19 and her calf calf J41 as well as a good shot at J36 breaching. We will be incorporating the new photographs we captured today and some video as well into our in-class program.

It was an excellent way to kick off our field season! Check back daily for new posts...

The school year ends...we reach our 20,000 student!

2008-06-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Killer Whale Tales kicked off our celebration of Orca Month by working with our 20,000th student today. We were so tickled that it coincided with the beginning of the month, and that it happened at Gig Harbor Elementary, right up the street from one of our largest contributors, the Russell Family Foundation.

It has been a great year for us and the program is continuing to grow beyond the state, in fact we are headed for Texas, to get those kids dialed in to making a difference for our northwest whales.

We currently have funding to offer our program to all interested schools willing to complete our Kids Making a Difference Now! homework activity. This simple assignment asks students to go home and examine their ecological footprint and to change some of their habits to protect the whales and the salmon the desperately need. It's an easy task and a great way to get 2-6 hours of programming into their schools at no cost.

Anyway... thanks to everyone, from our individual donors to NOAA Fisheries and the Norcliffe Foundation, who continue to bank on the future generation handling things a bit better than those who came before them.

Thanks and happy Orca Month!
J

Summer Field Season Ends

2007-09-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Our summer field season ended last Friday the 21st. J Pod and the L2 sub-pod showed up to give us a warm send-off, coming within meters of the beach on 4 separate occasions over two days. We got some great shots of most of the new members of J Pod and some of the best video of the summer as well.

We are furiously working to incorporate all of the new information and images into our program this year. We have many schools already signed up and are eager to share with them what we learned.

We would love to bring the field to your classroom, so if you want to arrange a visit, head over to www.killerwhaletales.org and download a registration packet.

See you soon!

Jeff

J Pod off San Juan Island

2007-09-02T18:01:00.001-07:00

Hi,

After a few days out west J pod returned to our waters over the weekend. They worked the west side pretty good and rumor has it that they have been harassing harbor porpoise again. This morning they took their time heading up the beach, taking time to forage and play. J19 and her calf J41 spent a good deal of time kelping, rolling over one and other, basically doing things that families do. One of them even did and incredibly slow spyhop right in front of me on the beach. If you ever have watched hot and tasty chocolate slowly slide down the side of your ice cream sundae, then you get a pretty good idea how long it took J19 to stick her head out of the water.

One of my best days this summer happened today!

The SRKWs Return!

2007-08-23T21:57:00.001-07:00

Nothing quiet takes the edge off the bad news coming from Johnstone Strait like a group of K- Pod whales swimming right off the beach at the Landbank land just south of Lime Kiln. Checkout the whales blow hole!

Johnstone Strait- Success and...

2007-08-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I was just beginning to write this post, to talk about our great kayaking trip with the middle and high schoolers. I was going to mention that we returned on Saturday from our annual trip up to Johnstone Strait and saw lots of whales, and even that the high schoolers collected some very valuable data regarding vessel traffic along the VI shoreline.

Unfortunately that success was trumped today about news of a diesel fuel spill in the strait, specifically in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. Most of you know that this is a very special area for the Northern Resident killer whales. It is in this reserve that these whales frequent the rubbing beaches to rub themselves upon the smooth pebbles located their. It is the only place in the world that killer whales do this and it is a tradition that they pass down to each others through the generations. We may go to Disneyland with our folks and in turn take our children there...the whales go to the reserve-and have for as long as we have studied them.

There is not much news, other than it was a logging barge of some type, that was carrying heavy equipment on the deck. I have read that 200 liters was spilled, but that it is possible that much more may leak out in the coming days. The barge is apparently still aground in the reserve and cleanup procedures have commenced.

I will write more when I hear about it. There really isn't much for us to do, except to hope that the cleanup is quick and that the source of any future leak is contained. You can visit www.orca-live.net for up to date info about the whales.

Obviously we are very whale oriented at KWTales, but we shouldn't forget the millions of other animals that inhabit that amazing eco-system, millions upon millions of animals that will now be fighting for their lives as this situation unfolds.

I will leave with a picture of what it looked like the Friday before the accident.

K40, KMAD Results and more...

2007-08-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to watch some orca researchers at work yesterday. Normally being on on Soundwatch I am very vessel oriented. But yesterday I had the chance to work with a doctoral student on her boat as she went about recording the behavior of the Southern Residents. We tracked and recorded the exact position on a focal whale over the course of many surfacing's, making note of who they were swimming with and what (if any) activities they were doing. The study is looking at how the whales interact with their environment, including underwater topography, each other, and us.

We tracked many animals yesterday including member of all 3 pods. It was a great day and wonderful to be out on the water in a different capacity.

I also a nice encounter with J11 and her family at the lighthouse and I finally got a decent shot of K40.

On a program note, we will be publishing the results of our "Kids Making a Difference Now Activity" this week on our website. The students who participated in our program did an amazing job at making their homes orca safe. They cut back on their families power consumption, water usage and some even pledged to go "organic" on their next trip to the store.

Hats off to all who participated!

If you want to do the same activity at your home, checkout the same worksheet back on our website at www.killerwhaletales.org.

Busy and.....not so busy.

2007-07-28T15:51:00.001-07:00

Hello,

It has been a strange July.

The whales have been in and out of the trans-boundry area over the last 2 weeks. All 3 pods took off and spent some time near Neah Bay last week and have apparently left again today.

We had a couple of close encounters at the lighthouse when they were here, including a nice double spyhop pictured above. It is J22 and her calf J38.

We also got this really great shot of a killer whale as it looked at Amanda. If you look closely you can see the animals iris!

We did have a minor mishap this day as well. The wind blew our video camera over, causing it crash against the sharp rocks. To make matters worse it even landed in a tide pool!
Goodbye camera. It is the first time we lost a piece of equipment to the elements in the field in over 7 years of work.

Talk to you again soon.

J

2007-07-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Good Morning,

It has been a busy and hot two days on San Juan Island. We watched on Tuesday as the Southern Resident community of killer whales swam by the lighthouse at Lime Kiln SP. The whales were broken into little groups, some way of shore, a few in close and one (L79 pictured above) went by about 10 yards from the rocks we were sitting on. Having been around these animals quiet for awhile, I kind of forgot how big some of them are. L79 was so close when he passed that his image filled the entire frame of my camera, even though I was zoomed out as low as I could go.

We were also listening to the hydrophone and the whales were so amazingly vocal that night.
In fact, you could distinguish each pod clearly as they went by. J Pod was at the front and their specific calls were heard first. Just as those calls began to fade, K's started to creep in. As K's slowly passed, you could begin to hear L Pod calls blending in as well.
You can listen live too...just go to http://www.orcasound.net/ and click on either the OVAL link or the one for The Lime Kiln SP hydrophone.

It was another magic night in this magic place.

Talk again soon.

2007-07-03T16:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

L Pod, well at least some of them, joined the J's yesterday afternoon in the waters off San Juan Island. For some of these whales it is their first time back since last year. They were mixing and mingling throughout the night and I was fortunate to catch up with them this morning. We got some great video and a handful of pictures, including this one of the J17 and her two daughters. It is the second time this summer that I got the whole subpod in one frame. I also got a nice photograph of the larger bull L57 babysitting, (or is it playing?) with the pec slapping J35.

Word also arrived that K Pod is coming in from Johnstone Strait, bringing some other L Pod whales with them.

Looks like the 4th of July will be a big whale holiday.

J

2007-06-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Good Evening,

We were out collecting video and photos for next years school program when I got this nice shot of J16 and her new calf J42. J42, as yet unnamed, was born in May of this year to one of my favorite whale families. She swims with her mom, J16 and her brothers J26 and J33 and her sister J36.

Talk to you soon!

J

2007-06-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Okay...
We are obviously focused on killer whales.
I know that. We spend a lot of time talking whales, looking for whales etc...but sometimes it is nice to just look around and see what else is going on.

On the way back from videotaping J Pod on the west side of San Juan Island yesterday, we came across these 2 eagles sitting on a telephone pole, waiting for a farmer to finish mowing an area, so that they could swoop in and do a little bit of hunting.

I know it is not orca related, but I am always so impressed about how much is going on all around us, all the time. If we only slow down enough to look that is.

Jeff

The school year ends and summer begins!

2007-06-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Killer Whale Tales ended our amazing 2006-2007 school year on a high note with two dynamic classes at Lake Hills Elementary in Bellevue, WA. It was an excellent way to end a very successful year.

Since January 2006 alone, we have worked with 5000 students in over 46 schools throughout Washington State, Canada and San Francisco. The results from our Kids Making a Difference Now! activity are being tabulated as we speak and as soon as they are done we will post them on our website at www.killerwhaletales.org. Students can then see how much change they made to protect our regions whales. I know they will pleased with the results.

Now it is on to the summer!

This summer we will be out in the field updating our program with all new videos and photos, as well as incorporating any new and exciting scientific information. We will also be creating and updating all of our "hands on" activities, including one that will lead to a better understanding by the students about the whales critical habitat.

We will also again be working with The Soundwatch Boater Education program, helping to spread the word about The Be Whale Wise safe viewing guidelines. Checkout more about this dynamic program at www.whalemuseum.org/programs/soundwatch/soundwatch.html.

To kick off the summer we are launching this blog page to keep young folks up on what we are doing and what is going on in the field. We will be posting cool new pictures, video (on You Tube), and hopefully some great audio recordings as well. We will also share our reports of any new and exciting whale info, like new calves or scientific information, as we come come across it!
So check back often.

To get things started off right I am including this picture above, taken from shore at the Lime Kiln State Park Light House (www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Lime%20Kiln%20Point). It is a picture of J22 and her four year old calf J38. This one will definitely be in the program next year!

Thanks for checking in and I look forward to sharing with you some of the great adventures we will be having in the coming months!

Jeff Hogan
Executive Director/Founder
Killer Whale Tales