J Pod off San Juan Island

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!

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...

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...

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.

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

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.

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