KWTales Starts Our 2008 Field Season

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!

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

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

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.