Observing Orcas: Migrating whale pods return, and tours gear up in the San Juan Islands

Bart Rulon was in a kayak the first time he had a close encounter with a killer whale.

The wildlife artist relocated to the Northwest from Kentucky when he was in his early 20s to photograph the massive animals, also known as orcas. During a trip to the San Juan Islands, an adult male swam toward him.

"Six-foot-tall dorsal fin, 30 feet long and 10,000 pounds," the Whidbey Island resident recalled. "It went right under my kayak. My heart was in my throat."

Regular brushes with the majestic mammals could begin again soon. Whale watching tours targeting orcas have begun in the San Juan Islands, coinciding with the animals' return to local waters.

The orcas, which are actually the world's largest species of dolphin, are drawn to the area for one big reason: food.

Three groups, also known as pods, generally arrive in the San Juans between May and July to hunt chinook salmon. Additionally, lone orcas, or transients, already have been spotted in local waters, chasing seals and other marine life.

Killer whales earned their deadly name because of their huge size and carnivorous tastes, but the distinctive black-and-white animals attract tourists for a less lethal reason.

"They're quite beautiful -- the panda of the seas," said Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist for the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor. "They're lovable."

Rulon, now 39, tends to agree. Along with teaching wildlife illustration at the University of Washington, this spring and summer he will serve as a naturalist for Island Adventures out of Anacortes.

During trips, visitors might see orcas perform a number of behaviors, he said. Along with feeding, the orcas sometimes leap out of the water, poke their heads up to look around, or do aquatic cartwheels, propelling their tails up and over their heads.

If visitors are exceptionally lucky, other surprises could be in store.

"They might have a new calf with them," Rulon said of one unknown. "Every time that pods come in, everybody's excited to see."

Carl Williams, a captain for Island Adventures, also is geared up for a glimpse of the orcas. Williams, who used to take tourists on whale watching trips in Hawaii, takes his work seriously. About 98 percent of the time he can find orcas.

"When I don't, it's very disappointing," he said. "I go home probably more upset than the customers."

Granted, those customers might see other wildlife, including seals, gray whales and minke whales. But it's orcas that remain the biggest summer draw.

Generally, there are plenty to see. Outside the transients, the three pods are expected to include a total of 87 whales. They generally stay in the area until October, Balcomb said.

While the pods usually keep to themselves, on rare occasions, all three can be seen swimming, hunting and playing together.

"Super pod day is a super day," Williams said. "They're interacting among themselves. It's crazy."

Pod the t-orca the town

Whale watchers played a game of cat-and-mouse as a pod of hungry orcas swam back and forth along the Whangarei coastline yesterday.

The whales were first spotted on Tuesday in the Bay of Islands and on Wednesday had moved to Mimiwhangata.

By yesterday quite a crowd had gathered on the Whangarei Harbour between Taurikura and Urquharts Bay - all clutching their cameras and hoping to get a good shot of the mammals.

As the whales glided along the coastline, the engrossed humans hopped in and out of their cars, slamming their brakes on at various points to jump out and take photographs.





Tourists and locals, whale researchers and roadworkers, nature photographers and inquisitive passers-by all jostled for space as the pod of 17 orcas dipped and dived under the glassy water.
"I bet the whales are wondering what all the fuss is about. They're probably saying: `What are all these people looking at?'," said one keen spectator.

The orcas had come in to feed on stingrays but the wily prey knew they were targeted for dinner and hundreds clustered close to the shoreline hoping to avoid the great orca jaws.

The stingrays drew the whales closer to shore - at one point two orcas hurtled towards a wooden jetty at Taurikura crowded with whale watchers, swerving only at the last moment.

The enthralled crowd gasped as the orcas playfully showed off the size of their stomachs as they curved around the jetty and swum out to sea.

Whangarei orca expert Ingrid Visser said the pod was made up of 17 whales, including two baby calves less than two weeks old.

"I don't know what it is about orcas that makes them so mesmerising to people but once you start watching them it's addictive. They're absolutely phenomenal creatures, they could eat sharks for breakfast so maybe it's their sheer size that makes us find them so incredible," she said.

And Ms Visser couldn't resist taking a dive with her old friends. "Anzac's here, who was first spotted on Anzac Day 2005. There's Nobby who I've known since he was a little boy in 1992. There's Slean, and Miracle and her calf Magic. Miracle stranded in 1993 but was saved so it just shows how we can help."

While swimming with the whales, Ms Visser found a one-metre wide ray that had been half-eaten by an orca. "There are fewer than 200 orca living around New Zealand so to have them swimming around in the Whangarei Harbour is pretty amazing."

Searching for whales in Norway

GETTING ready for my date with killer whales, I felt excited, impatient and just a bit cumbersome, like some medieval knight preparing for the ritual slaughter of the jousting field.

First, they ushered us into a hotel alongside a craggy Norwegian fjord. Then they made us squeeze into bulky survival suits to keep us safe in waters cold enough to kill. I duly pushed and shoved at various limbs, forcing my way into snapping, blubbery rubbers.

I also caused a sharp cry of pain as I tried to help an elderly woman put on her gloves. Go on, she insisted, go on ... ouch! Then we tramped outside into the overcast morning like a chorus line of Mr Blobbies, climbing into rubber boats to look for orcas - killer whales - so that we could slip into the water and swim alongside these magnificent beasts.

Why do we do these things? It seemed obvious, a point not even worth considering, as we whizzed along, boat bouncing madly, until in a calmer patch the captain killed the engine and said: “In you go.”
Such a strange sensation. The water was sharp on my cheeks, yet I was almost warm; a weirdly contradictory feeling, floating on a cushion of suit-trapped air, weightless as if in space. Staring down, I could see shoals of fish, sea anemones, pink starfish - an entire world no longer out of reach.

But no killer whales. Not a one. And the awful truth is that it had been exactly the same the day before when we had prepared for this pivotal moment with a more sedate whale-spotting boat ride up the coast and back. So now, as I wallowed in my rubber suit, I was left reflecting on what exactly ought to happen when holidays such as this go wrong.

It is, in fact, a question many nature-lovers will have to face at some stage. Any trip that centres on real wildlife (the kind that doesn't get tethered) carries an inbuilt risk of failure. That's the point. Nature is unpredictable, it's her elusive charm, because without the no-show risk there would be no sense of privileged awe when the curtain finally does go up. Which means that at some stage we must pay the price of risk. And here we were, floundering back to the boat after our chilly-warm swim, trying to assess the pleasures of failure.

A dozen of us had flown here to Tysfjord for this three-night experience, changing aircraft at Oslo, feeling the weight of expectation intensify with each air mile. About 700 orcas feed around this coast during November to January, trailing a unique concentration of herring - 10 million tonnes - which they lash into “carousel” style, forcing their prey into a ball which they whack with tail flukes before feasting. Many tourists come simply to watch - others, like me, to swim.

John, a biologist, said that he had come because he wanted to experience life with five sea creatures, including the hammerhead shark and the giant octopus, while Julie, from Suffolk, said that she liked the look on friends' faces when telling them that she planned to snorkel with killer whales - the lure of the anecdote. That was pretty much my view: the sense of being special.

On the first day we took a six-hour boat ride along the fjord with about 30 other tourists - an extraordinary journey in its own right. The ride was slow and calming. The sky was a dappled palate of steel and pewter rimmed by a range of frosted, toothy mountains falling into the water, tapering into islands and then to nothing, beyond sight. The landscape of northern Norway requires a vocabulary all its own. It is as mystic as a Nordic fable; as powerful as a living creature.

We chatted as we bumped along. Ate fish soup (made jokes about this being the closest we would come to an orca). Took endless photos. We were ... merely resigned, at the end, when the orcas failed to materialise. “That's wildlife for you,” shrugged John, strolling down the gangplank, heading for the coach.

That evening, after a vast buffet and costly beers, we watched DVDs of earlier trips positively crammed with orca sightings - which was rather rubbing our noses in it, we laughed. And there were lectures on the orca(the room was packed) and, later, on the herring.

Next morning, one of the most poignantly perfect moments of the break struck me in an almost careless fashion just before breakfast, holding me rooted in the snow for the sight of the most extraordinary sunrise I have ever seen. There was more like this, and these were precisely the moments I was to look back on; the lectures, sights, sunrises, landscapes were pleasures I didn't consider too much at the time because I was locked into anticipation. But, later, floundering in my Blobby suit, I realised that they made a pattern of their own.

Of all those in the group, 79-year-old Donalda was the most remarkable on the trip. A retired doctor, she was the one whose arm I almost broke while trying to force on her gloves. But she forgave me, later telling me that she had been really quite timid until bumping into her younger friend June, a lithe sixtysomething, who took her on all sorts of wild trips. So here I was, chatting to a pensioner who wanted to swim in near-freezing waters with killer whales, and it was as much a surprise, a pleasure, as that dawn. So it went on.

To be fair to the tour operator Explore, it says that normally all their clients see orcas on these trips. But migratory patterns vary, and my own view was that clients should have been made more firmly aware beforehand that failures were possible, not because it would - or should - stop them coming, but because attitudes at the end can depend on expectations.

Global first as orcas filmed hunting in Bay

In a global environmental first, five orcas have been filmed hunting and killing a dolphin in Algoa Bay.



The world class eco- tourism event was witnessed, photographed and filmed by Port Elizabeth- based dive tour operator Rainer Schimpf of Expert- Tours, boat skipper Louis van Aardt of Pro Dive and four foreign dive tourists – including Swiss diver Pascal Fazio, who shot this amazing photograph.

In an equally amazing sequel to the kill, five members of the crew then joined the “killer whales” in the water and captured further footage underwater, in what is believed to be a first for South African waters.

Orcas live mainly near the north and south poles but are occasionally spotted by fishermen at this time of year in Algoa Bay.

But capturing the dolphin hunt on film and joining the huge predators beneath the surface was what made the event world class, Schimpf said.

Expert-Tours‘ “advanced sardine run” offers tourists the opportunity to see ocean predators feeding on baitballs of sardine, and the crew was on the lookout for dolphins as a signal of activity below, Schimpf said.

“We were on our way back into the bay after an excursion to Maitlands on Friday. We had stopped to refuel off Cape Recife and realised that a pod of dolphins was coming up behind us. Then we saw the giant fins behind them closing in with incredible speed – and we knew it was orcas as well.”

There were five of them, comprising two 7m animals, probably males, two females of 5m and a calf of about 3m, he said.

“As we followed them we saw them separate one dolphin from the rest of the pod and bump it out of the water. They did this a number of times until it was just lying unconscious on the surface. Then they grabbed it and pulled it below.

“It was sad for the dolphin but it was obviously a hunting lesson for the calf and it was mind-blowing to be able to capture it on film.”

Fazio, 36, who comes from Zug in Switzerland, said he had been simply lucky to get the definitive shot of the orca knocking the hapless dolphin into the air. “I was waiting for the perfect opportunity and it came. It was one of the most special moments I have ever experienced.”

The orcas then left their chase and became aware of the boat and slowed down and circled it, Schmidt said.

“My four clients and I decided to join them in the water. While orcas in the northern hemisphere feed mostly on fish like herring, the species in the south focuses on mammals like seals and dolphins, so we were cautious.

“But they were just curious, and quite friendly. At one point the mother of the calf brought it towards us, shielded against her side as if to show us to it.”

Schimpf, who is also spokesman for the marine conservation lobby group Ocean Messengers, said the event was further evidence that “Algoa Bay offers the best dive opportunities world-wide.... and needs to be protected accordingly.

“It is a heritage of enormous tourism value and has huge potential to support eco-friendly business, for present and future generations.”

Connect the dots to save orcas, salmon

Most people realize that saving Puget Sound's beloved resident orca whales depends on saving the Sound itself, removing the toxic chemicals that are killing the whales, preventing oil spills, and restoring the orcas' essential food, salmon.

But it may be news that our local orcas also depend on restoring salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin. Recent reports of the dramatic declines in West Coast salmon populations make this connection between the mighty Columbia and Snake rivers and our endangered orcas all the more crucial to examine.



Orca and salmon scientists alike have identified the Columbia River Basin, which once produced more salmon than any other river system on Earth, as an essential food source for southern resident orcas during their seasonal travels away from Puget Sound to coastal waters. In fact, the federal government's orca-recovery plan cites the decline in Columbia River Basin salmon as "perhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s."

Strangely, though, the plan does not call for the one action scientists say is central to any Columbia Basin salmon-recovery plan: removal of four costly and outdated dams on the Lower Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia.

Removing these dams will open up more than 15 million acres of nearly pristine spawning habitat to endangered salmon, while saving taxpayers' and electric ratepayers' money. Energy conservation and renewable energy can replace the small amount of power provided by these four dams, keeping in mind that there are more than 200 dams in the basin.

Climate change makes removing the dams even more important, because the salmon and steelhead that will be saved are more likely to survive warmer temperatures. These fish spawn at higher elevations than any other — some at over 6,000 feet above sea level, where streams are likely to stay cooler. Removing the dams will also lower water temperatures downstream, providing help to fish in the lower river system.

Despite these benefits, the orca-recovery plan notes only that dam removal will be addressed "elsewhere." Unfortunately, we can't find where that "elsewhere" is. The logical place to look would be in the federal government's recovery plan for salmon. But in the most recent draft of that plan, Snake River dam removal is not even considered for further study, much less as a potential action.

A new draft is due by May 5 (after its predecessors were struck down by the federal courts for violating the Endangered Species Act) — that's where we'll be looking next. The current version of the federal salmon plan doesn't even make any reference to southern resident orcas, a federally listed endangered species that the same agency is obligated to restore.

What we have here is a total disconnect. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is responsible for recovering both salmon and orcas. Its scientists have connected the dots. It's time for NOAA's decision-makers to put it together, too.

As it stands, the federal salmon plan won't get us where we need to be if we want a healthy population of southern resident orcas plying the waters of Puget Sound for generations to come. And it certainly won't do the job for Columbia Basin salmon, either.

When the final salmon plan is released in a few weeks, we will be watching closely to see whether it lays out a plan for real salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin. We ask Gov. Christine Gregoire and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to hold NOAA accountable to its mandate to protect and restore both orcas and salmon. Our leaders need to demand that NOAA take the necessary actions, including the removal of the Lower Snake River dams.

The alternative is to be honest about the result of inaction: that this crucial food source will never be restored and the orcas must somehow survive without it — if they can.

By Kathy Fletcher and Howard Garrett

Special to The Times

Kathy Fletcher is founder and executive director of People For Puget Sound. Howard Garrett is founder and director of Orca Network and the author of "Orcas in Our Midst."

Source: The Seattle Times