About 60 miles south of Orange Beach, a fishing trip for tuna caught the unexpected instead. "I was like a five year old with the best present in the world on Christmas day when I saw the whales, it was like wow!"
Veteran charter boat captain Eddie Hall thought he'd seen just about everything. "Lot's of cool stuff everything from submarines to ships to every kind of shark you can think of, never a killer whale. Never ever thought about seeing a killer whale in my lifetime in the Gulf."
Hall says for a while they forgot they had a video camera on board. His first phone call after returning home was to his good friend, outdoors man Gary Finch. "For a sighting like this to happen for thirty minutes to an hour and get it on videotape is pretty extraordinary."
It has happened before. Biologist Keith Mullin says there have been 17 sightings of Orca's in the Gulf, but not like this. "Ten to 15 in a pod that's the most we've ever seen or really even gotten reports of."
Just to give you an idea how big some of these whales were, the back of the charter boat Shady Lady is 18 feet across. Some of the whales were that long and some, even longer.
A killer whale encounter in the Gulf of Mexico, it's something boat owner Shawn Clemons won't soon forget. "For them to come up, no hesitation. Basically we could have jumped off the boat onto their backs, it was breathtaking."
It's one fish tale they'll be talking about for years to come.
According to the National Marine Fishery Service there are at least 20 species of whales and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
Before this sighting the population of killer whales in the Gulf was thought to be around 150.
vrijdag 5 december 2008
zaterdag 29 november 2008
Loss of seven salmon-dependant whales a wakeup call
Only days before the cinematic release of a documentary about Luna - the killer whale that captivated the public before its death in Nootka Sound in 2006 - biologists are coming to terms with the loss of seven whales from the salmon-dependent southern resident population, including Luna's mother and younger brother.
"It's significant, a serious situation," Lance Barrett-Lennard, a killer whale scientist at the Vancouver Aquarium, said in an interview Tuesday. "But I don't think it's the death knell. It's a wake-up call to think about the fate of salmon stocks and the way we run our fisheries."
A total of seven killer whales are thought to have died since last fall, reducing the population of endangered southern residents to just 83 in three pods. That's up from 71 in 1973, but down from 100 in 1996.
Two of the seven were old females past their average life expectancy - K7, Lummi, estimated to be 98, and L21, Ankh, age 58.
Two others were newborn calves - L111 and J43 - thought to have a 50-per-cent chance of survival.
Most troubling for scientists is the loss of the remaining three, especially two breeding females - Luna's mother, L67, known as Splash, age 33, and J11, Blossom, about 36.
"This is of concern," said John Ford, a whale researcher with the federal fisheries department in Nanaimo. "Those two females were in the prime of their reproductive years. They normally have high survival."
Luna's younger brother, six-year-old L101, Aurora, is also thought to be dead.
Luna was an orphaned member of the southern residents who turned up in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island and adopted boaters as his new family. After years of controversy over what should be done with Luna, the six-year-old male whale died in a collision with a tug's propeller.
Declining runs of chinook salmon, the favourite prey of resident killer whales, are thought to be playing a role in the whales' decline in the shared waters of the Strait of Georgia and Washington's Puget Sound.
As the southern residents decline, they are also at increased risk from inbreeding, oil spills and contaminants such as PCBs, ship noise and collisions, and whale watchers.
Ford noted that not all the news is bad: the latest census suggests the population of threatened northern resident killer whales has increased to about 250 animals from 120 in the early 1970s.
Saving Luna is an award-winning documentary directed by Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit that is scheduled to open in Vancouver Dec. 5 at the Ridge Theatre, in Victoria on Jan. 16 and Toronto on Jan. 23.
A special screening will be held this Sunday, 10 a.m., at the Park Theatre, 3440 Cambie, to conclude The Vancouver Sun Film Series, with both directors as well as Barrett-Lennard in attendance to answer audience questions.
"It's significant, a serious situation," Lance Barrett-Lennard, a killer whale scientist at the Vancouver Aquarium, said in an interview Tuesday. "But I don't think it's the death knell. It's a wake-up call to think about the fate of salmon stocks and the way we run our fisheries."
A total of seven killer whales are thought to have died since last fall, reducing the population of endangered southern residents to just 83 in three pods. That's up from 71 in 1973, but down from 100 in 1996.
Two of the seven were old females past their average life expectancy - K7, Lummi, estimated to be 98, and L21, Ankh, age 58.
Two others were newborn calves - L111 and J43 - thought to have a 50-per-cent chance of survival.
Most troubling for scientists is the loss of the remaining three, especially two breeding females - Luna's mother, L67, known as Splash, age 33, and J11, Blossom, about 36.
"This is of concern," said John Ford, a whale researcher with the federal fisheries department in Nanaimo. "Those two females were in the prime of their reproductive years. They normally have high survival."
Luna's younger brother, six-year-old L101, Aurora, is also thought to be dead.
Luna was an orphaned member of the southern residents who turned up in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island and adopted boaters as his new family. After years of controversy over what should be done with Luna, the six-year-old male whale died in a collision with a tug's propeller.
Declining runs of chinook salmon, the favourite prey of resident killer whales, are thought to be playing a role in the whales' decline in the shared waters of the Strait of Georgia and Washington's Puget Sound.
As the southern residents decline, they are also at increased risk from inbreeding, oil spills and contaminants such as PCBs, ship noise and collisions, and whale watchers.
Ford noted that not all the news is bad: the latest census suggests the population of threatened northern resident killer whales has increased to about 250 animals from 120 in the early 1970s.
Saving Luna is an award-winning documentary directed by Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit that is scheduled to open in Vancouver Dec. 5 at the Ridge Theatre, in Victoria on Jan. 16 and Toronto on Jan. 23.
A special screening will be held this Sunday, 10 a.m., at the Park Theatre, 3440 Cambie, to conclude The Vancouver Sun Film Series, with both directors as well as Barrett-Lennard in attendance to answer audience questions.
donderdag 20 november 2008
Dog's nose for whale poop big help to B.C. orca researchers
Killer whale poop, sniffed out by a specially trained, excitable Labrador-cross, is showing that endangered southern resident orcas may not be finding enough to eat.
Researchers from the University of Washington's Center for Conservation Biology have just completed their third season testing whale scat around Juan de Fuca Strait and Puget Sound, looking for clues to why the population is shrinking.
"What pops out right away is that there are lower thyroid hormone levels in the years when there are higher rates of mortality," said Katherine Ayres, a graduate student who is working on the whale project with Sam Wasser, director of the centre.
"This suggests they are experiencing nutritional deficits. We can tell, according to the thyroid hormone, they are not doing as well this year as the year before," Ayres said.
This year seven members of the three southern resident pods have died, including two breeding age females, bringing the population to 83. The recent population high was 97 in 1996.
"Alarm bells are going off. It is pretty devastating for such a small population," Ayres said.
Lack of chinook salmon - the food favoured by resident killer whales - noise from marine traffic and toxins have been identified in previous studies as probable causes of the decline.
If funding allows, the Center for Conservation Biology hopes to expand its research to look at toxins and the effects of boat traffic.
"With these studies we can start giving answers before the animals die and we can take mitigation measures," Ayres said.
The slimy, green excrement is found by Tucker, a four-year-old Lab who stands on the bow of the center's research boat and goes into paroxysms of excitement when he smells whale poop, which means it can be scooped by researchers.
Last year, researchers tried following the pods more closely and scooping poop without Tucker's help, but it was found everything worked better with a dog.
"It was more a human learning curve than a dog learning curve," said Ayres, who believes Tucker is incredibly good at his job.
Program co-ordinator Heath Smith identified Tucker's talents. Tucker had already failed as a house pet and been rejected for police work.
"I went to look at him and I knew he would be good at scat work. We haven't had a dog that has caught on quicker. He just knew this was what he wanted to do."
Before the whale project started, the centre was using dogs to sniff out scat from other animals, from grizzly bears to giant armadillos. Samples are used to test stress, exposure to toxins and diet.
When Tucker came to work for the centre it was not known he would be put on the whale project. But, then it was discovered he was afraid of water.
"We wanted a dog that was not so focused on getting in the water," Smith said.
"He still doesn't like it at all. If he does jump overboard we know there's scat in the water," he said.
Tucker is supposed to be pure Lab, but, with brindle feet and a huge head, Smith doubts his pedigreed. "He's adorable. He's part of the family," he said.
Researchers from the University of Washington's Center for Conservation Biology have just completed their third season testing whale scat around Juan de Fuca Strait and Puget Sound, looking for clues to why the population is shrinking.
"What pops out right away is that there are lower thyroid hormone levels in the years when there are higher rates of mortality," said Katherine Ayres, a graduate student who is working on the whale project with Sam Wasser, director of the centre.
"This suggests they are experiencing nutritional deficits. We can tell, according to the thyroid hormone, they are not doing as well this year as the year before," Ayres said.
This year seven members of the three southern resident pods have died, including two breeding age females, bringing the population to 83. The recent population high was 97 in 1996.
"Alarm bells are going off. It is pretty devastating for such a small population," Ayres said.
Lack of chinook salmon - the food favoured by resident killer whales - noise from marine traffic and toxins have been identified in previous studies as probable causes of the decline.
If funding allows, the Center for Conservation Biology hopes to expand its research to look at toxins and the effects of boat traffic.
"With these studies we can start giving answers before the animals die and we can take mitigation measures," Ayres said.
The slimy, green excrement is found by Tucker, a four-year-old Lab who stands on the bow of the center's research boat and goes into paroxysms of excitement when he smells whale poop, which means it can be scooped by researchers.
Last year, researchers tried following the pods more closely and scooping poop without Tucker's help, but it was found everything worked better with a dog.
"It was more a human learning curve than a dog learning curve," said Ayres, who believes Tucker is incredibly good at his job.
Program co-ordinator Heath Smith identified Tucker's talents. Tucker had already failed as a house pet and been rejected for police work.
"I went to look at him and I knew he would be good at scat work. We haven't had a dog that has caught on quicker. He just knew this was what he wanted to do."
Before the whale project started, the centre was using dogs to sniff out scat from other animals, from grizzly bears to giant armadillos. Samples are used to test stress, exposure to toxins and diet.
When Tucker came to work for the centre it was not known he would be put on the whale project. But, then it was discovered he was afraid of water.
"We wanted a dog that was not so focused on getting in the water," Smith said.
"He still doesn't like it at all. If he does jump overboard we know there's scat in the water," he said.
Tucker is supposed to be pure Lab, but, with brindle feet and a huge head, Smith doubts his pedigreed. "He's adorable. He's part of the family," he said.
Deadly bacteria found on orcas
Researchers studying droplets emitted from orca blow holes have found drug-resistant bacteria.
They could be a sign of pollution and a risk to the killer whale population in Puget Sound, which is apparently in decline.
The Kitsap Sun says the independent research by biologist David Bain and veterinarian Pete Schroeder was presented at a Tuesday meeting in Friday Harbor on orca health.
Schroeder says the bacteria may come from human sources such as untreated sewage or stormwater.
Seven Puget Sound orcas are missing and presumed dead, bringing the population to 83, the fewest in five years.
They could be a sign of pollution and a risk to the killer whale population in Puget Sound, which is apparently in decline.
The Kitsap Sun says the independent research by biologist David Bain and veterinarian Pete Schroeder was presented at a Tuesday meeting in Friday Harbor on orca health.
Schroeder says the bacteria may come from human sources such as untreated sewage or stormwater.
Seven Puget Sound orcas are missing and presumed dead, bringing the population to 83, the fewest in five years.
woensdag 12 november 2008
Sounds Like My Favorite Fish
Some of the killer whales off the coast of Washington state are picky eaters, preferring Chinook salmon even though the coho and sockeye varieties are much more plentiful. Researchers report that the whales seem to be able to tell the three species apart by the sonar echoes bouncing off their swim bladders. The discovery should help efforts to protect these intelligent mammals and maybe someday lead to the design of new devices that could identify individual fish species remotely.
Sorting the three salmon species isn't easy even after you've landed them, but certain pods of Orcinus orca can discriminate between individual fish as they move around the dark and turbulent waters of the southern Puget Sound. Researchers suspected that the whales prefer Chinook salmon because they carry more fat and therefore provide more calories. "The whales get more bang for the bite," says marine ecologist John Horne of the University of Washington, Seattle. Horne and colleagues understood generally how the whales found their prey: by reading the echoes from their built-in sonar. But no one knew what acoustic characteristics could help the orcas tell one salmon species from another.
So Horne and colleagues bounced digital replicas of the orcas' clicks off live but immobilized specimens of the three salmon species. Their analysis showed that one characteristic--the structure of the echoing sound waves--differed among the coho, sockeye, and Chinook salmon. As bioacoustician and team member Whitlow Au of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, reported Tuesday at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Miami, Florida, further study showed that the salmon swim bladders vary considerably in size. The Chinook's bladder is only half as large as those of the other two species. That's important, Horne explains, because the swim bladder is responsible for 90% of the reflected sound energy. "It acts almost like a wall," he says. The team concluded that the echoes from the three species differ enough for orcas to detect and discriminate single Chinook at distances of 100 meters or more. The remaining question, Horne says, is how killer whales process these signals. But even if that remains a mystery, the research could lead to the development of sonar devices or analytical techniques that could classify and identify individual fish species, making it easier to take a population census. "That would be the Holy Grail of fisheries acoustics," he says.
The findings are important, says killer whale biologist John Ford of the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, Canada. "The question we've been stewing on for some time is how the whales differentiate among the salmon," he says. The research answers that question, but it poses another issue, Ford explains. The whales have evolved to feed on the Chinook, whose population is in decline, so it is essential that their access remain unrestricted. These findings mean we need to determine how much "underwater vessel noise might interfere with their ability to detect salmon in their critical habitats," he says.
Sorting the three salmon species isn't easy even after you've landed them, but certain pods of Orcinus orca can discriminate between individual fish as they move around the dark and turbulent waters of the southern Puget Sound. Researchers suspected that the whales prefer Chinook salmon because they carry more fat and therefore provide more calories. "The whales get more bang for the bite," says marine ecologist John Horne of the University of Washington, Seattle. Horne and colleagues understood generally how the whales found their prey: by reading the echoes from their built-in sonar. But no one knew what acoustic characteristics could help the orcas tell one salmon species from another.
So Horne and colleagues bounced digital replicas of the orcas' clicks off live but immobilized specimens of the three salmon species. Their analysis showed that one characteristic--the structure of the echoing sound waves--differed among the coho, sockeye, and Chinook salmon. As bioacoustician and team member Whitlow Au of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, reported Tuesday at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Miami, Florida, further study showed that the salmon swim bladders vary considerably in size. The Chinook's bladder is only half as large as those of the other two species. That's important, Horne explains, because the swim bladder is responsible for 90% of the reflected sound energy. "It acts almost like a wall," he says. The team concluded that the echoes from the three species differ enough for orcas to detect and discriminate single Chinook at distances of 100 meters or more. The remaining question, Horne says, is how killer whales process these signals. But even if that remains a mystery, the research could lead to the development of sonar devices or analytical techniques that could classify and identify individual fish species, making it easier to take a population census. "That would be the Holy Grail of fisheries acoustics," he says.
The findings are important, says killer whale biologist John Ford of the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, Canada. "The question we've been stewing on for some time is how the whales differentiate among the salmon," he says. The research answers that question, but it poses another issue, Ford explains. The whales have evolved to feed on the Chinook, whose population is in decline, so it is essential that their access remain unrestricted. These findings mean we need to determine how much "underwater vessel noise might interfere with their ability to detect salmon in their critical habitats," he says.
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