Luna examines fragile relationship with nature
It's a story so entirely tragic and nauseatingly sad that some viewers may look at Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit's movie about Luna --the orca that tried to befriend humans on B. C.'s Nootka Sound--as an experience too depressing to relive.
After all, it's not like the three-year saga didn't get ample media coverage when it first unfolded as everyone from First Nations oral historians, to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to schoolchildren across the province, found themselves snagged in the gill net of public opinion.
Whether you loved or hated the idea of an orca seeking human company, the story resonated across generational lines and tugged at something deeper, perhaps even primal, in the human psyche.
Since Parfit and Chisholm explore this psycho-spiritual element to the strange encounter, Saving Luna is more than a simple retelling of a very sad marine mammal tale.
It's a thoughtful and often provocative exploration of humanity's larger relationship to the natural world.
It's also deeply personal.
Co-director and narrator Parfit tells us in the opening frames that he and his partner Chisholm intended to stay in Nootka Sound for a mere three weeks after they were asked to write a story about the little killer whale who refused to leave.
The veteran team, with several National Geographic projects under their belt, imagined they would be able to keep their professional distance and remain objective observers in the denouement.
Yet, after three years covering the story and moving into the community, Parfit and Chisholm crossed the line and became participants in the drama. They literally let Luna into their hearts and minds, as everyone around them picked sides.
Casual sailors were frightened by the orca's love of nudging boats. First Nations people saw the whale as the reincarnation of their ancestral chief. And fishermen swore to put a bullet in the whale's blowhole when no one was looking. As the tensions swirled, the federal government found itself unable to come up with a consistent plan.
At one point, a DFO representative says the only humane thing to do is ignore the whale for his own good, but the policy was impossible to enforce.
Despite the apparent goodness of their intention to help the whale, DFO looked ill-prepared and wishy-washy and there's little doubt as to who comes off as the central villain in the piece.
DFO probably had the most power to help Luna, but red tape, egos, jurisdiction and a growing media circus prevented the creation of a comprehensive and workable policy.
Moreover, other specialists in cetacean behaviour were full of doubts about the establishment school of thought, and began to question previous assumptions about why some whales want to hang out with us landlubbing two-leggeds.
As Parfit and Chisholm watched the "tug-of-whale" unfold, their central focus was always Luna, and watching him pulled in one direction to the next pushed them into an emotional corner.
Their hearts were aching for the whale, and one day, when Luna came up to greet Parfit, he decided to break the law--and his own code of journalistic objectivity--and actually look into the eye of the orca.
He even stretched his hand into the icy waters of Nootka Sound to stroke the creature.
When Parfit describes the moment on film, and tells us about the sensation of touching Luna's warm skin in the cold ocean, it sends a shiver down your spine because the connection between man and creature is suddenly undeniable.
Along with breathtaking cinematography, the filmmakers talk about the web of life, interconnectedness and the pitfalls of anthropomorphism
More than anything, they ask us to consider the "wall between humans and the natural world" in the hopes we may one day renegotiate the existing contract and see ourselves as an inherent piece of the puzzle, instead of removing ourselves intellectually from the world of "beasts."
From what this movie tells us, the animals have far more to teach us than we could possibly teach them.
And little Luna, whose life came to a violent end after an encounter with a tug boat propeller, may have offered us the most valuable lesson of all by making us care about a life so different --and yet so strangely similar--to our own.
zaterdag 14 februari 2009
Killer whales threatened by California's thirst
California's thirst is helping drive an endangered population of West Coast killer whales toward extinction, federal biologists have concluded.
The southern resident killer whale population, which numbers 83, spends much of its time in Puget Sound but since 2000 many of them have been spotted off the California coast as far south as Monterey Bay.
In a draft scientific report, biologists conclude the damage that water operations are doing to California's salmon populations is enough to threaten the orcas' existence since they depend on salmon for food. Federal officials confirmed to MediaNews on Friday the conclusions of the report, which has not been released.
"It does point to the interconnected nature (of problems in the Delta)," said Maria Rea, the Sacramento area office supervisor for the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The findings, contained in a draft report by the agency's scientists, could elevate public support for environmental protection in the Delta, where the conflict between environmental advocates and water users has centered on Delta smelt, a nondescript fish that grows a couple of inches long and smells like cucumbers.
"People have a hard time looking at the Delta smelt for its own sake," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "If it's Shamu, that's a different thing."
Biologists last month reported tentatively that pumping water out of the Delta threatens to drive spring-run chinook salmon and winter-run chinook salmon extinct.
The orca study found the loss of those fish could leave whales at times with patches of ocean that lack food, Rea said.
In addition, the reliance on hatchery-raised salmon in other salmon runs makes that food source vulnerable to disruption, she said. Hatchery fish lose the natural genetic diversity that is helpful in recovering from attacks of disease or changes in environmental conditions.
As a result, the regulatory hammer of the Endangered Species Act could be used much more aggressively to fix problems plaguing the state's most valuable salmon run, according to Grader.
The Sacramento River fall-run chinook salmon, the backbone of the commercial salmon fishery, collapsed last year. Although the run is not endangered, its collapse led to the unprecedented closure of the fishing season. Grader said regulators could use the tough law to protect fall-run salmon, not because it merits the law's protection by itself but because it provides food for the endangered orcas.
Orcas are the most widely distributed whale in the world and live in all kinds of ocean habitat. Some populations roam the oceans but resident populations, like the southern resident whales in Puget Sound, tend to stay closer to home.
The southern resident orcas' diet is almost entirely salmon and about 80 percent is chinook salmon, said Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington.
The 83 Puget Sound orcas eat about 500,000 salmon a year, he said.
In winter, the whales move out into the ocean and swim up and down the coast in search of food, a search that in the last seven years has brought two of the three pods as far south as Monterey. Balcomb said that in recent years California's salmon has been an important food source for the whales for six to eight weeks a year.
This year, however, the orcas swam about halfway down the coast of Oregon before giving up the hunt, Balcomb said.
"They got down there and said California is not worth it this year and turned around," Balcomb said.
The southern resident killer whale population, which numbers 83, spends much of its time in Puget Sound but since 2000 many of them have been spotted off the California coast as far south as Monterey Bay.
In a draft scientific report, biologists conclude the damage that water operations are doing to California's salmon populations is enough to threaten the orcas' existence since they depend on salmon for food. Federal officials confirmed to MediaNews on Friday the conclusions of the report, which has not been released.
"It does point to the interconnected nature (of problems in the Delta)," said Maria Rea, the Sacramento area office supervisor for the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The findings, contained in a draft report by the agency's scientists, could elevate public support for environmental protection in the Delta, where the conflict between environmental advocates and water users has centered on Delta smelt, a nondescript fish that grows a couple of inches long and smells like cucumbers.
"People have a hard time looking at the Delta smelt for its own sake," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "If it's Shamu, that's a different thing."
Biologists last month reported tentatively that pumping water out of the Delta threatens to drive spring-run chinook salmon and winter-run chinook salmon extinct.
The orca study found the loss of those fish could leave whales at times with patches of ocean that lack food, Rea said.
In addition, the reliance on hatchery-raised salmon in other salmon runs makes that food source vulnerable to disruption, she said. Hatchery fish lose the natural genetic diversity that is helpful in recovering from attacks of disease or changes in environmental conditions.
As a result, the regulatory hammer of the Endangered Species Act could be used much more aggressively to fix problems plaguing the state's most valuable salmon run, according to Grader.
The Sacramento River fall-run chinook salmon, the backbone of the commercial salmon fishery, collapsed last year. Although the run is not endangered, its collapse led to the unprecedented closure of the fishing season. Grader said regulators could use the tough law to protect fall-run salmon, not because it merits the law's protection by itself but because it provides food for the endangered orcas.
Orcas are the most widely distributed whale in the world and live in all kinds of ocean habitat. Some populations roam the oceans but resident populations, like the southern resident whales in Puget Sound, tend to stay closer to home.
The southern resident orcas' diet is almost entirely salmon and about 80 percent is chinook salmon, said Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington.
The 83 Puget Sound orcas eat about 500,000 salmon a year, he said.
In winter, the whales move out into the ocean and swim up and down the coast in search of food, a search that in the last seven years has brought two of the three pods as far south as Monterey. Balcomb said that in recent years California's salmon has been an important food source for the whales for six to eight weeks a year.
This year, however, the orcas swam about halfway down the coast of Oregon before giving up the hunt, Balcomb said.
"They got down there and said California is not worth it this year and turned around," Balcomb said.
zaterdag 7 februari 2009
Killer whales of Prince William Sound expected to die off
This morning's Anchorage Daily News delivers the bad news about a killer whale population that calls Prince William Sound its home: the whales aren't going to make it due in part to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
An already fragile population of killer whales that hunts Prince William Sound never recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and is doomed to die off, biologists said this week.
Marine mammal biologist Craig Matkin of Homer has tracked the animals since the mid-1980s and said he never thought he'd see an entire population of whales -- even a small one -- disappear.
"To blame it all on the spill would not be fair, but that's the final death blow," Matkin said.
An already fragile population of killer whales that hunts Prince William Sound never recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and is doomed to die off, biologists said this week.
Marine mammal biologist Craig Matkin of Homer has tracked the animals since the mid-1980s and said he never thought he'd see an entire population of whales -- even a small one -- disappear.
"To blame it all on the spill would not be fair, but that's the final death blow," Matkin said.
vrijdag 6 februari 2009
Scientist Has 'Snowball Fight' With a Killer Whale
The killer whale with a snowball ... well, a chunk of ice, really ... just before she tossed it. Credit: Robert L. Pitman
Pamplona has the Running of the Bulls, but McMurdo Sound, in the southern Ross Sea, Antarctica, has something even more spectacular: the Stampeding of the Orcas.
Each summer (December through February) an icebreaker penetrates miles into the frozen sea ice to open up a resupply channel to McMurdo Station, and the killer whales have learned to take advantage of the increased foraging area.
With my colleagues Wayne Perryman and Don LeRoi, I have come to gather evidence that McMurdo killer whales — which have distinct color patterning and prey preferences — may be a separate species. To make our case, we are collecting skin samples for DNA, taking photographs, and simply getting to know the orcas a little better in their natural environment.
We are 300 feet up in a United States Coast Guard helicopter, working our way along an extended crack in the ice that has opened off the main channel, when we spot at least thirty killer whales in a long, scattered pod. We land the helicopter a half-mile ahead, well off the ice edge, and while the rotor blades are still whop-whopping, our pilot, Lieutenant Wendy Hart, signals that it’s safe to get out. We charge across the frozen sea toward the sliver of water. As we approach, a four-foot-tall black letter opener slices across our view: the dorsal fin of an adult male killer whale. We see his small cloud of breath and, a full second after, an explosive gasp from the lung-pumping mammal reaches our ears. That kindred sound, so similar to our own labored breathing, raises the hair on the back of my neck.
When we get to the water we find it black and glassy calm. The helo has shut down and now the only sound on this frozen plain is the occasional squeak of our rubber boots in the powdery snow. But then, another blast of respiration announces that more killer whales have surfaced along the edge of the ice, ice so thick that we can walk right up to the rim of the whales’ world. The water is clear, and their white eye-patches are easy to follow as they glide beneath the surface. Another adult male, maybe eighteen feet long, surfaces three feet away; his breath fogs my glasses before I instinctively jump back. Then a cow and her new calf charge through like a train with a small caboose. The calf — young enough that it still swims in jerky motions — lifts its head clear of the water, perhaps to get a better look at the novel creatures out on the ice. The adults seem to have more pressing business elsewhere.
Yesterday we saw a pod that was in less of a hurry. One of the whales, probably an adult female, was lolling in front of us. I wanted her to know we were there, so I tossed a snowball out to her. My throw was off: it tapped her on the side, and the dry snow vaporized with a muffled “pat.” In response, she hesitated, and then, to my surprise, she started pushing around a piece of ice that was a couple of feet across. At one point she flicked it with the end of her snout, and it broke in two.
She disappeared for a minute and brought back a replacement chunk of ice — about the size of a volleyball. This time, when she arched her head back and snapped it forward, the ice flew out of the water and several feet ahead. For five minutes she motored around the small pond in front of us, repeatedly launching her ball of ice, before she lost interest and went on her way. I had to wonder: Did I just show a killer whale how to throw snowballs?
Today there will be no such dallying. The thundering herd takes about five minutes to blow by us. In the commotion, I frantically alternate between camera and crossbow. The photographs will allow us to estimate how many whales there are here, and with the crossbow we take a harmless snippet of skin for genetic analysis — to determine if the Ross Sea killer whales are in fact a different species. The whales ignore our efforts, and within a few moments we are left with only our samples, our photos, and the silence once again.
Robert L. Pitman is a marine ecologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. He has spent much of the past thirty-five years at sea studying whales and dolphins around the world.
donderdag 5 februari 2009
Older Killer Whales Make The Best Mothers
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) nearing the menopause may be more successful in rearing their young. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology shows that estimated survival rates for calves born to these older mothers were 10% higher than those for other calves.
Eric Ward from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, USA, coordinated a team of researchers who studied killer whales inhabiting the inland and nearshore waters of Washington state (USA) and British Columbia (Canada). They used a 30-year dataset collected by the Center for Whale Research and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He said, "During annual photographic surveys, nearly every individual in the population has been recorded. Each animal has unique pigmentation, scars, and fin shapes, allowing us to track the survival and reproductive performance of each female over time".
The authors aimed to investigate what benefits killer whales derive from the menopause. One theory, termed the "attentive mother hypothesis", is that giving birth to calves and then losing the ability to reproduce helps the mother to focus on bringing up her offspring, without wasting time and energy on further pregnancies. The authors' results support this theory to an extent in that during a calf's first year of life, having a mother who was nearing menopause increased chances of survival. According to Ward, "We found that the oldest mothers may also be the best mothers. Older females may be more successful in raising young because of maternal experience, or they may allocate more effort to their offspring relative to younger females".
Killer whales are extremely long lived, with one female believed to be more than 90 years old. Males rarely live past 50, but female life expectancy is considerably longer. Females can produce their first calf as early as age 10, and continue to produce offspring until their early 40s.
Eric Ward from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, USA, coordinated a team of researchers who studied killer whales inhabiting the inland and nearshore waters of Washington state (USA) and British Columbia (Canada). They used a 30-year dataset collected by the Center for Whale Research and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He said, "During annual photographic surveys, nearly every individual in the population has been recorded. Each animal has unique pigmentation, scars, and fin shapes, allowing us to track the survival and reproductive performance of each female over time".
The authors aimed to investigate what benefits killer whales derive from the menopause. One theory, termed the "attentive mother hypothesis", is that giving birth to calves and then losing the ability to reproduce helps the mother to focus on bringing up her offspring, without wasting time and energy on further pregnancies. The authors' results support this theory to an extent in that during a calf's first year of life, having a mother who was nearing menopause increased chances of survival. According to Ward, "We found that the oldest mothers may also be the best mothers. Older females may be more successful in raising young because of maternal experience, or they may allocate more effort to their offspring relative to younger females".
Killer whales are extremely long lived, with one female believed to be more than 90 years old. Males rarely live past 50, but female life expectancy is considerably longer. Females can produce their first calf as early as age 10, and continue to produce offspring until their early 40s.
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