On Grieving Whales

J35 Tahlequah and her son J47 Notch on July 15, a little over a week before Tahlequah gave birth to a calf that lived for less than an hour.

“I just heard on the radio that there’s a whale pushing a dead baby.”

That was the message from a friend accompanying the news that J- and K-Pods had returned to inland waters on the morning of July 24^th. Bizarrely, the confirmation of this tragic news didn’t come from the Center for Whale Research directly, but from a news reporter who made a Facebook post stating a new calf was seen alive with J35 Tahlequah for less than an hour before dying.

I’m sitting on the rocks at Lime Kiln watching members of J- and K-Pods go both north and south when the news hits, and my phone starts buzzing with notifications in my backpack. It’s almost not surprising anymore for this population that can’t seem to catch a break. This year it seems every time they return to inland waters after an absence there is another hit to take. L92 Crewser is deceased. J50 Scarlet is emaciated. Now J35 has lost a baby.

We’re coming up on three years without a successful birth into this critically endangered population. The last calf born that is still alive is L123 Lazuli, first seen near the end of 2015. 2015 was a baby boom year, but only five of the eleven known calves born in that 13-month period are still alive. Prior to that, it had been another 2+ years without any successful births.

Where is the hope? The baby boom at least showed us they are capable to having calves when they have the nutritional resources to do so, but what actions are we taking to give them that chance? Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research summed it up this way to the Seattle Times: “The (Southern Residents) have very little reproductive potential left, and we are wasting it in a process that cannot succeed unless thinking leaves the box. We have to call it quits or fight like hell to restore wild salmon in as many ecosystems as possible as soon as possible.”

He and many others have been sounding the emergency alarm on this population since their endangered listing more than a decade ago, but what have we really done to give them a shot at recovery? A lot of important research has been done. I understood the need for NOAA to gather the data about many things we already knew about the whales, such as where they travel when they’re not in the Salish Sea and just how much salmon they are eating and from where. The abundant scientific data wasn’t there, and that data would be needed to defend the endangered listing of the Southern Residents in court and advocate for the hard line actions they need to recover. But at this point it’s hard not to agree that we are studying these whales to death. Thirteen years after their endangered listing and their population has declined further to a 30 year low. We know better than ever where they roam yet their critical habitat has not been expanded. We know better than ever what they eat and yet salmon numbers continue to decline. The latest claim, in what is perhaps a veiled effort to derail controversial efforts that are gaining momentum such as breaching the four lower Snake River dams, is that no one action and no one salmon run is going to recover these whales. Okay, fine. So what action is going to recover these whales? If you’ve got an idea of something we can do that will recover Chinook salmon abundance coast-wide like these whales need, we are all ears. But until that happens, I say we do the drastic, big ticket items now that will dramatically improve Chinook runs on certain rivers. Breach those damn dams already.

But no, we have to form a committee to talk about it some more. I haven’t yet given up hope on the Governor’s Task Force because for the first time it is bringing all the right interest groups to the table with a clear mandate, a short time line, and buy-in from at least the state level government. But when the main action items you’re hearing about are culling seals, further limiting fishing, and keeping whale watch boats even further away, it does not inspire confidence that the discussion has truly changed at all.

Meanwhile: let’s collect more data! I realize my cynicism on this front is a bit hypocritical, since I’m a researcher collecting data on these whales, too. The science-trained part of me knows that policy decisions should be based on science. That’s why we assembled public sightings records to show how much less the Southern Residents are using the Salish Sea, to try and add more weight to the push for an expanded critical habitat designation. But part of my appreciation for these whales has always transcended science, and for that part of me, a new line is emerging for where we have no right to conduct more studies and collect more data and intrude on what is sacred to and for and about these whales.

I started to realize where this line was when a research team went out to collect a breath sample from J50, who has been obviously ill for over a month. It was an action that garnered much popular support, because the hope from many is that we might find out what is wrong with her and intervene to bring her back to health. I think playing God in this way is a slippery and dangerous slope regardless; this is a young whale who likely experienced a difficult birth and has not been growing normally, being very small for her age. Will we medically support her her entire life? And what if our intervention makes it worse, and the stress kills her? Who are we to say that now, this whale, is the one we will try to save? Where was our human hand of God when L95 Nigel was killed by a satellite tag? Where was it when J28 Polaris slowly died before our eyes, followed by her son J54 Dipper? We see tragedy after tragedy unfold and nothing is enough for us to act and do anything to fix the underlying symptoms of this ailing population. I don’t think we have the right to try and put a band-aid on the painful experience of watching J50 wilt away so we have something positive to say about our actions. We have not given her a world in which to thrive: why should we feel okay about that?

I completely respect the research team that was on the water, as well as their motivations and care for these whales. But it did not sit well with me to see the J16s approached to get the breath sample. J50 Scarlet along with her mother J16 Slick and sister J42 Echo has been spread out and foraging for over half an hour. As soon as the boat approached, the whales took up flanking position, with mom and sister on either side of the Scarlet, and started steadily traveling. I am willing to go on record and say I don’t believe the whales usually react to boats, but to me this felt like whales who didn’t want to be approached. Another researcher agreed that the J16s have been mostly unapproachable on the water recently. What do we need that breath sample for? We know she’s sick. We know she’s likely going to die. Is knowing what particular strain of whatever disease is killing her going to suddenly spur us to action? I doubt it, so let’s just leave her and her family alone.

The line I don’t feel comfortable crossing got even clearer to me with the death of J35’s calf. Many members of the whale community started saying that they hoped we would recover the body, to learn more about why it died. Again, I ask: does it matter? We know from the last decade of study that up to 70% of the pregnancies in this population are failing, many of them late in the pregnancy or shortly after birth. We know that nutritional stress in the form of not enough Chinook salmon is a serious contributor to this problem, worsened by the toxic load these whales are carrying and passing along to their offspring. What will taking this precious little body that should have been a hope for the future and cutting it up in the lab teach us that we don’t already know? As I write this it has been more than 24 hours since the newborn died, and J35 is still carrying the carcass with her. Let me say that again: a grieving mother has been carrying the dead body of her child for more than a day. After what we have done to these whales, we have no right to take and study that body.

Perhaps my words sound harsh. Maybe they should be, because I’m angry. Enough is enough. I fell in love with these whales at a young age because of their innate charisma, their often playful personalities, their amazing life histories. I study them and write about them and share photographs of them out of that love, but also out of a sense of duty to protect what I love; I don’t know what else to do, or how else to do it. But this population is clearly at a breaking point, and the outlook does not look good. The governments on either side of the border have taken no actions of the magnitude needed, and it doesn’t look likely that they will. The Endangered Species Act is already failing to adequately protect these whales and it is under attack to be severely weakened. I pin my hope upon the task force because I have to, because I will not give up. Surely these passionate people can come together in the midnight hour and do what needs to be done, even if it is ten years too late. As I think of Tahlequah out there carrying another dead whale, I cannot express the heartbreak that I feel. Please, whoever is listening, do what needs to be done. I will witness whatever plays out, because I owe the whales that. But I don’t know how or if we would survive counting these whales to zero.

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The Best of Spring in the San Juans Part 1: Fox Kits

There are so many things to love about this time of year in the Salish Sea: the longer days and warmer temperatures, the return of migrant birds, the generally calmer waters, and the increase in whale sightings are just a few for me. But there's a couple other classic elements of a spring in the San Juan Islands, and one of them is the emergence of fox kits from their dens. Viewing foxes here has become increasingly popular, especially in the spring, so much so that the San Juan Island Visitor's Bureau had me write a blog for them about the topic. So if you want to know the details, you can read more about fox-watching on San Juan Island at the link above.

Sometimes we like to think we live in a wilderness here in the Salish Sea, but it's truly a very urban ecosystem that we are lucky enough to share with all kinds of wildlife. For better or for worse many of our regional animals are adapted to living near humans, but we should still do what we can to minimize our impacts on them and their behavior. As such, I made several visits to the regular fox dens at the south end of the island until I found a time where there were both not many people around. It was an overcast day, but two nearby dens were both active - I've heard from others that one family has six kits and another two, but they were all mixing and playing together.

While they're all of the species "red fox" they come in all different colors from orange to brown to gray to black. One of my personal favorites was this silver one with a single white sock (chasing its brother/sister):

But it's also hard to resist this face:

Much of the activity happens when mom or dad shows up with food. The kits seem to know the boundaries of where they're allowed to wander, but they go racing out to meet their parents as they come in for a visit.

Whatdja bring me, mom?!

More and more kits quickly gathered around - looking first at her mouth to see if she brought in any prey....

But then settling for a nursing session...all six of them at once! What a patient mama.

She tolerates their frolicking for a little bit before moving on, and they follow her to the edge of their invisible perimeter. (Side note: several other adults were visible sleeping in the prairie - my imagination says that they move away from the ends to get some actual rest without kits pouncing on them begging to play.)

Amazingly she makes a loop back right past us, totally unconcerned about our presence.

As she heads back out on the hunt most of the kits return below ground, but this one stopped for a moment to look out at the great big world beyond the den:

I just love having these guys as neighbors, and they are one of the highlights of spring here for sure!

Spring Changes to Summer

In mid-June we got two brief visits from L-Pod, but they weren't too accommodating for shore-based viewing. The L12s made one trip up as far as Lime Kiln, first spending some time resting off of Land Bank:

The L12s in resting formation

The second visit, from a larger group of L-Pod whales, offered only the most distant of looks over their two-day stay, before they headed back out to the open ocean.

A distant look at L91 Muncher from San Juan Island

Amazingly, but perhaps not surprisingly given the salmon numbers, the days continue to slip off the calendar and as we edge towards July J-Pod still has not visited us since the first of the month. They have been spotted a couple times - once in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and twice off of Tofino, and luckily off Tofino reports were they were finding a lot to eat. But the times have surely changed, and meanwhile we are left hoping that as the summer progesses, sightings of the Southern Residents in inland waters will increase as the summer goes on as happened later in the year of 2013 when sightings were also at record lows.

Meanwhile, there continue to be some transients around, though fewer than a few weeks ago. We did manage to have one nice shore-based encounter with the T36As and T65Bs where they spent more than half an hour "milling and killing" off of 4th of July Beach.

Other than that, sightings have been pretty slim, and we've taken some of our extra spare time to hand-tame some of the wild birds at our feeders. So far we've gotten red-breasted nuthatches, chestnut-backed chickadees, and even a downy woodpecker to eat from our hands!

Red-breasted nuthatch fledgling on my hand

Other than that, I've been left to enjoy and photograph all the other abundant wildlife (and wildflowers!) that lives in this special place I get to call home. I'll let the variety of the photos speak for themselves!

Curious raccoon

Female rufous hummingbird on nest

Deer fawn

Another deer fawn - this one in our yard!

Red fox in the rain

Lily pads at Three Meadows marsh

Oceanspray in bloom

A bizarre visitor to the intertidal zone - a turkey vulture

A female purple martin

On my last excursion, we headed down to Cattle Point, hoping for a first of the year Heermann's gull. They've been seen in Puget Sound, but not up here yet, though that should change any day. We didn't find out, but it's impossible not to take a photo of the eagles that regularly perch on the Cattle Point Lighthouse:

While looking up at this one, I happened to turn around just in time to see it's (presumed) mate fly by below the cliff behind us with a large fish in its talons:

Sure enough, the lighthouse eagle wasn't far behind, as it soon took flight after it's mate and/or dinner:

It's clear that there will be no shortage of things for me to photograph and report about on my blog, but I strongly hope that my next installment includes at least one visit from our Southern Resident Killer Whales!

Signs of Spring Everywhere

Earlier in the week, J-Pod departed the inland waters of the Salish Sea again, but not before making one more pass by Lime Kiln Point State Park. Many of them were way too far offshore to ID or even see, but a few of them, like J17 Princess Angeline with her youngest J53 Kiki, were fairly close to shore:

It absolutely doesn't feel right for the residents to still be scarce as June arrives, but there's nothing we can do about it but hope they're finding enough to eat wherever they are spending their time. In the meantime, there are plenty of other amazing natural sights to enjoy on San Juan Island, including just in our yard, where the birding has been quite amazing! This week one species after another has started to show up with their first brood of chicks, and none of have been more amusing that the trio of fledgling red-breasted nuthatches. When they first arrived in our yard, they could only perch on top of things, but as the days have progressed they've learned to perch upside down and sideways like their parents, and have apparently enjoyed doing so even when there's no food to be had as a result!

They look so much like their parents, but their colors are just a little fainter and something about them still gives them that baby cuteness:

The nuthatches were the first to arrive, but there have been others, some of which have taken a moment to identify like this fledgling spotted towhee!

There's also been one or a couple of young dark-eyed juncos:

And as of this morning, the first fledgling chestnut-backed chickadees have arrived, although it took a lot of patience to get a shot of one!

No house wrens yet, although it the pair is still active around the nest box after having gone into stealth mode, likely for the egg laying an incubation period. I think maybe their nestlings have hatched at this point as the trips have become more frequent, perhaps to feed the babies. I hope we get to spot the fledglings some point soon!

We also have a pair of both hairy and downy woodpeckers that visit every day, and while we don't know for sure, I hope that they too are nesting nearby and will bring their chicks to visit!

Down at American Camp yesterday, we paused to watch all the fox activity in the rabbit field. There are several dens of foxes down there and the kits, who have gotten pretty big, all seemed to be active. They were keeping a wide berth from the bald eagle that had landed in the prairie, however, but when one of the parents returned, it bolted and then jumped at the eagle to chase it off! Only a sequence of photos really captures what happened; after the eagle flew off, the kits came in to feed on a kill the eagle had been on. I wonder if the foxes stole the eagle's kill, or if the eagle was trying to mooch off the foxes? Something tells me it was the latter.

While the major bloom of spring wildflowers like camas and lily have passed, there are still other flowers and interesting plants to see on the prairie, like this chocolate lily seed pod:

There are several small species of lupine in bloom; I think this one is two-colored lupine:

Lupinus bicolor

And also both yellow and purple salsify:

Tragopogon porrifolius

Then today, a walk on Mitchell Hill turned up my first deer fawn of the season:

And also a close-up photo op of this blue-eyed darner:

Aeshna multicolor

The weather has been just perfect - the only thing missing is more whales!

J-Pod Returns!

After nearly 5 weeks of no reports of any Southern Resident Killer Whales (anywhere, not even just here!) we were all relieved Sunday morning to get the early morning report from out west that J-Pod was heading back in. They were still several hours away, but it was hard to sit still, especially on such a beautiful spring day! So we passed some time by heading to the south end of the island where the multiple fox dens with their plethora of kits are another main attraction this time of year.

Watching these guys frolic across the prairies definitely helped pass the time!

In the early afternoon we headed up to Lime Kiln and watched as the whales rounded Discovery Island and made their way across the straits. With so many changes in J-Pod last year due to the loss of five of their members, many questions hang in the air. The first and foremost on everyone's mind was: would everyone else still be there? I'll avoid the suspense and say now that the answer is YES. We saw members of all family groups and identified nearly everyone as they passed Lime Kiln, but a few whales were too far offshore to ID. Thankfully today the Center for Whale Research posted their encounter update confirming everyone was present.

Another question is what will happen in the wake of the death of the matriarch J2 Granny, who was so often in the lead. Will someone will her role? Will travel patterns and association patterns change as a result? We at the Orca Behavior Institute will be diligently taking data this summer and beyond to help answer questions like these, but on this day, it was J19 Shachi in the lead.

J19 Shachi

From a human perspective, Shachi seems like a good candidate to take a leadership role for J-Pod. She was a regular traveling companion of both J2 Granny and J8 Spieden, including in more recent years when J-Pod started splitting into smaller groups. But only time will tell if this will be a regular  role for her, let alone a permanent one.

Not too far behind Shachi I was happy to see J41 Eclipse, my personal favorite, with her son J51 Nova.

J41 Eclipse and J51 Nova

The J19s, J17s, and J11s were all in the first group to passby. Often J27 Blackberry is with his brother J39 Mako, but on this day he was with his sister J31 Tsuchi:

J27 Blackberry and J31 Tsuchi

There was a short gap after these matrilines passed by, but we could see blows in the distance to the south and knew the rest of the whales were on their way. Another question for this summer is what will become of L87 Onyx, the whale born into L-Pod who has spent several years traveling with both K- and J-Pods. As his closest traveling companions (elder females from each pod, most recently J2 Granny) have passed away, he's moved on to associate with different whales over the years. Will he stay in J-Pod? Who will he latch onto?  The J14s, J16s, and J22s made up the second group, and for today, Onyx was with them. Specifically, he and J38 Cookie were the trailing whales, passing much closer to shore than anybody else. I couldn't believe how much Cookie has grown over the winter!

J38 Cookie

We hopped on the boat to meet up with the whales again near Mitchell Bay. First we hung out with the J16 family group some more, and then dropped back to see who was now traveling with Onyx and Cookie. The answer was J45 Se-Yi'-Chn and J49 T'ilem I'nges, two other young J-Pod whales. 

The boys passing Kellett Bluffs

 This group, who was in a playful mood, is interesting for several reasons. Not only are they all males, but they all lost somebody last year, with the passing of J2 Granny, J14 Samish (mother/grandmother to J45 and J49), and J34 Doublestuf (brother to J38). With their families broken by their losses, are they finding solace in one another? These are the kinds of questions we will never have definitive answers to, but we can hope the answer is yes.

One of several breaches by J49 T'ilem I'nges

After a little while Onyx fell back from the others, and we stuck with him. Unlike many whales when they're traveling on their own, Onyx doesn't always stay in just travel mode. It was the same on this afternoon, when he started doing tail slaps and dorsal fin slaps all by himself. If his story isn't enough to make you like him, his behavior usually is!

L87 Onyx - the whale who breaks all the "rules"

Another shot of Onyx with Spieden Island in the background

As the whales continued on towards Turn Point, we split off to head for home, but not before getting one last look at the J16s who were grouped up offshore.

Our next question about the whales was: after such a long absence, would they find enough fish to stay? Our encounter with them was on May 7th, and on May 8th they were seen by others up north. Presumably they're still up there today, and hopefully finding a lot to eat! Just like in all things, what goes up must come down, so as long as the Js are up north, we've got a chance to see them again on their way back south! After getting such a great "whale fix" to start the season, we're definitely ready for more!