"Have you read the NY Times article yet?"

The title of this post is the question I have gotten at least seven or eight times today. The article is Watching Whales Watching Us. The article begins...

"On the afternoon of Sept. 25, 2002, a group of marine biologists vacationing on Isla San José, in Baja California Sur, Mexico, came upon a couple of whales stranded along the beach."

It goes on to talk about the whales, beaked whales, that had stranded on Isla San José and how SONAR can have quite the impact on our marine mammal friends. Fascinating stuff that is also quite controversial.

Unfortunately, dear friends, the answer to the title question is, "No, I have not read the article yet." I have been working with a truly amazing and dedicated team of volunteers at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. We have been working on putting together an online bone atlas for the skeleton of a transient orca that was filled with PCBs and DDTs. I think I only have room in my life for one stranded whale at a time! So, I do hope to get to the article soon, but for now, it will just have to remain bookmarked.

I just read...

...this press release regarding the recent sonar near Haro Strait...

...and this article about sonar causing temporary deafness in dolphins...

...and this blog from the Marine Mammal Center, reporting a dead orca calf near Monterey Bay...

...which reminds me of the recent death of T44, a known transient orca. I wonder how that necropsy is going? It's quite rare to get a chance to study a transient in such detail. It wouldn't be surprising to discover that T44 was chock-full of PCBs, DDTs, and other toxins. I wonder how that will compare with the levels of toxins found in other transients and residents?

Orcas on Hydrophones? Nope, Just Sonar.

Last night, on both Lime Kiln and Orcasound hydrophones, listeners were surprised to hear some peculiar sounds. Not the sounds of orcas, or the regular shipping traffic, but the sounds of human voices and mid-frequency sonar pings. I'm listening to the recordings made by Scott Veirs of Beam Reach now and it is quite clear that these sounds are not a part of the natural environment.

Jeanne Hyde of The Whale Museum contacted the Bellingham Coast Guard and confirmed that the Navy was doing exercises in Haro Strait. Scott Veirs recorded the sounds and created spectrograms of the human voices and sonar.

To listen to the recordings, go to the Lime Kiln or Orcasound hydrophone sites, scroll down through the archived sounds, and click on one of the most recent recordings with the words "voice" and "sonar" in the title.

Edited to add @ 4:15 pm: This story has now been covered by the San Juan Journal. Also, could the human voices be spies? Some folks, commenting Christopher Dunagan's blog, think that a numbers station could have been in use.

A Trip to NOAA

Top of an orca skull viewed upside-down.

Last week, on a work-related trip, I got to see inside NOAA's National Marine Mammal Labs (NMML) in Seattle with resident researcher Jim Thomason as the wonderful tour guide.

The first areas Jim showed me were the tooth lab, scat lab (which smelled delicious), and collections of otoliths (fish ears) and cephalopod (octopus and squid) beaks from the scat of northern fur seals.

From there we went to the osteological collection and looked at a juvenile gray whale confiscated from a Hood Canal resident who didn't have permits. The next room was full of orca skulls, ribs as tall as Arvydas Sabonis -- who is 7'3" -- beaked whale skulls, and other cetacean miscellany. Many of the orca skulls were from the orcas captured in Puget Sound in the 1960s and 70s. Wow, there's some orca history to never forget.

Most of the shelves on the left held orca skulls.

Once I got over my fascination of the shelves of orca skulls, I saw a skull from one of my favorite whales -- a male strap toothed whale! These whales are so cool; the males have these two teeth -- almost two and a half inches in width -- that grow over their rostrum in old age, limiting the amount they can open their mouths. As a result, these whales have learned to use suction to get at their food.

Mandible of a strap-toothed whale.

On the other side of the collection we looked at skulls of polar bears, walrus, and crabeater seals -- which have these amazing plankton-sifting, prehistoric-looking teeth.

Wouldn't you love to have some teeth like these?

All in all it was a great trip to a place I never thought I would see. If you had told a 10-year-old me that I would one day see such a collection, I'm fairly certain I would have dropped dead on the spot. Jim was a fantastic tour guide, and I hope to be able to visit again.

Orcas on Hydrophone!

If you want to hear the Southern Resident Killer Whales of the Salish Sea right now... Go to OrcaSound.net, click on "Listen to OrcaSound on San Juan Island" (works on RealPlayer, iTunes, WinAmp), and hear some of our resident orcas! I hear at least J pod and, thanks to MarineTraffic.com, the cargo ship, Star of Sawara.

Right Whales, Blue Whales, and Orcas; oh my!

Right whales got some CNN love with the help of the New England Aquarium's Right Whale Aerial Survey Team. Check out the team's blog for more on their visit with CNN. Apparently the whales were called "ugly" by CNN, but I don't think that's true at all! Right whales are very, very pretty. Don't you think?

Blue whales were featured in an article in the latest National Geographic magazine. The article -- called "Still Blue" -- takes readers on a journey to the Costa Rica Dome, an area of the ocean which, due to upwelling, brings the thermocline and lots of tasty critters up to the surface. The blue whales come to feast on nutrient-rich phytoplankton, and the researchers come to feast on knowledge. It's a win-win situation for all.

The Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) passed by the Port Townsend Marine Science Center last Tuesday. Coincidentally, I was teaching a class of third graders about sound underwater and, as we listened to our hydrophone, we heard the orcas and reported to Orca Network. Since we were the first to report, we were even mentioned on the evening news! See the Port Townsend Marine Science Center's blog for more information on the experience.

Whew! How's that for your cetacean news download for the day?

Good Week for Orcas

I've just received word from Susan and Howard over at Orca Network that there have been two new calves sighted with the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW)! Here's what they have to say in their weekly report:

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research confirmed "there are two new calves (one in J and one in L), but we are not officially specifying mums yet. We are conferring with Dr. John Ford and our Canadian colleagues before stating possible mothers. We would like to have several encounters with the babies and their mothers before assigning because grandma's may also confuse things."

After losing seven members of the SRKW within the last year, the announcement of two new calves is fantastic. I'll keep my ears and eyes open for any more news regarding an increase in our resident orca population. It may take a while to confirm the mothers of these young orcas, but this is certainly a good sign. Until then, think happy thoughts for these whales!

Happiness is...

...reading the new book on blue whales, Wild Blue, by Dan Bortolotti. (Preview it on Google Books here.)

...watching a slideshow on the Southern Resident orca population, put together by the folks at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. (Want more? See part two here.)

...getting a package with blacklight and blacklight-sensitive paint for creating a class activity on marine mammal echolocation.

...preparing to work with Lee Post -- "The Boneman" -- on a bone/skeleton articulation project.

...the anticipation of the Ways of Whales workshop on Whidbey Island at the end of this month, put on by Orca Network.

...getting another cup of coffee, which I'm off to do right now.

Doesn't take a lot to make me happy, does it?

Disentangling Whales

I love the Internet. I love awesome websites. What I love most is when people on the Internet send me awesome websites. So, when Jives over at The New Blue sent me the link to the New England Aquarium Research Team site, I was pretty darn excited! Here's a group of people, so driven to help protect Right Whales, that they get out on the water and disentangle fishing gear from the whales. Let me say that again, they disentangle fishing gear from whales. Wow! How do I get a job like that?

With so many human-created dangers out there, it's a wonder the worldwide whale populations are not even worse off. With abandoned fishing gear littering the ocean and starving Southern Resident Orcas, there is so much set against the mystical megafauna. I'm thankful that there are people making an effort to even out the playing field. One whale at a time is much, much better than nothing.

Whales on Hydrophones

So, where are the whale exhibit reviews? They're a-comin', I promise! In fact, some of them have been written up in my paper journal and are just waiting to be typed up here. Until then, my friends, check out Orcasound.net, the hydrophone network of the Salish Sea. For most of this morning I was listening to distant calls of orcas on the Lime Kiln hydrophone. That's got to be some of the best background music to listen to while writing curriculum about orca communication -- which, incidentally, is what I've been doing all morning. Take care, and let me know if you hear anything on those hydrophones!