Fin Whale/Cruise Ship Follow-Up

After performing a necropsy on the 70 foot female fin whale hit by a Princess Lines cruise ship last week, it was discovered that the whale had a thin layer of blubber and no food in her stomach. While this could be due to the whale having offspring, and therefore a thinner layer of blubber, it was unlikely that the mature whale was reproducing at her age.

There is no word on whether or not the whale was dead when hit, but that information may come out after more tests are done in the next several weeks.

Bet You've Never Seen This on a Cruise

A Princess Lines Cruise Ship pulled into Canada Place in Vancouver, B.C. last week. Unbeknown to them, they had an additional passenger. Well, can you call a 70-foot long fin whale a passenger if it's not on board? Sometime during the night the ship struck the whale and took it all the way in to the Vancouver harbor.

Chances are, the fin whale was either dead already or killed on impact -- a strike like that would probably break it's back -- but the whale has been taken to Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Sidney for a necropsy. After the scientists determine whether the whale was dead or alive when hit, they will sink it off the west coast of Vancouver Island so that it can support a group of critters called a whale fall community.

Click here for a Vancouver Sun video at the scene.

"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.

Migaloo the White Whale Returns

The name "Migaloo" is an Aboriginal name for "white fellah," which is absolutely fitting for this humpback whale.

Migaloo, the white humpback whale, has made his return to the waters off of Queensland in Australia. This time, for the first time it seems, he has a friend. Scientists are hoping that his friend is of the female variety, of course.

For more info and a short video, click here.

American Cetacean Society Speaker Series

If you are in the Puget Sound region, I highly recommend going to one of the events put on by the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Cetacean Society. The next one is happening on Wednesday, May 20th in Seattle, Washington. This free event is held in Room 6 at the Phinney Neighborhood Center (6532 Phinney Ave. N., Seattle). Doors open at 7 and the program begins at 7:30. See below for program description -- and witty title!

Tales from the field: The lifestyle of a not so rich and famous marine mammal observer

Laura Morse, of NOAA Fisheries Service's National Marine Mammal Lab, will talk about what it's like to live in the field and her experiences on projects around the world. She will share photos, video and acoustic recordings of the rare and beautiful species studied and observed.

Laura Morse joined the Cetacean Assessment and Ecology Program at the National Marine Mammal in the spring of 2008. Laura is the field team leader for aerial surveys conducted in the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea and provides support for additional field research effort within CAEP. Laura has degrees in biology and anthropology from SUNY, Buffalo, NY and is currently working on a Masters in Coastal Zone Management through Nova Southeastern University, Florida. Prior to joining NMML, Laura spent the past 14 years working as a marine mammal field biologist worldwide on aerial, shipboard and land/ice based projects. She has participated in multiple large scale cetacean abundance surveys throughout US waters, the Norwegian Sea, Southern Ocean, Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Asian waters and has specialized experience in field identification, photo-id and passive acoustics. Laura's favorite hobby in the field is photography of marine life , images from her collection will be presented here.

What's the Story in Tobermory?*

The story is that the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT) on the Isle of Mull in Scotland is currently looking for volunteers to help with the preparation of a harbor porpoise skeleton to be used for school visits. If you have ever wanted to spend three weeks in Scotland and learn about cetacean anatomy, this is a great opportunity.

According to the HWDT site, this project would involve:
-Handling bones
-Removing dead tissue
-Soaking bones in liquid and household chemicals (such as laundry powder)
-Drying out the bones
-Numbering, cataloguing and assembling the skeleton

The Isle of Mull is one of the western islands of Scotland, and is the second largest in the Inner Hebrides. I spent a snowy two days on Mull two years ago while on an internship in Edinburgh. Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull, is home to about 700 people, a whisky distillery, and a very colorful waterfront (see above). Oh, and there's some great cheese coming out of Mull as well, which you may be able to find at your local supermarket. (For example, New Seasons on NE 33rd Street in Portland, Oregon carries it from time to time.)

If this sounds like your cup of tea -- and Scotland has some great tea -- you should think about applying. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I want to skip on over to Scotland for a bit. I'll bet they're looking for someone sooner than I could be available though, so I'm putting it out there for you. What are you waiting for?!

*The title of this post comes from a children's show called Balamory, in which children sing, "What's the story in Balamory? Wouldn't you like to know!" Balamory is based on the burgh of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, which is apparent from the beginning of the show.

The Whale Galaxy

As a self-proclaimed geek, I subscribe to a variety of blogs and websites. I'm not just into whales; I also geek out over knitting, psychology, webcomics, and NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).

Today's featured picture is of the Whale Galaxy, also known as the Herring Galaxy or NGC 4631. (NGC stands for New General Catalogue, which is a catalogue of deep space objects.) The Whale Galaxy, which is a mere 25 million light-years from Earth, has been featured a couple of times on APOD, and each image is fascinatingly beautiful.

Most whales are quite large. This whale is as large as the Milky Way. Take that, Big Blue!

Whale Gear

I just realized that the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Cetacean Society (ACS) has a merchandise shop! Looks great, especially considering that much of it features Uko Gorter's scientifically correct and artfully done cetacean art. At an ACS meeting a few months ago I snagged a copy of Uko's Marine Mammals of the Salish Sea mini poster. I laminated it -- to keep it nice and shiny -- and put it by my desk at work to remind me of some of the animals that are in our local waters.

"It came within inches."

Photo by Brian Skerry

National Geographic photographer, Brian Skerry, recounts his experience photographing right whales. No, this is not new news, but this picture always takes my breath away. My favorite part of the interview is when he describes how it felt to be so close to such a creature...

It was amazing. I mean, I have to tell you there were days when I was at the bottom at 70 feet, and here comes this bus swimming down. I’m standing on the bottom, and as it comes down, I get on my knees, lean over backwards—my scuba tank is now digging into the sand. And of course their eyes are on the side of their heads, so it had to turn and look at me. It came within inches. Here’s this softball-size whale eye looking at me. But then it stops—stops on a dime. It’s just hovering there, and literally one flick of its tail, and it would have crushed me like a bug. But it doesn’t. It was just highly curious.

Skerry's photo above shows his assistant with a right whale. Quite close. Can you imagine being that assistant in that moment?

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.

Whale Farming on NPR

NPR airs a few comments from listeners about a previously aired story regarding whale farming. Apparently, one of the "farmers," Mr. Summers, had been teaching the whales to sing in harmony. He says, "In achieving three-part harmony in whale song, I think we we have tied nature's most wondrous sound to a great barber shop tradition." A NPR listener, however, had this to say: "Having studied music at college, I want Mr. Summers to know that what he calls three-part harmony is not. Two of the whales are plainly singing the same note. That may be clever, but it's not barber shop." Well, Mr. Summers wasn't having any of that, and he replied, "It wasn't that the whales couldn't sing in harmony, they were just too busy expressing their individuality. They weren't so tied to the group."

Touché, Mr. Summers, touché.

All joking aside, BBC News published a story about the possibility of a whale farm off the coast of Japan. That was in 2002, though, and I haven't heard anything about it since.

Can You Say "Irrawaddy" 6,000 Times Fast?

According to Scientific American, the Wildlife Conservation Society has found about 6,000 of the rare Irrawaddy dolphins in Bangladesh...

...in the fresh waters surrounding the Sundarbans mangrove forest and in the nearby Bay of Bengal, areas where the WCS says little marine mammal research has previously been conducted. This discovery nearly doubles the estimates of the worldwide population for the rare dolphins, and represents the largest single population of the species.

Just think; if 6,000 Irrawaddy can be found in the waters around a mangrove forest, what other species could be alive that we don't know about? Makes me want to check in on the Census of Marine Life and see what else they've found since I last checked.

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.

Are We Listening?

The bioacoustics research program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a snazzy site that's all about listening for right whales in an effort to protect them from ship strikes. Once the buoys detect the sound of a whale -- including rights, humpacks and fins -- the recordings get sent back to Cornell where software and researchers identify the sound. If the sound is indeed a whale, ships in the area are notified and encouraged to slow their speed to avoid an unfortunate situation.

It's important for us to listen to the whales, especially if it helps us to understand them and avoid unnecessary injury and/or death. It's too bad, then, that this project is facing a budget shortfall and has had to pull the buoys that record the sounds. Hopefully this is not the end of the program. Only time will tell if the future will bring additional funding.

I wonder if we will see an increase in ship strikes now that the buoys have been lifted?

Blue Whales Don't Play Games

But you can! National Geographic's new special, Kingdom of the Blue Whale, comes with several online interactive components. One of which is a game called Finding the Blue Whale, in which the player tags and tracks blue whales along their migration route. Another component is an in-depth exploration of these magnificent creatures. Compare the size and weight of a blue whale with other well known large objects, such as a space shuttle or the great T. Rex, discover the unique anatomical traits and behaviors, and learn about the threats facing blue whales. All in all, an extremely well done website for a deserving topic of study.

Hopefully the show will come out on DVD soon so that those without TV (i.e.; me and others out there) can check out this apparently awesome -- or so I've heard -- NatGeo special!

Another Stranding in Tasmania

What is it about the waters around Tasmania that makes it so easy for pilot whales to strand? Whatever it is, it's been happening more and more in the recent months as the long-finned pilot whales migrate between Antarctic waters.

The latest stranding included nearly 200 animals on Naracoopa Beach on King Island in Tasmania. Most of the animals were pilot whales, but a few were bottlenose dolphins. Apparently, bottlenose dolphins and pilot whales often travel together. The two species have overlapping frequency ranges (pilot whales = 1 - 8 kHz, bottlenose dolphins = 0.2 - 160 kHz [pdf]), so it's possible that they could be communicating or even hunting together. It's not common for dolphins to strand, so they may have been reacting with the pilot whales.

As far as I've seen, none of the articles about the King Island stranding spotlight any cause, but most mention that Navy sonar can have an effect on whales in the area. My question is, have there been any sonar activities going on around King Island within the last few months? This seems to signal an increase in strandings, but the articles don't mention any use of sonar nearby.

Alternately, Dr. Vincent Janik, of the Sea Mammal Research Unit of St. Andrews University, has some ideas about fish abundance that may have had some effect, which is definitely worth looking into. Also, the Herald Sun has a slideshow of the volunteer efforts here. It will definitely be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out of all the recent strandings.

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?

Narwhals are Cool

In an article on the BBC News site, called 'Arctic unicorns' in icy display, they have an awesome video that's just under two minutes long. Perhaps it's their streamlined body paired with their lengthy tusks, but there's just something about narwhals that is so awkwardly graceful. Or, rather, gracefully awkward? Whatever it is, they are absolutely fascinating.

What's even more awkward than a toothy tusk protruding from your top lip? Two toothy tusks, my friends. It's not a common occurance, that's for sure, but it has happened. I took the above photo about two years ago while visiting the Natural History Museum in London. I spent a too-short weekend visiting museums in London while completing an internship at Our Dynamic Earth, one of Scotland's leading science centers. Or, as they say, centres. This narwhal skull was one of the most fascinating things I saw that day.