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L pod, as well as J and K pod, showed up on Sunday along the west side of San Juan Island and another new born was spotted. The mom appears to be L-77, Matia born in 1987. This is Matia’s first calf. Very exciting to see this baby boom going on.
Hello Everyone,There has been kind of a mystery taking place on the west side of San Juan Island for the last two days. My favorite orca and allot of other people’s favorite, Ruffles, J-1, has been traveling up and down the west side, alone, making the same vocalization constantly. While this isn’t a single event that is unprecedented, it is highly unusual to have him here so very far away from the rest of J pod, ( no known location of the whereabouts of J pod). My other concern is Ruffles is close to 60 years old, quite a bit older than the average male orca lifespan. Due to his older age, perhaps he is experiencing a “senior moment” or maybe he was off on his own on his own mission.
There is some speculation as to the behavior and specific vocalization he is demonstrating. But right now it is a waiting game to the outcome. It’s common to see transient orca males alone. However having a single resident orca traveling alone is concerning and mystifying.
I have added a link to Ruffle’s calls that were recorded yesterday. <http://orcasound.net/wholistener/lk/detections/raw/2010/01/27/PWRAveDb113_01_27_2010_11_31_37.mp3>, hopefully you can listen to it. Or you can go to <www.orcasound.net> and listen live periodically throughout the day today.
Tom Averna
Deer Harbor ChartersRuffles, taken during a summer trip
Just us and the pelicans on a deserted beach near St Petersburg, Florida. We’re enjoying life on the boat and being here.
Between Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December a pod of seven sperm whales stranded on the coast of the Gargano Peninsula (Italy), in the Southern Adriatic Sea. The animals – including several males of 10+ m - are scattered along a stretch of about six km of beach; five have already died. Bystanders reported that two more animals were able to regain deep waters, however this is currently unconfirmed.
Mass strandings of sperm whales are extremely rare in the Mediterranean, and limited to ancient times. These include a stranding of 16, reported near Mazzara del Vallo (Sicily) in 1734, and a stranding of six occurred near Cittanova d’Istria, northern Adriatic Sea, in 1853.
Scientists from the Centro Studi Cetacei, the Natural History Museum of Milan, and the Italian universities of Bari, Padua (Sandro Mazzariol, also member of the ACCOBAMS emergency task force), Pavia, Siena, and Las Palmas (Spain), among others, are on site since this morning and coordinate operations and scientific analyses. Necropsies will hopefully help determining whether such atypical stranding might be connected with the presence of specific human activities likely to be hazardous to cetaceans in the area.
Some photos of the mass stranding event, taken on Saturday 12th between 10:45 AM and 1:45 PM, can be viewed from the web page below:
http://www.tethys.org/download/focevarano/ <http://www.tethys.org/download/focevarano/>
–
Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
Chair, ACCOBAMS Scientific Committee
giuseppe@disciara.net - www.accobams.org <http://www.accobams.org>
Here’s an interesting notice from NOAA regarding the Steeler sea lion population in Alaska. Steller sea lions are a big part of our trips in the spring and fall.
NEWS RELEASE
December 3, 2009
Sheela McLean, Public Affairs
(907) 586-7032
Researchers from NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center have published the results of their2009 count of Steller sea lion pups in Alaska. With the assistance of NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center in Monterey, California, researchers conducted an aerial photographic survey of all rookeries and major haulouts throughout most of the species’ range in Alaska from 24 June through 15 July 2009.
“We expected to see the increased Steller sea lion numbers in Southeast Alaska again,” said Doug DeMaster, Director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “The mixed results in the western population, however, indicate that some areas have improved in numbers while others continue to decline, especially the Western Aleutian Islands.”
While Steller sea lion pup production by Alaska’s western stock increased from 9,950 in 2005 to 11,120 in 2009 overall, there was considerable variability. During this period, pup counts increased 18% throughout the Gulf of Alaska and in the eastern Aleutian Islands, but were 6% lower in the western and central Aleutian Islands.
The number of Steller sea lion pups counted in 2009 in Southeast Alaska (7,462)—part of the threatened eastern stock– exceeded any previous counts going back to the 1960s. The new data indicate that pup production has increased at a rate of almost 4% per year at Southeast Alaska’s five major rookeries since the late 1970s.
Another index that Steller sea lion biologists watch is the ratio of pups to older animals, since it provides an indication of changes in birth rates. The 2009 numbers suggest that the western Alaska Steller sea lion population has a lower pup to non-pup ratio than the population that inhabits Southeast Alaskan waters.
The number of Steller sea lions in the western stock declined by 75% between 1976 and 1990. The extent of this decline led NOAA’s Fisheries Service to list the Steller sea lion as threatened range-wide under the Endangered Species Act in April 1990. In the 1990’s the decline continued for the western stock in Alaska, which was declared endangered in 1997. The eastern stock remains listed as threatened.
Details of the 2009 pup count can be found at http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/nmml/PDF/SSL-Survey-09-memo-11-30-09.pdf.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. Visit www.noaa.gov. To learn more about NOAA Fisheries in Alaska, visitalaskafisheries.noaa.gov or: www.afsc.noaa.gov.
A nice treat today when a friend called me to report J and K pod were traveling south down San Juan Island. There were reports of whales up near Campell River this past week so maybe they were these residents which are back and closer to home. Usually this time of year the whales don’t stay around but even getting the word that they are here now makes me feel good.
These photos were taken by one of our guests, Dan Nestor during a trip with us in September. If you would like to see more orca photos he took plus some other fantastic photos from his other wildlife experiences, go to his web page at <www.dannestorimages.com> Thanks Dan for sending these along. I never get a chance to take my own photos, too busy handling the boat.
Yes, we are into our last full month of the season and I hope the whale sightings are as good as our August sightings were. This August had to be one of the best in memory. There were only about three trips where we could not find any whales. If we didn’t have the resident orca we found transients. All and all a very good month.
Now as we go into September we can expect what has historically been a good month for sightings. It all depends on the salmon in the area, whether or not there is enough to support the pods. September has always been my favorite because of the nice weather with less crowds and boats.
We’ll hopefully go into the middle of October and then go into our off season trips which focus on other marine mammals and wildlife. Check our website for changes to our schedule as we go into September. After Labor Day weekend we’ll be going out from Deer Harbor only.
