Whale update
Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2023 5:51 pm
When reviewing my whale observations, I was struck by the total change in whale populations in my lifetime. My first encounter with whales came when a pod of orca surrounded the boat I was rowing in 1960. Those whales came to be called "Southern Residents" , the imperiled and much publicized salmon eaters. With a couple hundred whale sightings this year, I have seen no Southern Residents. The whales I have been seeing are enjoying robust growth. The orca I have seen in the Salish Sea are the mammal eating Transients. All orca are actually roamers, going where the food is. Transients hang around here because we have a lot of seals and sea lions Here some familiar ones.
We were confused when we found a pod of orca feeding on fish far offshore last month. Sending our photos to various researchers we found they were Northern Residents, straying from their normal range in northern Vancouver Island.
In another offshore trip, we were suddenly in the company of 50 humpbacks. Lots of antics: breaching, tail slapping, and fin slapping.
Finally, last week I saw the Depoe Bay gray whales. Gray whales normally migrate from their breeding grounds in Baja to their feeding ground in the Bering Sea. Some vary from this, showing amazing adaptability. In past postings I wrote about the Sounders, bottom feeding whales in Puget Sound. Depoe Bay features aanother variant. These animals stop their northern trip on the Orgon coast. Instead of feeding on krill, they seek out mysids, rice sized crustaceans. I have dived in clouds of mysids and find it amazing that these huge animals can find sufficient nutrition from them. While most of the grays I saw were in the kelp close to shore, this one surfaced right behind the boat.
-Curt
- Jack spyhopping
- T37
- Northern Residents
- Tail slap
- Mother with calf
- Depoe Bay gray whale
- Fluke
