Orca Network - Whale Sighting Network

In January, Orca Network held our annual Ways of Whales workshop, with a focus on Southern Resident orcas and their need for salmon, with presentations and a panel discussion by orca and salmon experts. The workshop was our best yet, with over 300 people in attendance, and receiving rave reviews. Due to the serious issue of declining salmon runs, an important food source for our endangered and declining population of Southern Resident orcas, we are now working on a 2nd Orca-Salmon workshop in partnership with the Salish Sea Association of Marine Naturalists, and the Puget Sound Partnership. This workshop will take place in Seattle at the Convention Center, the day before the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. We are excited to be working with such great partners on this very important issue for the Southern Resident orcas.

And just as Orca Network's Whale Sighting Network gets ready for our N. Puget Sound Gray Whale season to begin, we have an exciting new project ready to launch ~

On Saturday March 1st, Orca Network will open the doors to our new Langley Whale Center, in Langley on beautiful Whidbey Island! Langley is a great place to see Gray whales in the spring, as they come in to feed on the ghost shrimp in the nearshore area. Our local group of about 10 - 12 gray whales visits Whidbey Island from March through May or June each year, so the opening of our Whale Center will be just in time to welcome the return of the whales. Orca Network also will be celebrating the return of the whales in Langley on April 19th, with our annual Welcome the Whales Parade and Festival.

Orca Network's new Whale Center is supported by Langley Main Street Association and the City of Langley, and we have been hard at work on preparing the exhibits and displays, which will include information about the local Gray whales, the Southern Resident orcas, Transient orcas, and other cetaceans and marine mammals of the Salish Sea.

A Blue whale jawbone has been loaned to us by Monte Hughes of Mystic Sea Charters, and will be used to make an archway over the entrance to the Whale Center. We will display bones, baleen, barnacles, and whale lice from Gray whales that have stranded on Whidbey Island, as well as skulls from seals and sea lions and other marine mammal specimens our Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Network has collected over the years.

The Center includes a DVD player to play educational videos about the whales of our area, a Lending Library of whale books and videos for visitors to check out, and educational materials, as well as a small gift shop to sell whale books, DVDs, and other whale-related items.

Our Orca Network board and volunteers have been busy preparing to open our doors March 1st, and we will be planning a Grand Opening in the late spring or early summer, once we have everything in place.

The Langley Whale Center is an exciting opportunity, and the first time Orca Network will have a space open to the public to better share information about our whales, and we expect our outreach to be greatly multiplied by this endeavor. The Center is located at 117 Anthes, in Langley on Whidbey Island, and is only a block away from the waterfront and "Whale Bell Park" where the big Whale Bell is rung whenever whales are spotted in the area.

If you are on Whidbey Island, come visit our new Langley Whale Center, and stop in to say hello! And if you're lucky, maybe you'll get to watch some whales from the shores of Whidbey Island with us ~

Links:

• South Whidey Record article and Dave Anderson's mural
• Blue whale jawbone donated to Langley Whale Center
• Whale Center Facebook Page

This report brings some good news and some bad news. Our last report discussed the absence of our endangered Southern Resident orcas around the San Juan Islands and Salish Sea during the summer months, when they typically stay in the area feasting on Chinook salmon. The salmon were scarce, and so were the whales. The Fraser River Chinook salmon run was very low this year, but word is that Chinook salmon numbers off the Washington Coast were good, so it is likely the Southern Residents spent much of the summer off the coast of Washington and the west coast of Vancouver Island, where there were more salmon to sustain the pods over the summer.

We wondered what the fall/winter season would be like after such an abnormal summer. The Southern Residents seem to switch to a diet of chum salmon during the winter season, and make forays into Puget Sound following the chum runs. We are happy to report that the Southern Residents have been coming through Admiralty Inlet, and into Puget Sound in their usual pattern, which brings some relief and likely means there are good chum runs to help make up for the lower numbers of Chinook in the Salish Sea this year. They first came into Puget Sound on Sept. 21st, then again at the end of October for a four day stay, then three days in early November, and again today, December 1st.

The sad news is that we have lost another Southern Resident orca, 80 year old J8. Though she lived a long and healthy life, she was a well known whale, with a distinctive "wheeze" to her blow, so you could always easily identify her. This loss brings the total population of the Southern Resident orcas down to just 80 whales - nearly as low as the last time their population tanked, in the late 1990s, when they were down to just 78 whales. The last dip in their population followed several years of steep declines for Chinook salmon, and triggered listing the Southern Residents under the Endangered Species Act. Much research has been done on all the elements that affect their health and survival - lack of food (mainly Chinook salmon, which are also endangered), toxins in the ocean and fish that they eat, loss of habitat and ocean noise (boats of all types, cargo ships, military ships and sonar, seismic airguns, etc). 

But it all seems to come down to the salmon - during years when the Chinook salmon runs are the lowest, we see more deaths and fewer births in the Southern Resident orca community. Though much research has been done since the Southern Residents were listed under the ESA in 2005, there needs to be more action taken to preserve our endangered salmon runs, in order to preserve the Southern Resident orca population.

We worry and wait to see what happens next with the Southern Resident orcas - will more die? will we have some births this winter? Will we take action to increase Chinook salmon runs in time to save the orcas? One piece of good news to leave you with is that the Elwha River is already seeing large Chinook salmon return to the river after the removal of a dam, restoring a historic food source for the Southern Resident orcas. There is still work being done to complete removal of the 2nd dam on the Elwha, but the salmon are already returning, showing us that if we just give nature a chance, species often come back sooner than expected and thrive in newly restored habitats.  

Orca Network continues to work to track the travels of the Southern Resident orcas, to educate people and raise awareness of the need for clean waters and healthy salmon runs, and to do all we can to preserve this fragile community of orcas in the Salish Sea.

Links:

• List of Southern Resident orca births and deaths
• Orca Network's Whale Sightings page
• Follow the whales and more, through our Facebook page!