MAIACETUS: April 2010

Monday, April 19, 2010

Victoria Tourism Companies Join Forces for April 22, 2010 Earth Day and TLC!

Five Star Charters the whale watching company I have worked with in past years has joined forces with Adrena Line Zip Tours to donate their earnings on April 22, Earth Day 2010, to The Land Conservancy's Wild Hills and Beaches Campaigns help purchase Western Forest Products lands in the Jordan River and Sooke Hills area.

'Transient' mammal eating ecotype of killer whale off Sheringham Point, just down the coast from Jordan River, Vancouver Island

Five Star Charters will be running a special 'Earth Day' cruise at 2 pm this coming Thursday April 22nd and all the proceeds from that cruise will be donated to the TLC's campaign. In addition to donations from cruise earnings there will be a donation box in Five Star's office at 651 Humboldt Street (how to get there). Adrena Line Zip Tours will donate 20$ of each zip line sold on Earth Day.

'Transient' cartwheel just offshore of Southern Vancouver Island...the habitat offshore of areas like Jordan River is important for marine mammals and what we do onshore affects these animals

Links

TLC's announcement of this joint venture to fundraise money for their Wild Hills and Beaches campaign
To check out TLC's Wild Hills and Beaches campaign go here
Five Star Charter's blog post about their participation in this Earth Day fundraiser
To donate to TLC's campaign online go here or call 1-877-485-2422.
To contact Adrena Line Zip Tours phone: 250-642-1933 or toll-free: 1-866-947-9145

April 10 - 12: What better to do when not working as an MMO...get back on the water!

One of the greatest things about working as an MMO is that I don't work the typical 9 -5 Monday to Friday hours so I have the flexibility to travel, near and far, and I can pretty much go anytime during my weeks off. During my last break in February/March I went to the Yucatan in Mexico to take in the beach, carnaval and do some cenote diving. This break I decided to stick around British Columbia and last weekend I visited a friend living in Squamish, BC, near Whistler where this year's winter Olympics were held.

I headed up to Nanaimo, about 1.5 hours north of Victoria on Vancouver Island, and took the ferry across to Horseshoe Bay, a small town west of Vancouver. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had flat calm seas for the crossing; I spent a little time on the bow keeping my eyes open for marine mammals and saw a couple of harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and another small group of Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides Dalli).

When I arrived on the mainland side my friend met me and we drove the Sea To Sky Highway to Squamish. I stayed in Squamish until Monday morning during which time we hiked along the Mamquam River, hiked up part of Shannon Falls and I sailed with her in my first Regatta at the Squamish Yacht Club and we checked out a couple of the local pubs (Watershed Grill,Howe Sound Inn Pub). This was my first regatta and the boat we were on came in first after two races! It was an awesome weekend and so great to see a part of British Columbia I hadn't been to for years!

Milo, my cat who now lives at my grandparent's in Nanaimo...stopped for a visit on the way to the ferry and caught him sitting in his trademark 'recliner' pose

Perfect conditions for looking for porpoise...and I saw some harbour and Dall's porpoise on the crossing

Coast Mountains near Squamish

An interesting vehicle parked in the town of Squamish. Looks like an old-fashioned snow plow!

View of Howe Sound

Our hiking partner, Snoopy, on the way up Shannon Falls

View from our hike up Shannon Falls

Shannon Falls

The Chief as seen from the Squamish Yacht Club

Heading out to start the regatta

Above 2 photos: flying the spinnaker

Doing my job...'rail bait'!

Happy crew...it got so sunny and warm!

Enjoying the sun!

Heading back to the dock

Squamish Yacht Club

Main street in Squamish

Sunday, April 18, 2010

April 7, 2010 Out with Five Star Charters: T30s and dead gray whale at East Sooke

Okay, so I've been so busy catching up visiting with friends in Victoria, Squamish and Saltpsring Island so I'm a little behind with this post but here's some photos from my trip out on Five Star Charters' Fastcat on April 7. The weather wasn't great and, although there had been a sighting of 'Transient' mammal eating killer whales earlier that day, by the time we got on the water a couple of hours had passed so it was difficult to re-find the group. Fortunately there were a few boats on the water so we spread out on a search. We travelled east across the Victoria waterfront towards Oak Bay and then headed south in the Strait of Juan De Fuca making a line towards Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.

Shortly after we arrived at Race Rocks to take a look at the sea lions and harbour seals we got a call that one of the other vessels had re-sighted the group. The five killer whales were milling around outside of Becher Bay, off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, with plenty of seagulls diving amongst them suggesting they were feeding. We observed the group of T30s and T172 for a short while and then headed over to the nearby coastline of East Sooke Park where a dead gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) had washed up a couple of days prior. The whale likely died of starvation; it is one of six gray whales that have died in Salish Sea waters recently (See Cascadia Research page reporting on five gray whales that died in Puget Sound). So today's group of whale watchers started out with a rough and cold search but their trip ended with a sighting of a group of Transient killer whales and a dead gray whale... an interesting day indeed!

T30B a female born in 1993

T30C a juvenile estimated to be born in 2005

T172, 21 year old female who often travels with the T30s

Tail fluke!

T30, the female matriarch of the T30s who is estimated to be born at least in 1967

T30A, a 24 year old male travelling with T30C his younger sibling

Transient chin!

T30B

T30A

T30C

Above 3 photos: the dead gray whale, with a curious crowd, that washed up on the beach at East Sooke Regional Park. We are seeing the underside of this whale, the jaw is to the left and tail to right

T30A

T30A's tail fluke: the tail flukes on mature males curl under as you can see here

T30C

T30A

Side flop!

Above 2 photos: milling transients

Above 2 photos: just as we were leaving a Bald Eagle flew overhead checking out the feeding group of whales

Friday, April 16, 2010

April 2010: Back from the Gulf of Mexico... more photos from life as an MMO

I'm back in Victoria between rotations working as a Marine Mammal Observer on seismic survey ships in the Gulf Of Mexico. My last rotation was much more interesting biologically than our December/January rotation which was likely due to much better weather conditions and the fact that we were in some shallower waters. We had many more marine mammal and migrating bird sightings especially during the last couple of weeks. Some highlights of marine mammal sightings included: Atlantic Spotted dolphins (Stenalla frontalis), Pan-Tropical Spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata), Short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), Melon-headed whales (Pepanocephala electra) and Spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris). One of the bird highlights of the trip included my first sighting of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus); a beautiful bird with a long forked tail and a pink belly. A very interesting sighting indeed!