Orca, Grey Whales, Humpback Central, Dolphins and Porpoise
More of the Northern Resident (fish eating) Killer Whale populations are back into the upper Johnstone Strait and Broughtons areas, so the fish are starting to come in as well. The Transient Bigg’s (meat eating) Orca have been passing through areas of the inside waters. They may not want to risk entanglements with all the Humpback Whales we have in the upper Georgia Strait, so are not staying long.
Great to have a Grey Whale report by Victoria. They are not frequently reported to us as they usually tend to stay outside of the Georgia Strait, or just pass through.
Pacific White Sided Dolphins, although spread out to center Johnstone Strait are spending their Summer, as they have over a number of years, mostly in Nodales Channel. We see them foraging, close at times, with Dall’s Porpoise who seem to be staying well clear of the Bigg’s Orca travels, as are the Harbour Porpoise.
There have been many near misses with boaters almost striking whales. Slow Down Please!
Keep your eyes open, report your sightings to us, and use caution on the water giving these animals plenty of room. Stop and smell the fish breath.
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"They’re back!" was how the report began.
Someone had seen some of the K pod of orcas off the west coast of the San Juan Islands. It was the first sighting in the inland waters since March of this smallest group of the highly endangered southern resident orcas…. The National Marine Fisheries Service had previously said it would extend the orca-habitat protections by 2017, but it still hasn’t done so….
"That they’re choosing now to weaken the Endangered Species Act is just going to make it even slower and harder to get critical habitat protection for the whales," said Brett Hartl of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. "Given the orcas’ precarious position, it’s terrible news for them."
The U.S. House of Representatives isn’t helping. It recently passed a farm bill (renamed the "harm bill" by environmentalists) that would incredibly allow the spraying of pesticides into the water without a permit. Orcas are known to absorb pesticides and other chemicals such as flame retardants into their fatty tissues.
Overall, the orcas are believed to be slowly starving to death, due to a decline in their main food, king salmon. Garrett’s "doom and gloom" view is that we’re not only not doing enough to save them, we’re now actively going backward.
"I don’t see any consensus developing to make the hard choices to bring them back," he said. "With the Trump administration now pulling the rug out from under us, it’s all leading to paralysis, at exactly the wrong moment."
There’s a different kind of damage, of loss, that can be irreversible. It gets nowhere near the attention of our daily political drama. It’s Howard Garrett’s worst worry – that one summer, maybe sooner than not if we don’t snap out of it, the orcas are never coming back….
read on
ACS volunteer members and Certified Naturalists will be on hand from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. both days to help with whale watching and spotting other wildlife. The volunteers will offer information on whales, dolphins, porpoises and their habitats….
read on
The Canadian Press
They say an area in the Grand Manan Basin – a critical habitat area for the endangered species – will be closed to fishing beginning Sunday at 6 p.m.
The closure will remain in effect until further notice, with affected fisheries including groundfish species, herring, mackerel and lobster.
On Friday, the DFO announced four other closures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as part of its right whale conservation efforts.
Fishing gear can pose a big risk to whales as entanglement can prevent them from eating or swimming.
READ MORE: Canada announces additional fishery closures after more Right Whales spotted
An entangled right whale was spotted last Friday in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, but fisheries officials have not been able to locate it despite extensive searches in the water and the air….
read on
read on
If you have the time and patience or, if you’re a bit lucky, you might get to see them loafing around the Atlantic Seaboard.
If you’re as lucky as local photographer Mike, you might see whales and dolphins within a few days of each other.
The southern right whale, humpback whale and the Bryde’s whale are the most commonly sighted on South Africa’s Western Cape coast….
read on