Transient Orca Do Travel

On the morning of Sept. 10, Rachelle Hayden and her husband, who live on Galiano Island, were told by a friend on Pender Island that a pod of groups may be swimming through their area.

"We weren’t sure if they were transient or southern resident," Hayden said.

The two headed out to their favourite spot at Active Pass and saw eight to 10 whales swim by, followed by another 15 whales. Hayden’s hsband took the video that shows Rachelle standing on the shore while the whales breached nearby.

"That’s the closest I’ve ever been to whales," Hayden who runs Tour Galiano, said.

"It was surreal, like I was in a dream."

She said orcas sometimes swim on the other side of Active Pass so they were lucky to see the animals.

In the video, one of the whales stops to glance at Hayden. After the encounter, Hayden contacted an orca specialist, who told her the whale was J46, also known as Star….
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Another southern resident killer whale appears to be sick, researchers say, but several other orcas appear to be pregnant.

Researchers say 27-year-old male K25 is thinner now than in previous years. The trouble for the whale likely started last year when his mother died, scientists from NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center said.

NOAA said the weight loss likely “reflects the challenges he faces without her help in capturing and sharing prey.”

Males rely on help from family members, and long-term demographic studies have shown they have increased mortality rates following the death of their mothers.

They said K25 is not in as dire a situation as that of J50, a sick whale who researchers believe died earlier this month.

But NOAA’s news wasn’t all bad. Aerial images collected this week also showed K27 is heavily pregnant, and she’s not the only one.

A number of females in the J, K and L pods all show signs of pregnancy, NOAA said.

There are concerns, however, as there is currently a high rate of reproductive failure among the southern residents, and K27 is believed to have miscarried two years ago.

The Center for Whale Research will monitor the pregnancies of the extremely endangered southern residents….
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A governor’s task force on orca recovery has released its draft report on potential recommendations to save the southern resident killer whale from extinction.

The 53-page report is a kitchen sink of possible fixes, touching on everything from dam removal on the Lower Snake River to changes in hatchery policy, habitat spending and environmental cleanup actions. The task force will take public comment on the potential recommendations until midnight Oct. 7. The task force has not agreed on the recommendations, or even ranked them by preference.

The task force will consider the public’s comments on the possible recommendations at its next meeting on Oct. 17 and 18 in the Tacoma area. The venue has not yet been announced.

The final report to the task force is due to Gov. Jay Inslee on Nov. 16….
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This month has brought an unusual amount of orca activity off the Orange County coastline, first with a pod of Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales that showed up to feast on dolphins. Then, on Tuesday, Sept. 25, a pod of CA51 orcas were spotted off Newport Beach.

The CA51 orcas are more familiar than the ETPs that lingered for days off Orange County and San Diego, but which longtime experts said they’ve never seen off local waters in past years.

The CA51 pod, on the other hand, has shown up in previous years and is often called the "the friendly pod."…
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Yesterday’s report of a Arctic beluga whale in the Thames has an almost Shakespearean quality of something both rich and strange, sensational and fatal at the same time. She’s tragically in the wrong place; comparisons with the Thames whale of 2006 are all too obvious. Despite a million-pound rescue attempt, that northern bottlenose died of dehydration, unable to feed on her deep-water diet of squid and thus slake her thirst.

Londoners may be becoming blase about marine mammals, with an upsurge in sightings of seals; I saw one recently, sunning itself on the riverbank in front of the National Theatre as if auditioning for a role.

Beluga whale sighted in Thames estuary off Gravesend
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But none of this is new. In 1456, William Caxton reported: "This yere were taken iiij [4] grete fishes bitwene Eerethe [Erith, just upriver from where the…
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The new research, published in the journal Science, examined PCB contamination in 351 killer whales, the largest analysis yet. The scientists then took existing data on how PCBs affect calf survival and immune systems in whales and used this to model how populations will fare in the future. "Populations of Japan, Brazil, Northeast Pacific, Strait of Gibraltar, and the United Kingdom are all tending toward complete collapse," they concluded.

At least half of the world’s killer whale populations are doomed to extinction due to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans, according to a major new study.

Although the poisonous chemicals, PCBs, have been banned for decades, they are still leaking into the seas. They become concentrated up the food chain; as a result, killer whales, the top predators, are the most contaminated animals on the planet. Worse, their fat-rich milk passes on very high doses to their newborn calves.

PCB concentrations found in killer whales can be 100 times safe levels and severely damage reproductive organs, cause cancer and damage the immune system. The new research analysed the prospects for killer whale populations over the next century and found those offshore from industrialised nations could vanish as soon as 30-50 years.

Among those most at risk are the UK’s last pod, where a recent death revealed one of the highest PCB levels ever recorded. Others off Gibraltar, Japan and Brazil and in the north-east Pacific are also in great danger. Killer whales are one of the most widespread mammals on earth but have already been lost in the North Sea, around Spain and many other places….
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A ghost haunts the coasts of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. The franciscana, cousin to the Amazon River dolphin, is also known as the La Plata dolphin, for the river in which it was first sighted, and as the ghost dolphin, for its rarity. The franciscana is officially listed as vulnerable, although so little is known about the elusive mammal it may effectively be endangered.

A distant relative of river dolphins, the grayish-brown franciscana is slightly smaller than the average human. Similar to river dolphins, franciscanas have pronounced beaks, holding the record for the longest beak in proportion to body length. Distinct from true river dolphins, however, the franciscana prefers the murky, slightly salty waters of river estuaries. This limited territory puts it in frequent contact with fishermen, in whose nets the dolphins die. Although researchers along the franciscana’s territory work to conserve the species, too little is known to enact effective and comprehensive conservation strategies.

The most obvious barrier: scientists don’t even know how many of the dolphins exist. A census conducted in 2005 estimated that there were roughly 13,000 to 14,000 in Argentina, while a different survey in 2010 estimated a Brazilian population of slightly less than 2,000. Uruguay has no official census. The absence of population statistics complicates finding state aid to help protect the species….
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