Thankful for Marine Mammals!

Scientists know much about the imperiled, fish-eating resident killer whales that live off the west coast of North America, but some facets of these marine mammals’ lives are mysterious. For instance, what do they do at night?

The puzzle for researchers is to determine how the whales’ behavior-their foraging, socializing, traveling, resting, and sleeping habits-changes from day to night.

Understanding the intricacies of whale behavior is difficult at the best of times, even more so when they slip below the ocean’s surface at night. "We hear them on the hydrophones at night," explains Sheila Thornton, a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada who is overseeing a study into the shadowy lives of killer whales. "They’re active in their vocalizing, but we want to take that one step further and see what they’re actually doing."

In August, four researchers took to the water in Telegraph Cove, off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, armed with the latest in whale-tracking technology. Their targets were the threatened northern resident killer whales, whose population is growing but still totals only an estimated 309…
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B.C. Ferries plans to retire 18 aging vessels over the next 12 years and that is likely good news for the southern resident killer whales that share the waters with the ferry fleet.

The Crown corporation will spend $2 billion on 22 new vessels, with the next round of new vessels to begin service in 2020. New ferry construction will prioritize noise reduction through improved propellers, quiet military design features, wake management and engine noise dampening.

A typical ferry operating at service speed generates sound at about 185 decibels, which dissipates slowly over long distance, according to B.C. Ferries noise mitigation plan.

"Killer whale call intensity ranges up to 140 dB," the plan states. "Ferry noise … can interfere or mask (southern resident killer whale) communications and fish finding vocalizations."
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Meanwhile, Washington State Ferries also announced last month that it would retire 13 ferries and build 16 new ferries with quiet electric-hybrid engines at a cost of $7 billion over about 22 years….
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Six groups, including the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the David Suzuki Foundation, asked the courts on Sept. 5 to compel the federal government to issue an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act to protect the southern residents and their main food source, chinook salmon.

The chinook are themselves in deep crisis. The Columbia River chinook are listed as endangered in the U.S., and last week Fisheries and Oceans Canada released data showing this season’s chinook returns in the Fraser River were well below the historical average.

The southern residents, too, are listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act. The next status after endangered is "extirpated," meaning they are reproductively non-viable, or dead. Ottawa is taking public input on the Species at Risk Act recovery strategy for northern and southern resident killer whales until Nov. 3.

Earlier this year the litigating groups asked Ottawa to curtail sport fishing and whale watching in critical feeding areas. The government responded by reducing the chinook catch by 25 to 35 per cent and increasing the buffer zone for whale watching to 200 metres.

Parts of the most important foraging areas in the Gulf Islands and the Strait of Juan de Fuca were closed to all fishing and partial closures were implemented at the mouth of the Fraser River.

"Since the death of three whales, including J50, we have upped our ask," said Misty MacDuffee, a biologist for Raincoast. "Now we want the closure of all marine-based commercial and sport chinook fisheries."

The groups are also calling for a full ban on whale watching for the southern residents….
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A new scientific effort will sequence the genomes of critically endangered Pacific Northwest orcas to better understand their genetics and potentially find ways to save them from extinction.

The collaboration announced Thursday involves scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, the nonprofit Nature Conservancy and BGI, a global genomics company.

The project will sequence the genome-the entire genetic code of a living thing-of more than 100 southern resident killer whales using skin or other samples collected from live and dead orcas over the past two decades. Initial results are expected next year.

Scientists said the information could help explain, for example, whether internal factors such as inbreeding or genetic variation in immune systems are preventing the whales from rebounding….
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Oceans and Fisheries Canada (DFO) is accepting public input on proposed changes to the Species at Risk Act (SARA) registry. These changes could help protect ocean habitat for killer whales, including the endangered southern residents.

You can encourage government to make bold strides in protecting killer whales, but they need to hear from you now. In your submission, tell officials to:
– Expand critical habitat to include the marine environment of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia
– Establish protected feeding refuges for southern resident orcas, with restrictions on commercial and recreational fishing for Chinook salmon
– Remove fish farms from orca habitat, and ensure new fish farms are permanently prohibited from critical habitat areas
– Enforce a mandatory speed limit on commercial shipping lanes in the Salish Sea to reduce noise pollution
Click read on ro submit your letter…
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Right whales are large cetaceans, with big heads and no dorsal fins. Researchers used to count as many as 200 foraging here in late summer. But the whales became scarce starting in 2010, and their range shifted dramatically. Many more are now summering hundreds of miles north, off Canadian shores in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. More than 130 have been spotted there in recent months.

Marianna Hagbloom, a research assistant on Knowlton’s team, surveyed that area in August and said it was nothing like the Bay of Fundy.

“We had days where we were seeing about 50 individuals,” Hagbloom says. “Just right whales popping up left and right. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”

Despite those sightings, the North Atlantic right whale is seriously endangered, with a total remaining population below 450.

Their numbers have been falling for a decade, as the whales get entangled in fishing gear or killed by ships. Seventeen died in 2017 alone. In September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that there was “considerable urgency to address the issues of mortalities that stem from human activities.”…
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Virtually all mammals use sound to communicate, but very few produce intricate songs.

One of them is the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), recently studied in the Fram Straight between Greenland and Svalbard. Using recordings, researchers noticed that the Spitsbergen bowheads used distinct song types for relatively short periods of time-a few months at most-and then changed them.

According to a recently released study, these bowhead whales produced more than 184 different song types over a three-year period, a level of diversity the study says is "rivalled only by a few species of songbirds."

Kit Kovacs, a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute and o…
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