Comments: Evolving rules in San Juans may change how visitors go whale watching

By Cassandra Brooks Seattle Times staff reporter First, the orcas may be the most intelligent animals on the planet after us. The pods here have remained in family groups for who knows how long–hundreds of years? Very possibly their family lineages go back thousands of years. Some of these whales being chased daily are 80 [...]

4 Southern Residents missing and presumed dead

(L5 in front, L74 foreground, L73 in background.  Picture taken from shore in August 2009) The Center for Whale Research has shared the results of their 2010 summer Orca Survey, with the sad news that we have lost 3 adult orcas and one calf this year. Missing and presumed dead are: L114, new calf born [...]

Remembering Lolita- Whidbey Examiner

By Sue Ellen White  Examiner Staff Writer “You could hear the whales squealing when they pulled them out,” Stone said. “It drove my cat crazy.” Working a summer job at the Captain Whidbey Inn, Stone became an intimate witness to an infamous event: the 1970 capture of orca whales in Penn Cove by entrepreneurs engaged [...]

Stormwater runoff pollution and how to reduce it- WA Department of Ecology

Stormwater runoff is rain that falls on streets, parking areas, sports fields, gravel lots, rooftops or other developed land and flows directly into nearby lakes, rivers and Puget Sound. The drizzling or pounding rain picks up and mixes with what’s on the ground: Oil, grease, metals and coolants from vehicles; Fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals [...]

Wildlife officials remind recreational boaters to give orca whales plenty of room – Bellingham Herald

by Kie Relyea Give orca whales plenty of space this summer. That’s the reminder Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are giving to recreational boaters – at a time when more boaters head out amid southern resident whales, which are in area waters, mainly in northern Puget Sound, from spring into fall. Wildlife officials [...]

The grandmother factor: Why do only humans and whales live long past menopause?- Scientific American

By Katherine Harmon Most mammals don’t live long past their reproductive years, failing to serve much evolutionary purpose after they can stop passing on their genes to offspring. Only three long-lived social mammalian species are known break that mold.Killer whales (Orcinus orca), pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) and humans (as well as possibly some other great [...]

The Killer in the Pool- Outside Magazine

By Tim Zimmermann Last February, when a 12,000-pound orca named Tilikum dragged his SeaWorld trainer into the pool and drowned her, it was the third time the big killer whale had been involved in a death. Many observers wondered why the animal was still working. But some experts, knowing the psychological toll of a life [...]

Baby orca lost battle against potent storm by Sandra McCulloch, Times Columnist

This killer whale calf which was discovered on a beach near Point No Point on May 4 died within a day or two of birth. Photograph by: Stefan Beckmann, Department of Fisheries and Oceans A dead orca calf that washed ashore west of Sooke in early May appears to have been a casualty of a [...]

Empty Sound by Thayer Walker/Sierra Club

Three pods of orcas known as the “Southern Residents” have feasted on salmon in Puget Sound for thousands of years. Now they’re vanishing. By Thayer Walker Ken Balcomb’s living room feels like a natural history museum. Two life-size fiberglass porpoises, cast from the frozen remains of animals that Balcomb found dead in the field, hang [...]

B.C. orcas lack protection, court told- from the CBC

Conservationists were in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday, suing the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to try and force better protection for killer whales off Canada’s West Coast. They say the federal government is violating its own Species At Risk Act by failing to protect critical habitat for B.C.’s southern and northern resident orcas. The [...]

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