Strawberry Isle Research Scuttlebutt
March 1997 report by Rod Palm

Well, these have been very busy times for Strawberry Isle. In an effort to bring our society to a higher profile and to fulfil our constitutional obligation to get information to the public, we did a series of presentations throughout the whale festival. These turned out not to be as scary as we thought and were very productive for soliciting memberships. We also did a daily, hot line, report to the Vancouver Aquarium on the Gray Whale migration. These calls were piped directly through the aquariums speakers as part of their interpretive program.

Onto the field work. Killer Whales have been showing up this month in expected numbers. The first kill recorded for the year was from Earl Thomas on March 8. The whale watching fleet followed the three whales that make up Ted's gang as they worked the reefs on the outside of Vargas Island, then moved on over to Plover Rocks. It was interesting that the whales didn't hunt at the Plover Sea Lion haulout, but picked up a River Otter just past the rocks. This was one of the encounters you hear about where the Kawkawin play with their food before eating it. The hapless otter was slapped back and forth through the air for distances of perhaps ten metres before he was actually eaten. Why do they do this? Perhaps it is a macabre means of tenderizing the meat and breaking up the bones for easier consumption. Pandora and the big bull Kawatsi visited the inner sound on the 24th but the middle aged (21) female Eacott was not with them. This is not a serious concern, these transient Kawkawin gangs are quite fluid, but none the less we will be a little anxious until we see her again. Finally, we had a gang of three reported leaving Tofino Harbour on the 25th, but conditions were much too rough to identify or follow them for too long.

The mystery of the young Steller Sea Lion, we reported last summer with the brand across its left shoulder, has been solved. This animal swam almost 500 nautical miles down from Forrester Island in the Alaska Pan Handle. It has been discovered that it is common for these young pinnipeds to explore large areas of the ocean. These animals are being branded in an effort to learn why the Alaskan population of Steller Sea Lions is taking an alarming drop.

Onto Grice Bay. The Ghost Shrimp stocks here have almost doubled in number and volume so it looks quite good for any Gray Whales who may wander into the Bay for lunch. We are planning to intensify our study of this feeding ground over the summer. Our hope is to establish just how extensive the shrimp's habitat is and how much of it is accessible to the whales. As an explanation, the whales are restricted by their size as to how far up the beach they can work whereas the Ghost Shrimp range includes the high intertidal. This means that it doesn't matter how heavily the whales graze in the bay, there will always be a breeding stock of shrimp left alone to keep the whole cycle going.

Every year we have a few Gray Whales who die along our coast, this year was no exception. On April 2nd, a small whale was reported dead in a Herring pond in Sidney Inlet. On hearing the report, our first reaction was that the animal got tangled in the net and drowned, but our on site inspection showed no entanglement, disturbed netting or abrasions on the whale. The dead whale simply floated into the pond. I have to say that, having had the pleasure of swimming with Gray Whales on many occasions over the years, I had an intense feeling for the absence of spirit while swimming around this dead whale. What was once a vibrant leviathan of the seas was now simply a large bulk of meat.

With the help of the Department of Fisheries launch and volunteers from the Clayoquot Biosphere Project, we towed the whale out of the net pond and over to the beach for a closer examination at low tide. This is a 7.4 metre (yearling) female. Aside from expected abrasions and bits nipped off the tail fluke the whale had no external evidence of grief. The stomach however was another matter. The large intestine was bloated to near bursting and one touch with a knife revealed the surprising contents. Wood? Sticks, grass, nettles, leaves and pits of branches as large as 7cm. All this is mixed with a scattering of Herring roe. What is going on here? Well, there was a decent Herring spawn in Sidney Inlet this year and a lot of the roe is broken loose by wave and current action. Free drifting articles are carried by the currents until it ends up on either a beach, back eddy or depression in the sea floor. Because of the abundance of forest debris, I suspect that, this whale, was feeding on the accumulated roe in a hole off the mouth of a nearby river. Judging by the small percentage of roe / wood, it's hard to imagine this as a very protein - productive feeding site. Anyway we found that the large intestinal track was engorged with this materiel to within 30cm of the anus. This last section was clear, indicating a blockage. The black colouration of this materiel indicated bleeding in the small intestine from the passage of the course wood debris. It's likely that this disorder caused a backup of toxic gasses that were absorbed into the blood stream through the small intestine and was related to the death of the whale.