Strawberry Isle Scuttlebutt
April's ‘97 report by Rod Palm

Killer Whales, Killer Whales. All previous records of Kawkawin visits for the month of April were broken this year with nine days of visitation.

On the up 25th, our old friends Rainny and Wakana were spotted travelling down the open coast. At the same time, within five miles of their wake, a group of perhaps 75 White Sided Dolphins (Lags) were spotted. If these two species did not interact, their paths crossed very close. On occasion, Kawkawin will prey on these dolphins but it seems that they are not often successful. The White Sided's speed and agility serve them well for evading the larger Killers. Lags are commonly seen off our coast, during the summer months, out beyond the continental shelf. This was the closest to shore that we have seen them since our monitoring began in ‘91. Rainny and Wakana were also here on the 2nd and16th.

We had the northern resident sub pod G8, on the eighth, heading back up toward their stomping grounds in Johnstone Straits. It's not enough that we rarely see these fish eaters, but to have them visit this early in the year is quite exceptional.

We had two other Killer Whale reports in April. One we were unable to locate and the other was not reported until after the fact so identifications were not made.

The most significant visit of the month was T68 and her brood who spent three days in the sound. We have only ever seen these whales once before, in ‘95, and they were not seen anywhere else in the pacific northwest since 1989. The exciting thing was that they had the first ‘97 model with them. "T68 is again a mother." The little calf is typically charging around its mom in a celebration life. No deformities are noticed, size and weight looks good. "Right on!" We will be hoping to see these animals over the coming year. Mortality is reckoned to be as high as 50% for the calves during the first six months of their lives.

Over the years we have noticed a behaviour that we have never taken too much notice of until

T68's did it on two separate days. The whole gang will throttle right back to about one knot and surface for a breath about every minute. This is obviously a resting mode, but not the usual. We generally see resting as the whales taking several breaths on the surface, sounding for up to ten minutes then surfacing in much the same spot. This can carry on for several hours. I know, not all that exciting but none the less very curious. It's also worth noting that on both occasions the whales were in a channel heading for the open sea.

On the eleventh T68's, along with Flores and Pender, came into the sound taking the regular route through the harbour, up Browning Pass and into Tofino Inlet. Just past Berryman Point there was a boiling of whales around a brown furry body. They have a sea lion. We watched from a distance as this hapless animal was smacked around, pounced on and body slammed for about ten minutes. Then, for a moment, all we saw was the lion on the surface. Two minutes later the whales surfaced about 100 metres away, leaving in formation as though nothing had happened. Well, the battered and bewildered lion wasn't taking any chances, she made her way over to us and took refuge under our boat. This is one messed up female Steller, her swimming is very erratic, she can't dive and she has to poke her head out from under the boat about every 30 seconds to take a breath. It's a tough decision, do we chase after the Kawkawin or stay with the lion to see if it will recover. The decision is made by Kechura who rather excitedly blurts out from her position standing up on the forward seat, "It's going to jump in the boat and eat our baby Naeco, I want outa here!" Guess I shouldn't have told her the stories of sea lions boarding boats to get away from Orcas.

Why do Killer Whales beat up on marine mammals like this and then leave them to their misery? It has been suggested that the whales may abandon their prey because the boat may be scaring them off. Well first off, we videoed this whole encounter and it is obvious from the footage that we are at least a quarter mile away from the action. Also, I'm not shure that these masters of the worlds oceans even know of such an emotion as fear. I feel that, when the boats are keeping their distance the whales are quite indifferent. On the occasion of being crowded, they may show aggression by doing a tail slash in the direction of the offending vessel. At other times they just seem to get fed up and leave. It doesn't matter how many boats try to relocate them, they just disappear. I'm quite pleased that they are able to do this.

Whilst' on the subject, I would like to note that the Tofino Whale Watching community has an enviable reputation, in the industry, for its behaviour around the whales. The companies approached us about three years ago to help them write up a set of guide lines for the tour boat drivers. The resultant recommendations were broken up into: Killer Whales, Gray Whales, sea birds, and pinnipeds (seals and sea lions). These guide lines, on request, have been forwarded on to the Dept. of Fisheries and other whale watching companies in the province. I'm also pleased that we are not in the waters of southern Vancouver Island where there has been as many as 120 boats counted around one pod of Killer Whales.

An exciting report on the 17th was the sighting of a Humpback whale by Peter Schulze. This animal was travelling up the coast about a third of a mile off Gowland Rocks. It was curious that the whale was swimming in close company with a couple of Gray Whales though it did break away shortly after Pete arrived. I don't like to get everyones hopes too high but, wow, we have been seeing these critters for the past three years now. Could it be that they have forgiven us for the devastation we committed to their numbers in more than a hundred years of hunting?

On the benthic front, the Gray Whale "Half Moon" has been back in the Grice Bay feeding ground since the beginning of the month. Wouldn't you know it, just when we get a study going in an attempt to find out why the whales go for years without putting the bay to use, they decide to use the place every year. Nevertheless, we will carry on the monitoring of the critters who live in the sediments of this significant feeding ground.

On April 2nd, we got a call on an unidentified marine mammal on the beach near Escalante. Doug Banks is on days off and offers to fly us up with his wheel plane. It never ceases to amaze me, the tiny bits of beach that these guys are able to drop down onto but it's the weaving through the jutting rocks that makes you gulp. Our dead mammal was that all right. No bones, no distinguishing features, just a large mattress of blubber. These masses have, over the years been variously reported as Globs, Blobs and sea monsters. In fact, what it often is, are the remains of some long dead whale. What happens is, as the dead whale drifts for months on the open ocean currents, it starts to break down from scavenger predation and plane old rot. Being very buoyant, the blubber floats while the heavier bones want to detach themselves and fall out of the decaying carcass. On top of this, perhaps, the heavy skull pulling down against the buoyancy of the blubber may cause the remains to slowly rip apart. We saw an example of this scenario with the Bairds Beaked Whale (see Feb. ‘97 Scuttle Butt). All but three of the whale's ribs had already fallen out of the cadaver and some of the vertebrae could easily be extracted by hand.