NGOS News

1 June 2007

Our last full field day and our last encounter with killer whales feeding on a gray whale carcass in about 160 feet over water 30 miles south of Sand Point Alaska. We photograph six whales that we hadn’t seen yet this year including WT 145,146,147,148, 148a (a new calf), and 149. Also present are a pair we observed earlier in the trip WT 124 and 126. This brings our total to 82 different individual whales photographed and many of them observed several times. We have observed at least 8 instances of killer whales feeding gray whales. All the whales we have observed have been "transients" or marine mammal eating killer whales. We have watched different killer whales move in to share a carcass that was obviously killed by other whales at this great spring killer whale "potlatch"... the Alaska native term for gathering and feasting and socializing of the tribes. We feel grateful to be able to observe this spectacle and feel almost a part of it in this fourth year of our work here. We hope through analysis of our field results we will develop a better picture of the role of killer whales in the ecology of gray whales and better understand the size and condition of the killer whale population in this region. Over the years we have developed a better understanding of the role of killer whales in this region. It is a story we never expected when we started our surveys here four years ago...

26 May 2007

Finally we are getting some opportunities to tag the large, less frequently observed males that we have been looking for. We want to look at what these whales that are not the more "local" whales do after the gray whales have passed through...do they move offshore or to the Pribilofs to feed on fur seals or do they follow the gray whales into the Bering Sea. Hopefully the tags will stay on long enough for us to find out. We have discovered from our work last year that the tags stay on about 2 months if all goes well and that after they fall off they leave hardly a mark...amazing how quickly the tissue seems to heal...The tags must be placed in the dorsal fin.
We manage to tag WT135, 136, and 137 and a new whale we name "Razzberry" from the Bronx cheer he gave us before we placed the tag on him. We check the sat tag locations by hooking up to the argos site on the internet (via are satellite phone). In a few days Razzberry has moved over 2 miles offshore...

2?? May 2007

Following a group of whales when they suddenly start charging toward Bird Island, their snouts and eyes emerging from the waves as they push through the swells at 10 to 14 miles per hour. Dave enjoys taking pictures of their "chins" and "faces" as they emerge from the waves. One whale has recent ragged scraped area on its snout. Each "chin" has a different shape...some weak, some strong, some more pointed and some rounded.
After ten miles of fast travel we find the reason for their hurry. There has been a recent kill of a gray whale calf near Bird Island and our group of x?? whales swings in to take up feeding along with the two other whales that are still on the carcass. The carcass is floating with the lower jaw and tongue and other bits around the head removed. Occasionally a killer whale latches on to the pectoral fin and drags the carcass under in a demonstration of raw power...down the carcass goes into a swirling vortex. Gulls whirl above picking at the blubber bits....There is still quite a bit of blood flowing out of the gray whale. The sea is red.

20 May 2007

The whales are not the only creatures to benefit from their predations. We have observed sleeper shark bites on the gray whale carcasses; unique, perfectly rounded divits from the blubber that look like they have been removed by the type of tool used to take small reunded corings from a cantaloupe. The more visible beneficiaries are the bulky brown bears that can be seen along the shorelines and walking these still brown, open slopes. This year seems an exceptional bounty of whale carcasses on the beach, whales that either got away with mortal wounds and died on the beach, or carcasses that floated and drifted ashore. We have counted at least four so far. All have been attended by bulky brown bears. One particularly large bear became the target of a human hunter whose guide brought him to a rotting gray whale carcass to shoot a trophy bear. Not much of a fair chase hunt. The other bears feeding on the carcass did not return to it for days. We wonder how the hunter got the stinking odor of rotten grey whale off of the head of the bear before he hung it on his wall. We wonder what story he told of his bear hunt...would he admit to killing a hapless bear gorging on natural "bait"? We watch a dark chocolate colored bear, the "king" of the kill on the last lump of one rotting carcass. He sprawls on the rotting tissue, sucking up the stringy white flesh, like sticky pasta. Chewing on the vertebrae, he holds them between his paws like a giant dog. To see these massive carnivores feeding to satiation on these pungent carcasses is unique.

The weather has turned sour...or typical for this area at this time of year. We have had 6’ seas and 20-30mph winds for 3 days now. The past couple days we have had abundant whales....21 whales on 23May and 20 on 23 May. They have been feeding in a number of locations between Ikutan Point and Cape Fanshaw, an we have seen a number of whales that are new since we arrived this year...including two males that are new to the study. We are seeing more large males which is important as they are the whales we want to tag.

19 May 2007

We aren’t but 15 minutes out of our anchorage the next day and killer whale dorsal fins appear on the horizon...just about where we left the whales last night. But they aren’t feeding and we dont see the oil slicks. These whales are traveling slowly south and socializing...one young whale hits a pidgeon guillemot with its flukes and chases it toward the shore. They progress along Cape Pankoff where a dozen or more seal lions are hauled out or in the water. The sea lions crane their necks watching the whales and some whales pass very close to the sea lions, but there is no apparent interaction. The sea lions move into a tight shoulder to shoulder group.
Suddenly the whales start porpoising in the direction south of Bird Island which is miles away. This charging is a near sure sign of their heading toward a recent kill or gray whale carcass. One group includes WT14,15,16,17 and 18. At high speed their heads break the surface showing the jaw shape of each whale; shapes that are as distinctive as the dorsal fins. Perry, WT18, has a bit of a snubby snout which has ragged flesh wounds on both the lower and upper tip, while Floppy WT14, has a much more rounded snout. Floppy is a large, old male named for his collapsed dorsal fin. They charge on for 10 miles before coming to the site of a very recent kill. It is a carcass of a calf, floating with the lower jaw and tongue missing and blood still pouring from the orifice where the head was attached. Two whales attend it, but the newcomers seem to have no reluctance to move in and try to worry pieces from the carcass, even though they are obviously not the whales that made the kill. When we return an hour later, the carcass seems little changed, although we cannot see the entire body. Seems it must not be easy for the whales to pull pieces from the carcass. They allow it to float for minutes, then with raw power, drag it down where they apparently hold it, or where its buoyancy is reduced or neutral. Over several hours it is drug around by various whales, while other small groups of whales can be scene in the distance, some a mile or two away.

18 May 2007

The second leg of our spring False Pass/Unimak Island research cruise on the 45’ R.V. Dora started with two days of good weather and abundant whales. Our crew, Craig Matkin, Eva Saulitis and Dave Ellifrit and skipper Mike Brittain first observed three killer whales an WT30,31, and 32 resting near Sankin Island about an hour after leaving the False Pass Dock where we rotated crew for leg two. A small satellite tag had been placed on WT30 during the first leg of the cruise and had been providing locations of the whale for the past week..most of them in Morzhovoi Bay. After photographing this resting trio, we moved on to Morzhovoi Bay, the "hotspot" on the first leg of the cruise. We found nothing and were headed out of the bay when around he corner paddled WT30,31, and 32 loafing into the bay. We follow them as they cruised up the long arm of Morzhovoi Bay where satellite hits indicate this whale has spent most of the last week. We hope that they lead us to other whales or a gray whale kill, but this is not the case and we leave them at the head of the bay to search for others... We are rewarded by finding several groups of whales after we emerge from the bay...two groups of more than a half dozen.. and one group slides right under our bow taking a close look at us... New whales and Dave Ellifrit is excited. Dave has all these fins and saddle patches memorized, but more than that he has a good feel for the characteristics of each whale..at least of the ones he has spent time around and a new encounter means more time with these whales. Dave views killer whale encounters the way some long haired folks looked at Grateful Dead concerts in the 60’s and 70’s...life is great...except for the "time between Dead concerts" (for Dave read " time between killer whale encounters") ...WT23,26, 27,28 and 29 and also WT111,112,113, 115 and 114 with a new calf. These whales travel on across the open waters toward Ikatan point...and pickup other whales as they near the point. It is difficult to keep track of the coming and goings of the different individuals...suddenly some start streaking toward the Ikatan Penninula... As is often the case there is an oil slick marking the carcass of a grey whale below. In fact there are two slicks and two different groups of whales take station above the two pieces of the carcasses. Some of the whales include WT8a and 9 who are "locals" in this neck of the coast along with "Marilyn" WT who is more often seen 150 miles down the coast at Cape Kupreanof. We get a biopsy from this old ragged fin female....we have been trying for years to get close enough to her for a sample. For shy animals approach may be possible only when they are feeding. She seems to be "babysitting" WT8a a small juvenile whose mother WT8 is nowhere to be seen (although we see them together the next day). A long day and lots of photos and data to deal with as we head to anchor the R.V. Dora behind Ikatan Point.

Early May update

The last two days in outer Resurrection Bay showed us both the best and the worst of what the weather can offer this time of year. This weekend, we loaded our gear onto the Misty, a small Kenai Fjords tour boat, with acoustics enthusiast Dan Olsen as our skipper, and joined kids from the Chugach School District for our yearly outing, part of the Youth Area Watch program (YAW). Kids in YAW live in Exxon Valdez oil spill affected communities, and work with scientists on various projects. On Saturday, the kids were homeschoolers from Anchorage as well as some kids from Whittier, a tiny community in Prince William Sound. We had fair seas and encountered AD pod in their usual May haunt, the Agnes Bay/Porcupine Cove area along the Aialik Peninsula. Our initial encounter was with the AD5 matriline, which includes the infamous "Lobster," a mature male with a folded-over dorsal fin. Lobster, along with his niece Auriga, was named by kids on a previous YAW trip. The whales were hunting Chinook (king) salmon that day, with some social activity as well, mainly between Lobster, Auriga and Pringle, two juveniles. After a couple hours observing the AD5s, we received a call from a tour boat: another pod was coming our way. Having photographed all of the AD5 matriline, we rushed over toward Cape Aialik and found the whales in a close group, traveling north. They were the AD8 and AK2 matrilines socializing together. Last year’s AK calf, Whittier, was there, and we were delighted to see the first new calf of the 2007 season, born to AD8. We named this little whale, whose white patches are tinted orange, as all first year killer whale calves’ are, "Little Mary Lowell." In the early part of the 20th century, Mary, the daughter of a homesteading family in Seward, spent her entire and, sadly, short life along the shores of Resurrection Bay. In our next update, we will try to include photos of both the real Mary Lowell and her killer whale namesake. Both Whittier and Little Mary were gamboling together in the midst of this social aggregation.

Today, Sunday, was a different day. Luckily, despite the gray and rainy weather, the plane from Tatitlek and Valdez arrived on time, bringing new faces as well as kids who were with us in years past. Gwen, from Tatitlek, immediately asked after "George" and "Tatitlek," killer whales named on the last trip she was on. We were able to tell her that both had been seen yesterday. Also along on the trip were NGOS board member Eric Knudsen and his son Alex, from Homer. We were a bit worried, as the weather forecast was dire, with gale warnings for out in the Gulf of Alaska. But fortunately, the waters were not so rough that we couldn’t work, and the kids were hearty. Not one kid suffered from seasickness, and they were rewarded by a visit from the AD5 matriline, again chasing Chinook salmon from Agnes Bay to Porcupine Cove, traveling rapidly and very spread out. We were able to photoidentify each one, and the kids were particularly pleased to see Lobster and to have a close view of China Poot, a young male whose fin is just beginning to straighten out, and who swam over to the boat several times and looked up at us. They also observed Dall’s porpoises taking a break from feeding to harass the killer whales, a sea lion thrashing and then gulping down a fish, several mountain goats on the mountainsides, and a Bonaparte’s gull, a species we see only in early spring before it heads north to breed. The kids got to practice identifying the whales we photographed by comparing digital pictures on the computer to the catalogue.

We saw humpback whales on both days, on Saturday a cow and calf, and today, a single small whale, possibly a one or two year old. The calf was very surface active, breaching several times, but its mother was not fluking, so we weren’t able to identify her. The smaller whale today did fluke, and after examining its photograph on the computer, we were able to determine that it hadn’t been seen before. Perhaps it’s one of the calves we observed last summer feeding in the same area.

Now we will drive back to Homer to enjoy a few days on land before we take to the air to make the journey to False Pass. From a phone message, we know that things are going well out there so far, with several small groups of killer whales seen, and a satellite tag deployed on one of them. Stay tuned for an update from "out west."

Late April in Prince William Sound, 2007

We just returned from a week in the Sound, where the long, snowy winter was everywhere in evidence. Some mornings we woke to a skim of ice on the deck, and the islands were still draped in white gowns, marred only by avalanches. The hem of snow reached down to the waterline in protected bays. Even on sunny days, we bundled up in hats, mittens and extra layers while scanning for whales from the flying bridge. But spring was also in evidence with varied thrushes singing in the forest, the first nubs of ryegrass poking up on the beaches, and herring eggs clinging to kelp nearshore, where glaucous-winged gulls concentrated, waiting for low tide. Dozens of species of waterfowl and shorebirds foraged the intertidal zone, and humpback whales fed on small fish near the surface, moving around a lot and rarely showing their tail flukes. This spring, Olga von Ziegesar, of Eye of the Whale Research, who has photographed humpbacks in Prince William Sound since 1980, began updating the humpback whale catalogue, which she and Eva hope to finish in the next month. It will include a section of whales we’ve seen only in Kenai Fjords. Thanks to Andy and Kate McLaughlin, of Chenega Bay, the catalogue will also document humpback whales that appear to sometimes over-winter in the Sound. Andy and Kate have photographed dozens of flukes from whales feeding on herring in front of Chenega Village December-March.

We encountered four resident killer whale pods in our short trip last week - part of AE pod, traveling and socializing with the AK1 subpod; the AD16 pod catching what we believe were king salmon (which were feeding on the herring schools near shore); and part of AB pod, resting in the middle of the Sound. All the pods spent a great deal of time resting, and we speculated that the resident killer whales are coming out of a lean time of year, when salmon are less abundant near shore, so they might spend more time conserving energy. They may also forage more at night this time of year, perhaps when feed fish come closer to the surface, bringing the king salmon with them. We didn’t see any new calves in the three groups we followed, but only encountered parts of the AB and AE pods. Stay tuned for news of the season’s first observed calf.

One of the reasons killer whale/longline fishery interactions seem to escalate in April in the Sound, we believe, is because killer whales are hungry and don’t have as many salmon to feed upon. We have been encouraging fishermen to avoid longlining in Prince William Sound in April, waiting until mid-May, when salmon come inshore. Those who fish offshore don’t report interactions with killer whales in April.

When we returned to Seward, we heard from tour boat operators that AD5 pod was back in Resurrection Bay, a sure sign of spring. This pod takes up residence in the bay each May, feeding on king salmon and often attracting other pods from further west, including AX, AY, AS and AH, pods we rarely see otherwise. This weekend, we will take our annual expedition to observe the AD5’s (and other whales) with children from the Chugach School District, which includes villages and towns around Prince William Sound, Kenai Fjords and Cook Inlet.

One of our goals this year is to document seasonal dietary changes in resident killer whales in the Sound, partly by collecting salmon scales at kill sites, as we normally do (using a dip net), and additionally by taking biopsy samples of several animals each month for fatty acid/lipid analysis, which also provides clues to how diet changes. We managed to collect both types of samples last week. A tiny blubber sample provides clues to a whale’s diet a couple of month previous to its collection. We also hope to continue our satellite radio tagging of killer whales this summer, which helps us to refine our understanding of home ranges of different pods and populations, especially at times of year when they seem to "disappear" from the areas where we work. From last year’s radio tagging, we learned that the area between Hinchinbrook Entrance and Kayak Island is important to AB pod in the fall, and that AJ pod frequented Blying Sound, the area between Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords. AK1 subpod traveled all over Prince William Sound in late summer, from the northern areas, the middle Sound, all the way toward Cordova and then again in the southwestern part. A major goal of satellite tagging is to help define critical habitat for killer whales during different times of the year. We were pleased to see AK1, a male tagged last August, and to photograph his dorsal fin. From close inspection of the digital photographs, we could see two barely perceptible marks remaining from the small tag that for five weeks tracked this animal’s movements before it fell off. These marks are invisible to the naked eye, and only became evident when we zoomed in closely on the computer.

Later this month, we will travel again to join skipper and long-time NGOS collaborator Mike Brittain and his boat Dora in False Pass, at the beginning of the Aleutian Islands. It will be our fifth field season working in this area, where transient killer whales aggregate to hunt migrating gray whales, and where brown bears concentrate along the beaches waiting to partake in the feast. Brown bears, just coming out of a long winter, comb the beaches looking for chunks of gray whale blubber or carcasses that wash up, often as a result of killer whale predation. They provide an interesting side-light to our killer whale observations. It’s clear that this annual killer whale potlatch is also a boon to more species, including Pacific sleeper sharks, who feed on sunken carcasses, other fish and crustaceans, seabirds, wolves, and foxes.

The Dora left for its long journey from Seward to False Pass the same day that we headed to Prince William Sound in the Natoa. NGOS volunteer and the coordinator of our marine mammal stranding network, Cy St-Amand, joined Mike for the crossing. In Sand Point, in the Shumagin Islands, Mike was met by Lance Barrett-Lennard and John Durban, who will lead the first leg of the field effort in the False Pass area.

Cy St-Amand and his partner L.A. Holmes have been NGOS volunteers and marine mammal enthusiasts for several years. Both great observers and mariners, they document many marine mammal sightings in Kachemak Bay, and this past winter, Cy became adept at spotting the very shy and inconspicuous harbor porpoises traveling along the Homer Spit. They also are responsible, with the help of a cadre of volunteers, for reporting and collecting dead or injured marine mammals under a special permit, and in this effort, they work closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Alaska Sea Life Center. Their efforts have helped biologists document an increasing number of sick and dead sea otters turning up on the shores of Kachemak Bay. This led the FWS to recognize it as an "unusual mortality event" and they are attempting to determine the causes of this decline. Disease seems to be the major factor. This spring, Cy and L.A. helped with the rescue of a northern elephant seal, a species which rarely strands on beaches in this region. It was sent to the Alaska Sea Life Center for rehabilitation.

As we begin the new field season, we’d like to acknowledge the help of all those who support our research efforts. We are blessed again this year by a wonderful board of directors: Kevin Meyer, Eric Knudsen and Kyra Wagner. Kyra and her husband Neil will volunteer in the field again this year, and Kyra was responsible for organizing all of the field gear this spring. Eric and his son will join us on the Chugach School District trips into Resurrection Bay on May 12-13. We are also fortunate to have the incredible book-keeping abilities of Yvonne Prucha to keep our ducks in order, the logistical support of Jodi Rose, who kept the office going during the years of three boats or more boats and field crews operating in far-flung places around Alaska and who continues to help out, and the computer wizardry of Mike Gracz, who rented the office next door for the last few years and endured being peppered unexpectedly by questions about GIS and other mystical computer matters. Mike Brittain, our stalwart western Alaska skipper, keeps the boats going and keeps everyone safe in the wild field conditions out there. We are very fortunate for the network of tour, pleasure, and charter boats that call in their whale sightings and observations. In Seward, the tour boat fleet has worked with us on a yearly basis to improve the viewing experience for visitors and for marine mammals. We particularly thank Dan Olsen of Kenai Fjords Tours in Seward for his enthusiasm for killer whale acoustics and for keeping us abreast of all the movements of the whales through Resurrection Bay when we are elsewhere. In Prince William Sound, we thank especially the logistical help and support of Chenega Village, Roger and Marilyn Stowell (and Eric and Cory), Jerrry Sanger, Dean Rand and Dave Janka. Oh yeah, it takes money to do all of this! This year, our research is being funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Research Consortium and the Alaska Sea Life Center. And then there are our amazing and talented collaborators: Russ Andrews (tagging project), Lance Barrett-Lennard (False Pass genetics and behavioral biology), Graeme Ellis (photo-identification chief guru), John Durban (False Pass field biology), Dave Ellifrit (False Pass field biology and photo-id ... he put together an amazing catalogue of the killer whales of western Alaska this spring!). The work of learning about and protecting killer whales and their habitats is a group endeavor, and we are very lucky to be part of an amazing community.

Early 2007

This past spring in False Pass and Unimak Island, the weather was far better than in the previous year. Of course we still had a 70 knot storm and occasional snowy days, but we also had a good share of days the wind blew less than 15 knots... great for this wild country. As usual the treeless hills were brown and there were just a few brown bears on the shoreline when we arrived. That would change; the bears became much more numerous as the grassy hill began to green and the blubber chunks began to hit the beach. It’s the arrival of spring in False Pass.
Our observations this year confirmed and solidified some of the hypotheses we had formulated previously and fleshed out many of our ideas. Killer whales hunt grey whales in small groups of 3-7, but after a kill is made and those whales have fed, other groups will come in to feed on the carcass as it rests on the bottom. Other uninvited scavengers also make their appearance such as the Pacific sleeper sharks that we caught on underwater cameras as they came in to take smooth, bowling ball sized chunks of blubber out of the carcass. From other studies it appears these sharks eat only dead marine mammals and may be a major consumer of dead whales... including those that died of causes other than predation. In addition, as many as 30 or 40 killer whales may feed on a carcass although this is rare. When smaller groups feed on the carcass it may last for days... the whales returning repeatedly to raid the refrigerator...

A grey whale attacked by a killer whale.

We watched several attacks this year and one kill. It is now clear that the killer whales can take yearlings and juveniles as well as gray whale calves, maybe whales up to several years of age. The young gray whales only safety lies moving in right along the shore when threatened or staying close beside its mother in the case of a calf. We watched as one cow and calf gray whale beached themselves on a reef after they were pursued and attacked by killer whales. The cow appeared to force the calf right up into the shallows. When the bears saw the killer whales attacking the gray whales they ran down the beach toward them in great excitement... until they saw our boat which stopped them short... but they continued to watch with interest. We have watched as bears sit on their haunches along the shore, apparently fascinated by the action, although supposedly their vision is not great. In this instance the killer whales abandoned the attack, but the gray whales had to thrash and struggle to get off the reef.
We attached the first satellite transmitter to killer whales in False Pass that continued transmitting more than a week or so. In fact some of the transmitters provided location data on the whale for over two months. The tags are still small and attached by two small barbs a few centimeters long into the very touch tissue of the dorsal fins. Resightings of whales that carried tags show only two small scars. We will examine these scars next season. We have already found that some of the 80-100 killer whales that aggregate in False Pass during the gray whale migration move north apparently along with the migration of gray whales, many stay in the area for at least weeks, and some stay in the early summer, moving only a short distance southwest. We will need to attach quite a few more tags next year to develop a more comprehensive picture of their movements. We also hope to collect dive data from some tags, but this requires a different design that may be more difficult to produce in this small form... The tags are only about 8 cm long.

We started a small boat research program in the Pribilofs this year in cooperation with John Durban and the National Marine Mammal Laboratory. We have found from our work in the eastern Aleutians and now in the Pribilofs that, fur seals are a very important prey item for transient killer whales in these areas during summer and fall. Hundreds of thousands of fur seals return to the Pribilofs each year to breed and pup and thousands also breed on Bogoslof Island in the eastern Aleutians. They migrate through the Eastern Aleutians during the spring and fall, as they come and go from their winter feeding areas in the North Pacific. Like harbor seals, which are not abundant in this region, they provide an excellent meal for a killer whale or two, and are much easier to handle than Steller sea lions... human researchers know that from work on the rookeries of both species!

A satellite transmitter attached to a dorsal fin.

Killer whales in the Pribilofs seem to be genetically unique from those in other regions we have studied... And their calls are also a bit different than other transient killer whales. We will be working with other researchers to link acoustics with observations of predation... It appears that killer whales give characteristic calls when they make a kill. Using hydrophones to monitor the calls of the whales around the Pribilofs may be a good way to get an idea of the rates of predation, especially at night when we cannot watch them. We also hope to attach satellite transmitters to killer whales there to understand how far they roam and where they go when the fur seals leave the Pribilofs in the fall. The islands can be a beautiful place to work since the fur seal rookeries are on the lee side, but often the fog can settle in for days or weeks at a time making hard to see anything. We hope to spend at least a month in the Pribilofs this coming season.
The work in Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords was also successful this year. We encountered most all of the resident pods that we photograph to maintain our long-term population work. The trend is still positive for all the resident pods, except for AB pod, which lost 13 whales following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. However there were some new calves in the pod and it is slowly increasing... Hopefully to someday regain it number before the spill; it numbered 36 then and is at 29 now. Unfortunately there were no new calves in the depleted AT1 population of transient killer whales; a group that lost 9 individuals at the time of the EVOS and now numbers only seven whales. These transients appear to be headed for extinction, unless something miraculous happens.

Storage of the blubber collected by biopsy.

We were able to get out four satellite tags on individuals from three resident pods. The whales had little reaction to the attachment process... the dorsal fin does not seem to be as sensitive as the rest of the body. Three of the tags lasted from 5 to 8 weeks and gave us some very interesting information... shedding some light on important feeding habitats for these whales and also defining areas of social aggregations which occurred in September in Port Bainbridge. This next season we plan to launch a major new initiative in Prince William Sound, where will focus on studying diet and movements of AB pod and other residents to determine important feeding areas and whale habitat in the northern Gulf of Alaska. We will combine tagging with sampling of kill sites to determine prey and an examination of chemical markers from biopsy samples to determine specifics of diet and important feeding times and locations. This will be the first time such work has been attempted with killer whales.

We worked with Olga von Ziegesar and Eye of the Whale to continue the long term humpback whale project in Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords. This year was focused on photoidentification as we tried to document as many whales as possible for inclusion in the upcoming catalogue of humpback whales in Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords, a combined venture between our two research groups.
Of course we had our bumps and bruises and boat breakdowns and other adventures. The water pump failed on our boat, Natoa, in Prince William Sound and it took some quick logistics work to get a new one out to an area 70 miles from the nearest road or town, and in False Pass, we hit an uncharted rock that damaged a propeller and shaft and forced us to use another vessel for a week. The larger boat that was chartered for the Pribilofs arrived a week late... But that is all typical for an intense field season in the wild waters of Alaska, where the unexpected is expected. Most important we were able to reconnect with whales that, in some cases, we have been spending time with for over 25 years. Individuals with their own personalities like the goofy AE14 "Chenega Pete" who just loved following us around this year... he showed up everywhere. We first spent time with him in 1980. Its even great to see the standoffish Jeannie, AB10, the oldest female in AB pod, and another whale we have known since the early 1980s. She moves away from the boat, gets behind her son Olsen, AB11, and has a strong, independent air to her. She raised three males which seems to set her apart from the rest of the pod, but only one, Olsen, AB11 survives. Olsen carried a satellite tag for two months this fall and gave us great information on where AB pod goes to feed in the late fall behind Kayak Island off the Copper River delta.

Read the past news updates for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.