I love watching our guests relax as they transition from their stress-filled lives into our peaceful, wild world. When they first step off the floatplane, they are often quiet and perhaps even a little wary. They’ve just flown forty-five minutes into the heart of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, and there are no roads or stores here. There’s just a small lodge and a few boats.
We feed them lunch, Mike explains what they will be doing for the next few days, and we tell them to meet us at the dock in twenty minutes for their first-afternoon cruise on our 43-ft. boat. They laugh at the sea otters and harbor seals and snap photos of bald eagles and other wildlife, but most remain quiet, and separate groups keep to themselves.
On the first full day, we go either bear viewing or fishing, and by that evening, I begin to see the first signs of relaxation, as our guests step out of their lives for a few days and into a world that revolves around tides and wild animals. They ask us questions about the wildlife they’ve seen, tell us about their families, and describe other travel adventures they have had. They linger for a few minutes after dinner, discussing the day’s events with their fellow adventures.
By the fourth day, the mood on the boat is often raucous. These strangers, who on day one traded only polite comments, are now teasing each other and sharing photos and e-mail addresses. They sigh the last morning when they step off our boat for the final time. They complain that the week flew by too quickly and vow to return again soon.
We’ve had beautiful weather so far this summer, and we’ve enjoyed great whale watching. At times, we’ve been surrounded by fin whales, and one of the highlights of the summer was when a humpback breached several times right in front of us! Halibut fishing has been very good, and we’ve had some of the best salmon fishing we can remember. Pink salmon swarmed into Brown’s Lagoon in July, and we had non-stop action. Meanwhile, large schools of silver salmon filled the bay. The run was a month early, and it is likely that the early salmon were headed elsewhere and just stopped in Uyak Bay to feast on the large schools of herring and other small fish that have been so abundant this summer. The rich food base of krill and small schooling fish is also undoubtedly why we’ve had so many whales in the bay.
Due to our warm weather, we’ve had another bumper crop of berries this summer, and the bears are torn between catching salmon and feeding on berries. Bears are much more plentiful than they were the first half of last summer, but we are sometimes frustrated as we wait for them to lose interest in berries and concentrate on salmon. The rich and plentiful food source of berries and salmon the last few summers has provided great nutrition for the bears, and we’ve seen numerous groups of sows and cubs this summer.
On the home front, Mary Schwarzhans is again wowing our guests with her creative and delicious meals, and we are thrilled that Mary’s sister, Emma, is also working for us this summer. The two of them make our lives much easier and more pleasant, and our guests tell us that even if we didn’t have spectacular wildlife and fishing here, they would return to Munsey’s Bear Camp just for the food. I suspect that stepping out of their lives and truly relaxing for a few days might be another reason to return.
It has been estimated that marine mammal entanglement results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals world-wide each year. Humpback whales, with their long pectoral fins, flexible tail flukes, and acrobatic behavior, are very susceptible to entanglement in fishing gear, crab pot lines, and marine debris. A scar-analysis study on humpback whales in northern Southeast Alaska indicated that nearly 78% of the whales in that population have scars, suggesting that they have recently been entangled in some sort of gear.
Entangled marine mammals may drown if they are not able to get to the surface to breathe, or even if they can get to the surface, they may starve if they can’t feed. Summers in Alaska are when baleen whales ingest enough zooplankton and small fish to sustain them for the rest of the year, so any lengthy period of time away from feeding can be critical. Whales may also suffer physical trauma, develop systemic infections from their wounds, or be hit by a vessel due to the whale’s lack of agility and inability to avoid it. Even if the whale manages to get free from the entangling nets or lines, there may be long-term impacts, such as a reduction in reproductive success.
A few summers ago, we were motoring back to our lodge after a day of bear viewing with a group of summer guests, when friends called on the VHF radio and told us they had spotted a humpback whale that had gotten a crab pot line, with the crab pot still attached, wrapped around its tail. They wanted to take a closer look at the whale, so Mike picked them up in the 19-ft. whaler that we were towing behind us, and I stayed aboard our 43-ft boat with our guests and worried about the dangers involved in approaching a 45-foot, 40-ton mammal. They didn’t want to get too close to the whale and stress him even further, but they wanted to see how badly he was entangled in the lines.
The National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) warns all well-meaning, untrained individuals to never approach or attempt to disentangle a large whale on their own, and in fact, it is illegal to attempt to disentangle a whale without the permission of the NMFS. NMFS is part of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA), and NOAA has a whale-disentanglement hotline (877-925-7773) that citizens can call to report entangled whales and initiate an “immediate” disentanglement response by trained rescuers. Rescuers throw grapples or use hooks on the ends of poles to attach to the entangling gear. They then attach large buoys, approach the whale to assess it and its entanglements, and use specially-designed knives on the ends of long poles to cut the whale free.
The idea of calling trained individuals to rescue this whale greatly appealed to me, and while it was a Friday evening, the hotline information stated it was a 24/7 hotline. I made the call on the satellite phone, but a recording informed me the office would be closed until Monday. Unfortunately for this humpback, he had become entangled after office hours.
We watched the whale fight its way to the surface to breathe, only to be pulled back under water by the heavy crab pot. After the whale became entangled, he apparently drug the gear into deeper water while he was trying to free himself. Now, the pot kept pulling him beneath the surface. His breathing was labored, and it sounded as if he was gasping for air. Mike and our friends slowly approached him, but the whale continued to thrash and move away from them. Finally, he moved quite a distance away, and they worried they were stressing him, so they left him alone.
We continued back to our lodge, and when we tied up to our mooring, we heard the distressed blow of the whale. He had followed us home, and the good news was that he was now in much shallower water, and the crab pot was resting on the ocean bottom and not continuously dragging him under water.
We watched the whale from a distance off and on all evening, and finally at 10:00 that night, Mike saw him raise his tail in the air several times before swimming away. Without the weight of the crab pot dragging him down, he was able to disentangle himself from the gear.
Humpback Breaching
I hoped that would be the only entangled whale I ever saw, but unfortunately, on July 29th, 2015, we encountered another humpback whale with a crab pot wrapped around its tail. Since it was a Wednesday, I had hope that the whale-disentanglement experts would come to its rescue. We placed the call, and they recorded our information: Latitude and longitude, species and type of entanglement, condition of the whale, and the speed and direction it was moving. We hoped they would be able to mobilize immediately, but we were informed they would not be able to come out until the following day. We were concerned the whale wouldn’t make it that long and hoped that his humpback, like the previous humpback, would drag the pot into shallow water and set himself free.
That evening when we returned home with our guests, the humpback had moved several miles and was now in front of our lodge. We were happy he had made it to shallower water, but when we examined him more closely, we saw that he had wrapped the line several additional times very tightly around his tail. We were dubious he could be disentangled at this point. Before long, he slowly headed back toward deep water, and we feared he wouldn’t last much longer.
The following day, there was no sign of the whale or the buoy attached to the crab pot line. We searched the bay but saw nothing, so we called the disentanglement experts, and they cancelled their rescue mission. We hoped the whale had somehow freed himself, but we feared that wasn’t likely.
I imagined this tale of the entangled tail would have a happy ending like my first tale, and it is possible the whale did free himself and swim away, but I doubt it. At first I was upset with the disentanglement crew. If they had arrived a day earlier, they probably could have freed him. I was upset with us, because we didn’t have the knowledge and skills to help the whale, even if it was legal, and I was irritated at the crab fisherman for having his gear in the way of a whale. The more I thought about it, though, I realized that’s just the way it is when you choose to live in the wilderness so far from town. The members of the disentanglement crew have lives and jobs and can’t just drop everything to fly across the island on a moment’s notice to help a whale. That’s an expensive, complex endeavor that takes some time and planning. Even if we did have the proper equipment, training, and permission, approaching a huge whale is a dangerous task and best orchestrated and performed by those who have had previous experience. Finally, all of us who live and work near the ocean on Kodiak at sometime drop crab pots or deploy fish nets. It was nobody’s fault that this young whale, perhaps out of curiosity or playfulness, decided to approach this crab pot line too closely. It was just bad luck.
This summer and fall several dead whales were spotted in the Western Gulf of Alaska, with the majority clustered around Kodiak Island. The number of deaths now stands at 43 whales, including fin whales, humpbacks, and, at least, one gray whale. So far, none of the whale carcasses that could be accessed have been in good enough shape to provide a clue to the cause of the deaths, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is so concerned that they have classified the deaths an “unusual mortality event” (UME). A UME is defined as a significant die-off of a marine mammal population, and such an event demands an immediate response and triggers a focused, expert investigation into the cause.
At nearly the same time dead whales were being discovered in Alaska, whales were also dying off the coast of southern Chile. In November, biologists in Chile announced that in June, 337 sei whales were found beached in a region of southern Patagonia in Chile. This is one of the largest whale strandings ever recorded. While these whales were found beached, researchers think they died at sea and washed up on the beach.
What caused the deaths of the whales in Alaska and Chile, and did they all die from the same cause? Sadly, we may never know the answers to these questions, but biologists in both Alaska and Chile suspect a harmful algae bloom may be the culprit. Most of the dead whales are baleen whales that feed low on the food chain, making them highly susceptible to a toxic algae bloom. What makes this scenario even more believable is that abnormally warm water conditions in the Pacific Ocean this summer led to a massive toxic algae bloom of the single-celled algae Pseudo-nitzschia.
Pseudo-nitzschia produces domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin. Under normal circumstances, a domoic acid concentration of 1,000 nanograms per liter is considered high, but in mid-May, concentrations 10 to 30 times this level were found in the North Pacific. Domoic acid accumulates in zooplankton, shellfish and fish, and when mammals and birds eat these organisms, the accumulated acid overstimulates the predator’s nervous system, causing the animal to become disoriented and lethargic. Ingestion of high concentrations of domoic acid can lead to seizures and death.
In addition to Pseudo-nitzschia, the warm-ocean-water conditions in the Pacific also may have resulted in blooms of other toxic algae, but if toxic algae are the culprit, why aren’t other mammals or birds dying as a result? These are questions researchers are scrambling to answer, and recently they have been rechecking photos to see if there is any evidence that the whales may have starved to death. Warmer ocean conditions may also have led to a reduction in the prey of these huge whales that must eat nearly continuously all summer to build a large enough blubber layer to last them through the winter.
There is no time frame for when a UME must end, and biologists plan to keep researching the whale deaths for a while longer, but they admit the cause may never be known. One dead whale washed up a few miles from where we live, but we saw many other whales this summer that seemed to be feeding and acting normally, and I hope the whale deaths were an anomaly that won’t continue next spring and summer.
Next week I’ll go into more detail about toxic algae blooms. For those of you who have read my novel, Murder Over Kodiak, you may remember that Jane Marcus was studying paralytic shellfish poisoning, a condition caused by a poisonous algae bloom, and since toxic algae have been in the news this year, I think it will be an interesting topic to tackle.
I am FINALLY ready to send my first Mystery Newsletter to those who have signed up for my list. I plan to mail it on January 6th, so if you haven’t signed up for my list yet, do so soon on my home page. My first newsletter will chronicle the events of the McCarthy massacre of 1983. Thanks, and be sure to leave a comment to let me know what you think of my post!
and other wildlife, but most remain quiet, and separate groups keep to themselves.
We’ve had beautiful weather so far this summer, and we’ve enjoyed great whale watching. At times, we’ve been surrounded by fin whales, and one of the highlights of the summer was when a humpback breached several times right in front of us! Halibut fishing has been very good, and we’ve had some of the best salmon fishing we can remember. Pink salmon swarmed into Brown’s Lagoon in July, and we had non-stop action. Meanwhile, large schools of silver salmon filled the bay. The run was a month early, and it is likely that the early salmon were headed elsewhere and just stopped in Uyak Bay to feast on the large schools of herring and other small fish that have been so abundant this summer. The rich food base of krill and small schooling fish is also undoubtedly why we’ve had so many whales in the bay.
bears are torn between catching salmon and feeding on berries. Bears are much more plentiful than they were the first half of last summer, but we are sometimes frustrated as we wait for them to lose interest in berries and concentrate on salmon. The rich and plentiful food source of berries and salmon the last few summers has provided great nutrition for the bears, and we’ve seen numerous groups of sows and cubs this summer.
