Tag Archives: whales in Alaska

Killer Whale or Orca?

August 22, 2021killer whale, Kodiak Wildlife, Orca, Uncategorizedkiller whale, Killer Whale Predation, Killer whales near Kodiak Island, Kodiak Wildlife, Minke Whale, Robin Barefield, whales in Alaska, What do killer whales eat?admin

Do you refer to the sleek black and white animal pictured above as a killer whale or an orca? Of course, a killer whale is not a whale but is the largest member of the dolphin family, but let’s set aside that fact. What you call these marine mammals may depend on your experience with them. If you’ve watched them perform at a marine park, then the name “orca” fits their apparent playful, intelligent demeanor. If you’ve observed them in the wild, then “killer whale” might be a more apt moniker.

We are in the middle of our summer wildlife-viewing and sportfishing trips at our lodge here on Kodiak, and over the last few weeks, we’ve had several encounters with killer whales. One day, they breached, spy hopped, and slapped the water while we watched with delight. They were orcas that day.

Another morning, we had a very different experience. Soon after we left our mooring, we encountered a bull and a cow orca, and we watched and photographed the killer whales for a while, trying to get the perfect shot of the male with his large, majesti

c dorsal fin. Then, we realized the horrific scene playing out in front of us.

The killer whales slowly maimed, tortured, and ate a minke whale while we watched. They first ate the whale’s tail, probably so it couldn’t escape. The poor minke continued to attempt to swim while the orcas followed it, ripping pieces out of it as the whale slowly died. While we watched the killer whales toy with the dying minke, we did not doubt we were watching “killer whales,” not “orcas. They behaved as the apex predators they are, but to us, their actions seemed cruel. Later, when I thought about the incident, I wondered if the killer whales left the minke alive, so it wouldn’t sink, and they could more easily consume it at the surface. Perhaps their actions were practical and not cruel. To those of us watching the saga, it seemed that the whales enjoyed taunting their prey and reveled in watching it suffer.

Male killer whale following maimed minke whale

Our recent encounters with these beautiful, large dolphins have again made me question what we should call them. Where they sit at the top of the food chain, I think they would prefer the name “killer whales.” The title makes them sound majestic and fierce.

Killer whales have strong jaws and up to 52 interlocking teeth. Their powerful tail fluke can stun or kill prey by slapping the water at speeds as high as (52 km per hour). They often feed in groups and can communicate with each other with sonar and by other means. Observers recently reported 50 orcas stalking a blue whale, the largest of all whales.

In the 1970s, marine parks such as Sea World began capturing orcas and training them to do tricks for public shows. People watched these shows and thought the whales were cute and lovable. Many believed they did not deserve the name “killer whale” and began calling the animals “orcas.”

I tend to use both names, just as I have in this post, but it does this majestic animal a disservice to consider it docile and cute. Killer whales are very intelligent, and they are also the top predators in the ocean. They eat sharks, whales, dolphins, fish, seals, sea otters, octopuses, squid, and anything else they want to eat. They deserve our respect, and to watch them in the wild is a rare treat. I know the image of the large bull chewing on the live minke whale will stay with me for the rest of my life. I might never again call a killer whale an orca.

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Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. Sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true crime and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

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Whale Season

May 24, 2020Fin Whale, Humpback Whale, killer whale, Kodiak WildlifeFin Whale, Grey Whale, humpback whale, Minke Whale, Robin Barefield, Sei Whale, Whale Biology, Whale Evolution, whales, whales in Alaska, Wildlife of Kodiak Islandadmin

Spring marks the beginning of whale season here in Alaska. The humpbacks and grey whales begin arriving from their long migrations north from their wintering grounds, and the north Pacific Ocean teems with life as the waters warm and phytoplankton blooms. Swarms of krill and other zooplankton feast on the abundant plant life, and fish such as herring, eulachon, and similar species follow the zooplankton into the bays on Kodiak Island. In turn, huge baleen whales, including fin, sei, and humpback, gather to eat the krill and small fish. I am thrilled any time I see a whale, but I think it’s a special treat to stand in my front yard and watch these magnificent creatures feed and blow.

Sea mammals evolved from land mammals, and they resemble us in many ways. Whales, like humans, have lungs and must breathe air to survive. They are warm-blooded, and they bear live young. Whales nurse their young with milk, and while you might not think of a whale having hair, all whales do have hair at some stage in their development. All members of the order Cetacea evolved 45 million years ago from hoofed mammals, such as cows, sheep, and camels. Comparisons of specific milk protein genes indicate the hippopotamus is the closest, living, land relative to whales.

The order Cetacea contains more than eighty species; although, taxonomists debate the precise number. Biologists have recorded thirty-nine cetacean species in the North American Pacific.

Cetacea comes from the Greek word “ketos,” which means “whale.” All cetaceans have forelimbs modified into flippers and no hind limbs. They have horizontally flattened tails, and they breathe through a nostril, or blowhole, located on the top of the head. A blowhole has a nasal plug that remains closed except when forced open by muscular contractions to breathe. This plug seals when the whale dives. A whale has internal sensory and reproductive organs to reduce drag while swimming, and they do not have external ears but instead have a complex internal system of air sinuses and bones to detect sounds.The lungs of a cetacean are relatively small, highly elastic, and elongated. A whale has a muscular diaphragm, allowing the animal to purge a large amount of air in a short time. With each respiration, a whale replaces 80% to 90% of the air in its lungs. During a deep dive, a cetacean slows its heart rate and decreases blood flow to peripheral tissues.

Cetaceans living in the cold ocean waters of the North Pacific must somehow maintain a body temperature nearly the same as a human’s body temperature. A whale uses several mechanisms to accomplish this feat. First, it has a thick layer of blubber with few blood vessels, reducing the heat loss at the body surface. A whale has a counter-current heat exchanger, with arteries surrounding veins at the periphery. Hence, vessels flowing from the cold periphery to the warm core partially absorb heat lost by vessels flowing from the core toward the surface. A cetacean also has a high metabolic rate to produce heat, and it has a low body surface to volume ratio, which conserves heat. Finally, a whale has a slower respiration rate than a land mammal, so the whale expels warm air less frequently.

Most cetaceans produce large calves, and the large body volume relative to surface area minimizes heat loss in the calf. Calves are born tail first, and as soon as the calf emerges from the birth canal, the mother or another whale nudges it to the surface for its first few breaths.^[3]Cetacean mothers nurse their calves with a pair of teats concealed in slits along the body wall. The milk has a high-fat content, and the calves grow at a rapid rate. Whale mothers tend and guard their calves closely, and a calf often rides the bow wave or the convection currents produced by its mother or another adult when the whales travel. This method of travel is so efficient that the calf barely needs to move its flukes to keep up with the group.

Two suborders comprise the order Cetacea: The Mysticeti or baleen whales and the Odontoceti, or toothed whales. We most commonly see fin whales in Uyak Bay, but we also spot sei, humpback, minke, and killer whales. No matter the species, whenever I see a spout of water, excitement buzzes through me while I watch one of the largest animals on the planet.

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Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

Alaska Wilderness Mystery Novels by Author Robin Barefield: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman's Daughter, and Karluk Bones. — Write caption…

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Why are Gray Whales Dying?

July 14, 2019Gray Whale, Kodiak WildlifeBering Sea, Climate Change, Gray Whale Deaths, Gray Whales, Ocean Warming, Unusual Mortality Event, whales in Alaskaadmin

One-hundred-seventy-one gray whales have washed up on Pacific beaches from Mexico to Alaska so far this year. Seventy-eight whales were spotted off the coast of Mexico, 85 in U.S. waters, and eight near Canada. Of the whales found along the U.S. Pacific Coast, 37 dead whales were spotted in California, five in Oregon, 29 in Washington, and 14 in Alaska. Since most whales sink to the ocean floor when they die, the 171 recovered carcasses probably represent only a fraction of the number of gray whales that have died on their northward migration this spring and summer.

In my last post, I wrote about tufted puffins dying on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, and I explained how their deaths are likely linked to the warming ocean temperatures in the Bering Sea. It comes as no surprise to learn puffins aren’t the only animals affected by warming water temperatures and melting sea ice. From the smallest zooplankton to the most massive whales, all animals in the region are feeling the impact of climate change.

Gray whales have one of the longest migrations of any mammal. In the summer they feed in the Arctic in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas, and in the fall, they migrate to their calving grounds in the southern Gulf of California and Baja Mexico, a migration of 5000 to 7000 miles (8,050 – 11,275 km) each way. Their average swimming speed is only 3 to 5 mph (5-8 km/hr), so this migration takes a long time.

The known deaths of 171 whales have induced the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to declare an “unusual mortality event” and launch an investigation to determine why the whales are dying. Necropsies of the whales indicate most have starved to death. Ship strikes killed four found in San Francisco Bay, and since gray whales don’t usually enter this area, researchers assume these animals were stressed and perhaps searching for food.

Investigators aren’t sure why the whales are starving, but they think it’s possible the gray whale population has exceeded its carrying capacity under current conditions. In other words, there are too many gray whales and not enough food.

We know gray whales have been impacted by ocean warming in recent years. During the summer of 2018, waters in the Bering Sea soared nine degrees warmer than average. These increasing seawater temperatures have reduced winter ice cover in the region, which has led to a reduction in productivity. Primary productivity in the northern Bering Sea declined 70% from 1988 to 2004. This previously ice-dominated, shallow ecosystem favored large communities of benthic amphipods (the favorite food of gray whales), but it has now been replaced by an ecosystem dominated by smaller species of zooplankton, such as krill. Gray whales have responded by migrating further north to the Chukchi Sea, but amphipods might now be disappearing from this region as well, forcing gray whales to consume less nutritious krill, and krill might not contain the percentage of fatty acids the whales need to build adequate blubber.

Scientists expect to find more dead gray whales this summer, and one was recently washed up on a beach on Kodiak Island. NOAA continues to monitor the mortality event and posts updates on this website.

If you enjoy listening to podcasts, I invite you to check out mine: Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

http://murder-in-the-last-frontier.blubrry.net.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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Two Tales of Entangled Tails

August 16, 2015Humpback Whale, Kodiak Wildlife, UncategorizedHumpback whales, Humpbacks in Alaska, Whale entagled, whales in Alaska, Whales near Kodiak Islandadmin

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.

I hoped that would be the only entangled whale I ever saw, but unfortunately, on July 29^th, 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.