Fort Bragg”s Whale Festival watchers could make a genuine scientific contribution to the study of killer whales, says biologist Bradley Hanson.
“We need to get as many people looking as possible to spot the orcas. The more eyes, binoculars and cameras looking the better,” said Hanson, who is with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration”s Seattle Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
Orca watching is something like a “Where”s Waldo” detective game of whale watching. While huge California gray whales are plentiful and relatively easy to approach by boat, much smaller orcas move quickly and have only been spotted a handful of times off Fort Bragg.
Since Southern Resident killer whales were listed as an endangered species three years ago, efforts have been under way to study the orcas. The Southern Resident killer whales differ from Arctic and Antarctic cousins in biology, more playful behavior and appearance.
It is believed there are less than 100 individuals in the Southern Resident population. Hanson believes all have been seen and recorded, but welcomes help from the public in resolving many unanswered questions.
To that end, this reporter sent Hanson photos of killer whales taken by photographer Ron LeValley on his back porch in Little River on July 22, 2007. LeValley has also been a working biologist since the 1960s and has seen more killer whales off Northern California than NOAA has on record. He had planned to send the photos himself.
LeValley also saw orcas on Jan. 14, 2006, from the Spring Ranch, new state park area just north of his house and Van Damme beach.
He has seen orcas off Northern California occasionally since 1965 when he started practicing his trade as a biologist and recovered an orca skull in 1976. He was then working in the Farallon Islands off San Francisco. He later was an author of the management plan for the new refuge there.
Hanson asked Candice Emmons, NOAA”s expert on Southern Residents, to look at LeValley”s photos. He said it was likely they were too far away for even experts to identify the saddles that would determine whether they were the endangered Southern Residents. The only confirmed sighting off Fort Bragg Hanson had on record was made on March 18 of last year. Anyone who spots a killer whale can call 1-866- Orca Net (672-2638), he said.
Hanson said killer whales are hard to confuse with anything else. While a great white shark can have a large dorsal fin, even that leviathan doesn”t compare to the towering dorsal of the male orca, which often measures 6 feet in height. Plus, orcas visibly breathe then dive, while sharks don”t breathe and usually continue to swim along the surface once they have chosen that route.
“The Southern Residents are known for their percussive behaviors including breaching,” he said.
Their behaviors include much other surface activity, that might be interpreted by people as “play,” which is as good an explanation as the scientific community has for the aerial activities of the brainy sea mammals.
Listening device
The latest local effort to learn about the killer whale population is a listening device installed three miles off Point Cabrillo by NOAA, with the help of local diver and fisherman Dan Platt.
The underwater device will record all sounds in the ocean until May, then be retrieved and plugged into a computer. Killer whale songs can be heard for up to five miles.
Platt helped install the subsurface mooring being used by the listening device. He made posters identifying the exact location of the device (N 39.20892 W 123.53601) and hung them around town to warn fishermen.
Hanson said consulting with local fishermen caused NOAA to alter placement of the device five miles offshore, perfect for listening for the orcas, which are found from 10 miles to a few feet offshore.
“We did that to stay out of the way of the trollers,” said Hanson.
Identifying orcas
There is much controversy in the scientific community about the identity of whales seen occasionally off California. Many scientists believe the Southern Resident population has shifted south for unknown reasons since the year 2000, when northern Oregon was considered the extreme southern end of their range.
Sightings reported to NOAA can help resolve those questions.
However, identifying the orcas takes some practice and a good eye.
Hanson describes the distinctive features of most, but not all Southern Residents as a ” primary open saddle with black in the middle of the saddle.”
What does that mean?
Hanson said most orcas have a gray solid area below the dorsal fin, while that area is likely to have some black markings among Southern Residents.
“It is unique to Southern Residents,” he said.
One needs a great telephoto camera or a trained eye to tell the difference, photos Hanson provided show.
Southern Residents being spotted regularly off Fort Bragg would impact any ocean development, such as wave energy proposals now on the table off Fort Bragg by PG&E and off Mendocino by GreenWave Energy Solutions.
Ron LeValley”s orca and other wildlife photographs can be seen on his Website, www.levalleyphoto.com. He is also a member of the Mendocino Coast Photographer Guild and Gallery in the Company Store in Fort Bragg.
