Sunday Census

Weather Today: 

  • Sky overcast with rain earlier in the afternoon
  • Visibility 10nm
  • 25-30 knots NW
  • Swells up to 0.75 m, 1 foot chop

Visitors: Over the weekend we had roughly 5 ecotour vessels per day with a couple of pleasure craft daily. Today, a private vessel spent the late afternoon in the reserve supporting divers in the water near the jetty.

Ecological: 

  • Yesterday we were surprised by a humpback whale just off of the NE side of the rock. We spotted the whale, as well as two ecotour vessels just on the edge of the reserve, shortly after heading outside. It was huge!

Humpback Whale

  • Erica/GE103 seems to have moved along, we haven’t seen her in a few days now.
  • More sea lions seem to be hauling out, or maybe it’s just that they’re getting more comfortable! They’ve been very persistent about coming up onto the middle of the island but we’ve been able to keep them away from the burial cairns. It seems as though they are unable to read the no trespassing signs…

Census: 

  • 192 cormorants
  • 96 harbour seals
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 1 bald eagle
  • 950 california gulls
  • 75 glaucus gulls
  • 229 stellar sea lions
  • 1116 california sea lions
  • 3 canada geese
  • 26 turnstones
  • 1 sea otter

Storms on the Way

Weather Today: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, intermittent rain
  • Visibility
  • 20-35 knots W- SW throughout the day
  • Sea state: Swells up to 1.5 m, 1-2 foot chop

Visitors: Few boats through the reserve today as the seas have been a bit rough. A few eco-tourism boats in late afternoon watching a humpback whale just outside of the reserve.

Ecological: 

  • Not many unusual bird sightings this week as it has been incredibly windy. Quite a few more cormorants this week!
  • Erica, or GE103 has been enjoying napping around race rocks still this week. Her favorite spot is the jetty, although if there are too many sea lions she will venture higher onto the middle part of the island for some proper rest.

Census: 

  • 69 Harbour seals
  • 23 Glaucous-winged gulls
  • 163 California gulls
  • 43 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 263 Stellar sea lions
  • 695 California sea lions
  • 2 Bald eagles
  • 1 Elephant seall
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 1 Humpback whale (just outside of the reserve)
  • 10 Black turnstones
  • 5 Savannah sparrows

Sunny Day + Census

Weather:

  • Visibility 15 NM
  • Sky partly cloudy
  • Wind 0-5 knots N
  • Sea state calm

Boats/Visitors: None

Ecological:

  • Yesterday we saw a humpback whale pass through the straight roughly 1 NM away. Notably, this is only the second time that we have spotted a whale from Race Rocks without tourism vessels following close behind.
  • Not seen today in our census, there have been many black turnstones in the reserve this week (at least 10 at once).
  • Early this week we spotted what looked like a non-breeding adult willet. It seems as if it would be unusual to see one here so we are unsure if this is the correct ID. Without a photo it’s hard to be sure!

Census:

  • 9 elephant seals
  • 180 seagulls
  • 134 harbor seals
  • 112 sea lions
  • 11 cormorants
  • 6 oyster catchers
  • 2 adult bald eagles

Humpback Whales Breaching!!!

Wind from the east at 25 to 30 knots

In the light house around 9 a.m. and noticed splashing to the south.

My binoculars caught the flukes of the whales hitting the water.

I watched and counted the flukes smashing the water 10 times.

Then the whales started breaching.

I counted 50 breaches. When I counted in the teens the 2 whales breached in synchrony, for about 3 breaches. Then one whale seemed to take a break and I saw a few breaths but the other kept leaping! After I counted 36 breaches both whales seemed to take a breath ( I saw 2 breaths ) then started up again until I counted 50.

So beautiful!

 

It was a wild, windy day

 

 

 

Student Visit

Weather: 

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Sky: overcast
  • Wind: 15-20 kn NW
  • Water: Little choppy under 1 foot

Visitors/Boats: 

  • The past few days we have seen more pleasure crafts than tour boats and these pleasure crafts get way too close and I can never find them on the radio because it is very hard to know which channel they are on
  • A group students stayed Saturday night to film around the island looking at ecological impacts which around here are mostly due to sea lions trampling all the green and turning it into mud

Ecological

  • The little steller is still around, haven’t noticed any new injuries on any of the sea lions
  • the sea lion that was by the jetty before that seemed lethargic and didn’t really respond to people left for 2 maybe 3 days and is now back in the same spot and it is much more energetic and responsive than before
  • the number of sea lions seems to have gone up from the last census by about 100, will post more numbers below
  • I have been consistently seeing about two humpback whales per day

Maintenance

  • The fence now only needs typically one minor repair per day, the sea lions are getting used to staying away from it
  • I still need to stay on top of clearing them away from certain areas, they seem to not crowd the entrance to the generator room anymore or the burial cairns as much, but they have taken a strong liking to the grass around the lighthouse

Census

  • Sea Lions – 600, most of them are californias
  • Harbour Seals – 30
  • Gulls – 40
  • Canada Geese – 24
  • Fox Sparrow – 3
  • Turnstones – 30
  • Cormorants – 50
  • Sea Otter – 1
  • Humpback Whales – about 2 per day

More Disappointing Eco-Tourism Activity

This afternoon we observed a vessel enter the reserve while a humpback whale was present. The whales typically maintain position in the strong currents for upwards of 30 minutes, appearing to be feeding on plankton as it’s pushed towards them.

Today a humpback whale entered the reserve to hover in the current. Within 2 minutes an eco-tourism vessel came speeding towards it from the Victoria direction. The boat entered the reserve behind the whale, and the whale turned back the way it had come to move away from it and avoid becoming trapped. The whale was deterred from remaining in the reserve as they normally would do and made swiftly towards Victoria as the boat followed it closely away from Race Rocks.

We have observed vessels conducting themselves in this way on many other occasions, but often they leave the reserve quickly when we make ourselves visible.

 

Visitors of All Kinds

Weather: 

  • Wind 5-15 knots SW
  • Sky: Mostly grey, cloudy. Some rain and fog. Periods of partial clearing.
  • Water: Rippled, fairly calm.
  • Visibility: 10-13 miles

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Guy came to pick up our weekend visitors who headed home this afternoon. It was nice to have some company out here on the rock!
  • There were only a handful of whale watching boats in the reserve today since it was quite cloudy and rainy. We were surprised to discover a vessel hovering within 50 meters of a whale within the reserve this evening.

Ecological: 

  • While taking a water temperature reading we accidentally spotted a humpback whale hovering in the main channel! It stayed for about 30 minutes, surfacing approximately every 5 minutes in the same spot, facing towards the current.
  • The seagull chicks have continued to hatch and there are too many to count. They blend in with the yellowing grasses extremely well and have grown to be twice their original size in only a week. We noticed that one chick near the fuel shed hatched but did not survive, while its two nest mates appear to be healthy.
  • There has been one male stellar sea lion on middle rock for the past few days, and appears to not be moving much at all.
  • The goslings are nearly full grown now, and have been swimming

Census

  • 230 Harbour seals
  • 350 adult seagulls and many, many chicks
  • 4 moulting male elephant seals
  • 1 male stellar sea lion
  • A handful of pigeon guillemots
  • 8 adult oyster catchers, at least 7 chicks spotted
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 2 families of geese, and one additional adult pair
  • 1 nest of barn swallows

Whales in the area today and new male elephant seal.

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  15-25 NE
  • Sky: cloudy for the most part, bit of sun came through
  • Water: a bit choppy today

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a couple boats cruise by

Ecological

  • same amount of sea lions
  • one large male elephant seal
  • a couple eagles
  • there were also maybe 3 humpbacks and about 4 orcas around

Notes

  • it does still look like there are quite a few sea lions around, will do the census tomorrow

Dangers of a Humpback Comeback

A humpback dives next to a whale-watching Zodiac. The mammals’ unpredictable surfacing sometimes leads to unintended close encounters. Photograph By Prince of Whales Whale Watching

This article is from the Times Colonist newspaper of August 27, 2017

A recent collision between a Victoria whale-watching vessel and a humpback near Race Rocks was “anything but a freak accident,” says researcher Jackie Hildering.
Hildering, a director of the Port McNeill Marine Education and Research Society, isn’t being judgmental or critical. The comeback of humpbacks has been so remarkable on the West Coast that they catch even professionals by surprise.
Last summer, the Pacific Whale Watch Association, which represents whale-watching companies in B.C. and Washington state, reported that humpbacks have made a major comeback. An estimated 21,000 whales are in Pacific Northwest waters, compared with just 1,600 when the whaling industry, which included Vancouver Island, closed in the mid-1960s.

Their behaviour is different from the orca behaviours boaters are accustomed to — which contributes to the problem.

A Zodiac vessel operated by the Prince of Whales company struck a humpback near Race Rocks on Aug. 7. Two people were taken to hospital with injuries.

“The very fact that a whale-watch captain, who knows the behaviour of the whales, can have such an unfortunate accident proves how very real the risk of collision is to boaters i.e., this is anything but a freak accident,” Hildering said in an email to the Times Colonist.

As for ordinary boaters, she said, they are “not aware that the humpbacks are back.” The lack of awareness can lead to interactions that are dangerous for both humans and humpbacks, which can be “astoundingly oblivious of boats, especially when they are feeding.”

Vilifying boaters or whale-watchers for striking or almost striking humpbacks is “not part of the solution” to minimizing the risk of such incidents, she said.

Hildering does not believe that humpback strikes are isolated incidents. She’s concerned that boaters who feel guilty about making contact or nearly hitting humpbacks are reluctant to report what has happened, which reinforces the incorrect idea that such occurrences are rare.

That kind of misunderstanding can lead to dangerous outcomes for both humans and humpbacks, she said. She wants to encourage anyone in a vessel to report any incidents so that the humpback involved can be identified and the nature of their injury recorded.

The non-profit society has been part of a federally funded campaign to increase boater awareness of whales for years, she said. She asks that boaters report any incidents to 1-800-465-4336, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Incident Reporting Line.

“The risk is very real to both the whales and boaters,” she said, citing three more known humpback strikes this summer, off Kitimat on July 2, in Haida Gwaii at the end of June, in which three people were injured and one of them airlifted to hospital and in July off Campbell River, leading to a shoulder injury for a boater.

In the same way that an elk can jump onto a highway, humpbacks can emerge suddenly from the depths, she said. On June 25, the Haida Gwaii Observer reported that two men were airlifted to hospital with serious injuries when a guided fishing boat hit a humpback just outside Naden Harbour.

“It did not breach — it surfaced to take air, a couple of inches showing above the water,” said Sgt. Steve Vince of the Masset RCMP.

Responders saw what appeared to be whale tissue lodged on the hull of the boat, which had been travelling at about 20 knots.

On July 2, a humpback collided with a boat on Bishop Bay near Kitimat. According to MERS, one of the occupants contacted the report line to say: “We were on the lookout and did not see any signs of whales being present. The humpback surfaced out of nowhere right in front of the boat. We could not get out of the way of the whale. The boat slammed the whale and became airborne and we were thrown around the boat. It was terrifying. We want [the collision] to count so that others are more aware of the risk.”

“Simply put, the return of humpbacks from the brink of extinction is a game changer for boaters,” Hildering said and the society is trying to get the word out through presentations, coast-wide signage reading “see a blow go slow” and the media.

There are about 50 signs already posted that illustrate the potential impact between humpbacks and boaters placed on the West Coast.

“They are up in many locations in Victoria. And we are always looking for more sponsors for them,” she said.

The presence of a lot of birds is a sign that whales might be underwater, seeking the same kind of food, krill and herring that baleen whales such as humpbacks eat. Humpback blows can be two metres high, but are hard to see in windy conditions.

Among the differences she cites: Humpbacks do not have bio-sonor as do toothed whales, such as orcas. They do not travel in one direction, are not as easy to see because they spend less time on the surface of the water and just because they dive deep doesn’t mean they’ve gone away. Humpback generally dive for five to eight minutes, but can stay down as long as 20 minutes. “It’s most often impossible to predict where they will surface as they’re travelling in random patterns as they look for food.” in contrast, orcas spend more time on the surface and travel in a predictable direction.

Humpbacks are “extremely unpredictable” and also very acrobatic and prone to random moves especially when they feed. “Sometimes, they’re socializing and they can end up approaching boats,” she said. That would likely prompt boaters to start their engines, “potentially chopping up the whales.”

Anyone who sights a humpback should not approach within 100 metres.

“If a whale surfaces within 100 metres of your vessel, place engine in neutral (or, ideally, shut off the engine) until the whales are beyond 100 metres,” the MERS website states. “Slow down. Speed should not be more than seven knots when 100 to 400 metres from a whale.”
To sponsor a sign (for about $70), contact info@mersociety.org.

clear sky, humpback

Weather: steady west wind, 20-30 knots.  Mostly clear sky.

Ecological:

  • One humpback whale was visible near the reserve for several hours beginning around noon.
  • 3 Male elephant seals have been staying mostly on Great Race, traveling individually to middle rock occasionally.

humpback-dec-4

Humpback between North Rock and William Head

Maintenance: Flushed rainwater barrel pipe to cistern.

Boats: 1 ecotour, caused some disturbance of sealions near jetty as well as on South Islands.