J Pod in Haro Strait

Wow, what a day with J Pod in Haro Strait today. They were having a great time, breaching, porpoising, and racing each other up the strait. We had a few issues with private yachts racing over and crowding the Orca pod. I don’t get the hate towards professional whale watchers.

We are there on scene flagging down vessels just unaware of the whales’ presence and as a couple of times today, we collected evidence of vessels that just didn’t care and did as they pleased racing over and up to the Resident Orca pods. That evidence will be passed on to WDFW and in today’s situation the San Juan County Sheriffs Office for reckless endangerment of vessels and also the same vessel to WDFW for state and federal violations. We are sentinels on the water for our Southern Resident Killer Whales and our Bigg’s Killer Whales. So many hate us and don’t see the downside to us not being on scene to slow vessels down and report violations to WDFW. WDFW sent an officer up to Friday Harbor and he trained 26 of us how to collect evidence of whale harassment violations to send to them so they can issue citations and prosecute violators.

I estimate that from my own pics and notes over the past six years that about 7 vessels have been issued citations. I am not sure about others who took that class and how many have played a part in citations being issued, however it is something we all are very passionate about, and in our actions doing our part to curtail illegal behavior around our Southern Resident Killer Whales.

Our whales need salmon to survive. All the hate about our viewing them is what is killing them is so utterly ridiculous. If it is our viewing them is what is killing them, why are the Bigg’s Killer Whales thriving when we view them 90% of the time and the Resident Killer Whales only 5 to 10% of the time. It is not the Whale watchers that are killing our whales. It is BPA, it is the state of Washington, refusing to breach four Snake River dams. Those dams produce electricity at $50 a megawatt and sell it to California at $10 a megawatt.

Those dams of which the last was finished in 1975 raise the water temperature to a point that the returning salmon heading upstream to spawn, die from the higher water temps because the water is not free-flowing. The smolt from those that do make it to spawning grounds is mostly killed from spillways and hydro turbines on the way out to sea.

For more info and understanding of the dam issues please visit https://damsense.org/

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
Jacques Cousteau