âVery excitingâ: Killer whale caught on camera by Alaskan boaters
By Stephanie Weaver
Orca breach caught on camera by Alaskan boaters
Footage captured by Cara Wilson showed the killer whale leaping out of the waters of Aialik Bay near Seward, Alaska. (Cara Wilson via Storyful)
SEWARD, Alaska - It was a killer view when boaters spotted an orca whale in Alaska on June 27.
Footage captured by Cara Wilson showed the killer whale leaping out of the waters of Aialik Bay near Seward, Alaska.
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Cara Wilson recorded a video of the moment, as she looked at the waters from a fishing boat with her husband.
A southern resident killer whale preys on a salmon. (Candice Emmons/NOAA Fisheries)
(CN) The Trump administration rushed through a project to expand Seattle Harbor for ultra-large container ships that would further threaten endangered Southern Resident killer whales, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
Only 75 Southern Resident killer whales swim the Salish Sea a number that has increased since three baby whales were born in the relatively quiet waters of the pandemic. Noise from whale watching boats and ships headed to and from ports across the Pacific will increase when pandemic restrictions are lifted.
Added to that is a new worry: the underwater cacophony of ultra-large container ships that would visit Seattle Harbor, in the heart of the whales’ home waters, and the release of hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of toxic material dredged during the harbor project.
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IMAGE: Endangered Southern Resident killer whales prey on salmon throughout the year, diversifying their diet when salmon presence declines. view more
Credit: Candice Emmons/NOAA Fisheries and reference NMFS permit number 16163
Endangered Southern Resident killer whales prey on a diversity of Chinook and other salmon. The stocks come from an enormous geographic range as far north as Alaska and as far south as California s Central Valley, a new analysis shows.
The diverse salmon stocks each have their own migration patterns and timing. They combine to provide the whales with a portfolio of prey that supports them across the entire year. The catch is that many of the salmon stocks are at risk themselves.
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Only 100 yards from a nature center and down a sandy trail to the Pacific, I spotted a telltale heart-shaped spout a misty exhalation of a California gray whale on her northern migration rising from the ocean. Sunlight glinting off the animal’s back was a sparkling sign that some of the best whale watching can occur from a surprising place: land.
This visit last February to Dana Point Preserve, about an hour’s drive north of San Diego, was my fourth stop along the Whale Trail, a collection of coastal sites stretching 1,500 miles from Southern California to British Columbia. These separate and distinct paths and viewpoints are ideal vantages for learning about whales, dolphins and other marine mammals, some that linger tantalizingly close to shore.
The endangered southern resident killer whale. (NOAA Fisheries/National Marine Fisheries Service)
If Puget Sound has an animal celebrity, it’s the orca specifically, the southern resident population of killer whales. About 70 individuals divided into three family groups, or pods, make their home in our waters for large parts of the year. Fans from all over the world follow every movement of the southern residents; they mourn every whale death; they rejoice when a new calf joins a pod.
These camper-van-sized whales subsist almost entirely on salmon, which they hunt in the murky sea, using only sound. But the clicks, whistles and honks they employ while hunting are also the building blocks of a rich language we’re only beginning to decode. Some elements are understood by whales all over the world, but each pod has its own unique dialect used only among family members.