Orcasphere

Not sure what this means for southern residents and funding for their researchers, but this is surely good news for beaked whales, as well as killer whales when they may transit Navy training areas in the Salish Sea or off the Washington coast. Thanks to Val Veirs for the tip on this press release.

clipped [...]

This is a pretty general treatment of endangered species with a nice from-the-field synopsis of prey/fecal sampling by KUOW intern Irene Naguchi, but it didn’t deliver what I expected — new information derived from the fecal sampling. The main news I caught from Brad was that they, Ken, and Mark haven’t noted any new calves [...]

Wonderful news that one of the pioneers of sustainability science will head NOAA in the Obama administration! This could really turn around the pitiful funding of the recovery plans for Northwest salmon and killer whales. Jane is an exceptional marine ecologist has long been working out practical solutions to saving our marine food supplies [...]

This clipping from the NOAA/NWFSC Marine Mammal Program shows that southern residents are increasing the source level of their S1 calls by about 1dB for every decibel increase of the ambient noise level. Counts of vessels within 1km of the hydrophone correlate with the ambient noise levels.
While the ecological consequences of this behavioral change [...]

Live blog of a talk entitled “Managing Puget Sound’s Groundfish Resources from the Bottom Up“ by Wayne Palsson at NWFSC
11:00 Background/motivation
28 species of rockfish, but poor habitat maps (compared with spotted owls, say)
Decline of groundfish like Pacific Cod in south Puget Sound has been prominent in last 10-15 years. Walleye pollock is endangered; 18 species [...]

Theses and grey literature related to southern residents can be hard to find and share.  The Orcasphere library eases your pain by providing such documents in PDF format.  Recent additions are the theses of Sara Heimlich-Boran and  Monika Wieland.  Other hard-to-obtain theses that have been archived are those by: Fred Felleman, Rich Osborne, Andy Foote, [...]

43 28.2N 123 04.9W Travelling down-island, close to shore. 28 vessels within a 2-mile radius, the top count this season. I promise there are vocals in there…. somewhere… Actually, toward the end of this sample I have J8 pinging the hydrophone from negligible range (Kerri, it was an accident, I promise).
Listen here (2.5MB)

48 29.11N 122 43.64W Travelling up-island slowly, occassional milling. Eerie vocals.
Listen here (1.1MB)

48 25.22N 122 43.64W Travel, medium distribution. W-bound. Interesting vocal change toward the end, as the fleet goes from mostly set to mostly paralleling. Coincidence?
Listen here (5.4MB)

With special thanks for support from the Makah Tribe and coordination by Jon Scordino, there is now underwater sound streaming live from Neah Bay via the Salish Sea hydrophone network. The network is an experiment in human and automated monitoring of underwater sounds within the critical habitat of the endangered southern resident killer whales. [...]