Session Title

Session Description: Changes in Marine Mammal Occurrence in the Salish Sea

Session Description

Return of the Giants of the Salish Sea: Increased occurrence of humpback and gray whales in inland waters

John Calambokidis, Kiirsten Flynn, Elana Dobson, Jessie Huggins, and Alie Perez

Cascadia Research, 218 ½ W 4th Ave., Olympia, WA 98501

Changes in the occurrence of two of large cetaceans, humpback and gray whales have occurred in the Salish Sea including Puget Sound since the 1990s. In this talk, we examine some of the recent evidence of these changes and the current occurrence and of these two species.

Humpback whales

The US West Coast serves as a feeding area in spring through fall for humpback whales in the North Pacific (Calambokidis et al. 1996, 2001, 2008, 2015). Humpback whales were once common in the Salish Sea and were reported to over-winter in these waters. A whaling station based in southern Vancouver Island from 1907 to 1910 hunted these whales through the winter months killing several hundred and largely eliminating them from these waters. Sightings of humpback whales in inside waters of Washington State were relatively rare after that through the late 2000s (Calambokidis and Steiger 1990). Cascadia Research has conducted long-term studies of humpback whales along the US West Coast since the 1980s and documented their steady recovery from whaling; population increased at about 7-8% per year through about 2010 and then stabilized suggesting they may have finally recovered to pre-whaling numbers (Calambokidis and Barlow 2004, 2017, Calambokidis et al. 2004, 2017a).

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Keywords

Humpback whales, Gray whales, Large cetaceans, Salish Sea, Puget Sound

Conference Track

SSE11: Species and Food Webs

Conference Name

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2018 : Seattle, Wash.)

Document Type

Event

SSEC Identifier

SSE11: Session Description

Start Date

6-4-2018 1:29 PM

End Date

6-4-2018 3:00 PM

Type of Presentation

Oral

Genre/Form

conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)

Contributing Repository

Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Subjects – Topical (LCSH)

Whale watching--Environmental aspects--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Gray whale--Behavior--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Humpback whale--Behavior--Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)

Geographic Coverage

Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.)

Comments

This is an extended abstract for the session.

Rights

This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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Apr 6th, 1:29 PM Apr 6th, 3:00 PM

Return of the Giants of the Salish Sea: Increased occurrence of humpback and gray whales in inland waters