Posts Tagged Humpback whales

Sep 6 2017

Why eye-popping whale shows off the California coast are the new normal

Peter Winch, a naturalist with the Oceanic Society conservation group, said whales have been especially visible this year because cold ocean upwellings have sprinkled near-shore waters with plankton. The whales swim close to shore for anchovies, which feed on plankton, he said.

“They are taking advantage of anchovy shoals that are numerous around the coast,” Winch said. “The humpbacks have the ability to pick and choose. They can stay out in deeper water and eat krill or they can come in. In the last few years, they have just really clued in on this abundance of anchovies.”

 

Humpbacks have put on a show this summer inside and outside the Golden Gate — flopping around, waving their flukes and leaping out of the water — a bonanza for whale watchers in tour boats and on dry land that scientists say will remain a regular thing.

The ballet of the behemoths, far from a one-time event, is the result of the humpbacks recovering from near-extinction thanks to an international whaling ban, intense conservation and protection of their breeding grounds.

John Calambokidis, a senior research biologist for the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective, said the giant cetaceans are swimming off the coast of California in numbers equal to their historic population and extending their range into places where they lived long ago.

“Their numbers reached carrying capacity in the last five years, and that’s when sightings in unusual areas began to occur,” said Calambokidis, who has been studying humpback and blue whales for 35 years.

“It’s a good thing in the sense that it reflects the recovery of humpback whales,” he said. “It’s a bad thing in that some of these coastal areas they are repopulating, like San Francisco Bay, put them in greater conflict with other activities, like noise, ships and recreational boaters.”

Since May, large pods have moved through Monterey Bay, past Pacifica and just beyond the breakers at Stinson Beach. Lucky viewers have spotted humpbacks doing pirouettes and splashing down under the Golden Gate Bridge, near the Channel Islands in Southern California and in Puget Sound in Washington.

The phenomenon is all the more remarkable after record-high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean two years ago unleashed toxic algae that closed down the Dungeness crab fishery and contributed to a huge death toll among seabirds and sea lions.

Peter Winch, a naturalist with the Oceanic Society conservation group, said whales have been especially visible this year because cold ocean upwellings have sprinkled near-shore waters with plankton. The whales swim close to shore for anchovies, which feed on plankton, he said.

“They are taking advantage of anchovy shoals that are numerous around the coast,” Winch said. “The humpbacks have the ability to pick and choose. They can stay out in deeper water and eat krill or they can come in. In the last few years, they have just really clued in on this abundance of anchovies.”

Humpbacks, which have long pectoral fins and distinctive knobby heads, are unique among baleen whales. They are friendly and playful, often interacting with other species, including bottlenose dolphins and right whales, and they have complex vocalizations that sound like singing.

They are known for their acrobatic breaching, in which they lift nearly their entire bodies out of the water before splashing down.

The whales, which can grow to 52 feet long and almost 80,000 pounds, were hunted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, reducing the global population by more than 90 percent.

Before 1900, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 humpbacks lived in the North Pacific. Only about 500 remained in 1966, when the International Whaling Commission finally halted the killing.

Calambokidis said humpback numbers have increased by 7 to 8 percent every year since he began studying them in the 1980s. At least 40,000 of the creatures now live in the world’s oceans — and the North Pacific population is at a historic high.

They have done so well, in fact, that nine of the 14 subspecies that had been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 1970 were taken off the list in 2016 in what one federal official called a “true ecological success story.”

Bay Area residents have been particularly enamored with the species since 1985, when a 40-ton humpback named Humphrey swam through the Carquinez Strait, up the Sacramento River and into a creek near Rio Vista. The Solano County city became the focal point of a whale craze, attracting 10,000 people a day as experts tried desperately to turn around the lost animal — which went back to sea after 25 days.

Whale watchers take photos of the Farallon Islands. Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle
Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle | Whale watchers take photos of the Farallon Islands.

 

The local humpbacks migrate along the California coast past San Francisco on their way to and from their breeding grounds in Mexico and Central America. Unlike gray whales, which generally make a beeline to Alaska, humpbacks move north slowly after giving birth, feeding all along their migration route.

Jared Davis, the captain of the Salty Lady fishing and tour boat, said he and his passengers spotted 50 humpbacks on a trip from San Francisco to the Farralon Islands last month. Boaters there have also seen blue whales, fin whales, orcas, dolphins and porpoises in large numbers this summer.

“When the conditions are good, the whales flourish, and the conditions have been good the last couple of years,” said Davis, who takes people whale watching on the weekend and salmon fishing during the week. “It’s a lot of fun.”

The problem with humpbacks moving close to shore, Calambokidis said, is that boats can hit them or crab pot lines can tangle them up.

A recent study by Point Blue Conservation Science found that ships strike and kill an average of 22 humpbacks a year off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. About 7,300 vessels pass the Golden Gate every year.

The number of whales entangled in fishing lines off the West Coast has risen sharply in recent years, with 71 cases in 2016 — up from 57 the year before and the most since the National Marine Fisheries Service began keeping records in 1982.

“There has been a dramatic increase in entanglements, particularly in crab pots,” Calambokidis said. The humpbacks, he said, “are arriving earlier in the spring to find prey and feed and that overlaps with the crab fishery.”

 

A humpback whale dives off the coast of San Francisco. Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle | A humpback whale dives off the coast of San Francisco.

Another long-term threat to the whale resurgence is climate change, though all signs indicate the humpbacks will be back again next year in all their glory.

“It’s not unusual anymore,” Calambokidis said. “Sometimes they will be seen closer to shore because prey is closer to shore and sometimes offshore because the prey is out farther to sea, but humpback sightings will be much more common going forward.”

 


Read the original article: http://www.sfchronicle.com/
Aug 10 2017

Humpback whales gorge in Monterey Bay

Preface: a huge population of anchovies is drawing whales to feed frenzies in Monterey Bay as well as San Francisco Bay and along the California coast.

A pair of humpback whales lunge feed on a school of anchovies while showing off their baleen in July in the Monterey Bay. (Chase Dekker — Sanctuary Cruises)

MOSS LANDING – For the past few weeks, at least 50 to 75 humpback whales have been gorging on krill and anchovies in the Monterey Bay, delighting boaters and whale-watching groups.

Their feeding frenzy is often visible from shore, from Monterey to Santa Cruz, at hot spots such as Aptos’ Seacliff State Beach and Marina Beach, as well as the Santa Cruz, Monterey and Moss Landing harbors.

Rio del Mar resident Rachel Birns said she’s seen humpbacks from her deck overlooking Beer Can Beach every day since July.

A humpback whale breaches out of the waves in July in the Monterey Bay (Chase Dekker — Sanctuary Cruises)

“Every day, I’m like, are they going to leave? And every day they’re still here,” said Birns, who said she checks for them every morning.

“You just keep looking and you’ll see one. You’ll see a blow and then sometimes they’re breaching. Like, I just had a late lunch and my husband goes, ‘They’re breaching,’ so I ran outside,” she said.

Santa Cruz resident and retiree Steve Lawson kayaks the waters between Capitola and Santa Cruz about five days a week.

A trio of humpback whales work together to feed on an anchovy bait ball in July in the Monterey Bay (Chase Dekker — Sanctuary Cruises)

“What can I say, it’s consistent,” said Lawson. “That is, I’m generally seeing one or two whales a day.”

On Wednesday, he saw a humpback with a distinctive curled dorsal fin, which some call “Captain Hook,” a quarter mile offshore Santa Cruz’s Main Beach, where he sometimes sees humpbacks feed. He also often sees humpbacks feeding near Live Oak’s Corcoran Lagoon and Moran Lake, he said.

The humpbacks near shore are following their food: anchovies, said Kate Cummings, naturalist and captain at Blue Ocean Whale Watching, a Moss Landing-based company.

“It’s not unusual, just very awesome,” Cummings said in an email to the Sentinel.
Cormorants roosting on a section that remains of the Cement Ship at Seacliff State Beach have a front row seat as a Humpback Whale puts on a show nearby. Numerous whales and orcas have been seen recently in the Monterey Bay. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

“Humpback whales are in the Monterey Bay throughout the spring, summer and fall to feed, but their proximity to shore makes their presence more obvious to people,” Cummings wrote.

Jim Harvey, director of the Moss Landing Marine Labs, said around June or July is when humpbacks switch their diet, from krill to anchovies.

“This is pretty standard fare for this time of year,” Harvey said. “We usually get a fair amount of whale activity early, as in April, May, June — mostly concentrating (feeding) on krill.”

The krill draws both humpback and blue whales.

As the season progresses and the krill are “mowed down,” the humpbacks switch to anchovies and sardines, which brings the whales closer to shore, Harvey said.

Humpback whales have become a common sight in the Monterey Bay from May to November. What’s more rare are the blue, minke and fin whales that have been spotted in deeper waters in recent weeks, said Nancy Black, captain and owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch, a Monterey Harbor-based company.

Strong northwest winds this spring and early summer have created perfect conditions for krill, since winds generate an upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters from the ocean’s depths. About a week ago, the winds stopped and the waters calmed. The krill have begun to accumulate, and so have the whales, Black said.

“We’re seeing blue whales on our trips every day in Monterey. They’re in the bay, on the edge of the canyon, scattered wide. Most of the whale watching trips are seeing blue whales on most of the trips now, because they’re fairly numerous (there),” Black said.

Blue whales are endangered, and tourists fly from all over to the Monterey Bay hoping to see them, Black said.

She has seen fin whales — the second largest whale, next to the blue whale — as well as the much smaller minke whales in the Monterey Bay recently. And on Sunday, she thinks she saw a sei whale, which is the third largest whale, around 20 miles offshore.

“The diversity right now is pretty amazing, to have a chance to see at least three different species of large whales,” Black said. “I wouldn’t say you’re going to see all three for sure on your trip, but they’re out there and conditions are great right now.”

A Humpback Whale surfaces near the pier at Seacliff State Beach Tuesday afternoon. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)


Read the original post: http://www.mercurynews.com/