Category: Whales
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Mid-morning break at Palmer Station, in the galley, somebody on the All Call said “Whales.” Then someone said “Minkes” but as the whales hurtled closer, everyone said “Orcas!” People rose and exclaimed. We could see tall fins of orcas racing toward us. They swam into Hero Inlet. Palmer overlooks Hero Inlet, and the deck on…
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On the whale-watching trip in Monterey Bay we were lucky enough to see not only humpback whales but also blue whales – the largest animal that has ever lived. The humpbacks and the blues both had calves with them. We had the happiness of seeing that these species were reproducing, and of glimpsing (barely) their…
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Some scientists (Robert L. Pitman and John W. Durban, to name a few) were cruising Antarctic waters. They were looking for killer whales, a.k.a. orcas.* (Why don't they invite me? I love this stuff.) The researchers wished to document a crafty behavior seen among some seal-eating orcas, in which they team up to knock seals…
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Doug Bertran, a filmmaker who made Orca Killing School, told a story after the showing at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City. This is the film about which the program cautions, “Warning: violent animal scenes.” He was at Peninsula Valdez, Argentina, filming some orcas who've perfected a trick of lurking offshore at…
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From the excellent documentary Saving Luna, which is about a lost young killer whale that took up residence in Nootka Sound, my favorite quote is a plea to Luna: “Ignore that float plane. Good whales don't play with float planes.”
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Sometimes people get impatient when you try to identify a species. White-crowned sparrow or white-throated sparrow, really, what's the difference? To a sparrow looking for love, all the difference in the world. Even for humans, it can be important. While reading Red Arctic, by John McCannon, I came across a story demonstrating the value of…
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In the summer wildfires, what would the condors do? When flames and smoke tore through their Ventana Wilderness sanctuary, how many would survive? These California condors were raised in captivity. Some grew up in large aviaries with two-parent families, and others were fed by condor puppets and raised in condor playgroups (most unnatural for a…
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It's hard work being high on the food chain, and predators are always looking for labor-saving ways to catch prey. In national parks in Kenya, the lions have not only gotten blasé about trucks full of ecotourists, they've started to use them as cover. They'll sneak around behind a vehicle and then rush out to…
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