365 Project, Day 166
Here is my day 166 submission to my 365Project:
As I've been hanging around Victoria waiting for my next offshore Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) and/or Passive Acoustic Monitor (PAM) contract, and I haven't worked for a while, I made myself available to work as a naturalist for the whale watching companies here and today was the first time I'd worked for a whale watching company different from Five Star Charters.
This afternoon I worked a trip aboard the Ocean Magic at Prince Of Whales. It's still early in the season now so we don't usually expect to see a lot of whales even though it's always possible. The killer whales should only just be starting to come back into the waters of the Salish Sea to feed on the salmon moving through to their natal spawning streams. Instead, we typically do what we call 'wildlife' tours at this time of the year.
Although killer whales (Orcinus orca) and other whale species are the main attraction to whale watchers here, we have a lot more wildlife to see including harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), Steller (Eumatopias jubatus) and California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), Elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and other sea birds and much more!
Today we got to see some of the 'much more'! Through the 1900's sea otters (Enhydra lutris) were hunted extensively throughout the BC coast including the waters of Vancouver Island. As a result this species was 'extirpated' from these waters. To try to recover the population around Vancouver island 89 sea otters from Alaska were introduced off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1969 and since that time the population has grown to an estimated 3000 individuals!
With an increasing population size the range of these guys has also increased with more sightings further south and north around Vancouver Island now. In recent years sea otters have increasingly been seen in the waters around southern Vancouver Island with one individual observed fairly regularly around Secretary Island near the community of Sooke just west of Victoria.
Although we thought there might be a chance this otter was around today we weren't too sure we'd actually find it. Lucky for us, as we were circumnavigating Secretary Island there it was bobbing around just off the rocks. This is not something we normally see on our whale watching trips out of Victoria but looks like we'll be seeing more and more of these guys in the future!
Here is my day 166 submission to my 365Project:
As I've been hanging around Victoria waiting for my next offshore Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) and/or Passive Acoustic Monitor (PAM) contract, and I haven't worked for a while, I made myself available to work as a naturalist for the whale watching companies here and today was the first time I'd worked for a whale watching company different from Five Star Charters.
This afternoon I worked a trip aboard the Ocean Magic at Prince Of Whales. It's still early in the season now so we don't usually expect to see a lot of whales even though it's always possible. The killer whales should only just be starting to come back into the waters of the Salish Sea to feed on the salmon moving through to their natal spawning streams. Instead, we typically do what we call 'wildlife' tours at this time of the year.
Although killer whales (Orcinus orca) and other whale species are the main attraction to whale watchers here, we have a lot more wildlife to see including harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), Steller (Eumatopias jubatus) and California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), Elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and other sea birds and much more!
Today we got to see some of the 'much more'! Through the 1900's sea otters (Enhydra lutris) were hunted extensively throughout the BC coast including the waters of Vancouver Island. As a result this species was 'extirpated' from these waters. To try to recover the population around Vancouver island 89 sea otters from Alaska were introduced off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1969 and since that time the population has grown to an estimated 3000 individuals!
With an increasing population size the range of these guys has also increased with more sightings further south and north around Vancouver Island now. In recent years sea otters have increasingly been seen in the waters around southern Vancouver Island with one individual observed fairly regularly around Secretary Island near the community of Sooke just west of Victoria.
Although we thought there might be a chance this otter was around today we weren't too sure we'd actually find it. Lucky for us, as we were circumnavigating Secretary Island there it was bobbing around just off the rocks. This is not something we normally see on our whale watching trips out of Victoria but looks like we'll be seeing more and more of these guys in the future!
