The Marine Detective

When Pilchard Return

Ms. Henderson’s students in Port Alice, B.C. put me onto a case yesterday.

They had me check what was happening in the beautiful inlet in front of their community on north-western Vancouver Island and – what a fabulously noisy case it was!

Pilchard (aka “Pacific sardines”; Sardinops sagax; up to about 40 cm) have brought in a whole food chain of activity: fishing boats, hundreds of gulls, many Steller and California sea lions and, that’s just what we could see on the surface! Pilchard were absent from the Pacific Northwest for about 50 years, having been very intensely fished into the early 1940s. With their return, our Coast has become much more vibrant with these fish fuelling a food web that includes humpback whales and both the Steller and California sea lions.

Steller sea lions - male on right. Image: Uko Gorter Natural History Illustration.

Having male Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in our area is common. These giants (mature males up to 1,100 kg and 3.3 m) are the lighter coloured of the area’s two sea lion species.

In the last 7 years or so, we have also had some male California sea lion males (Zalophus californianus) around Northern Vancouver Island from the Fall into the Spring but they are far more common to the South.

California sea lions - male on right. Image: Uko Gorter Natural History Illustration.

The California sea lions are the darker and much smaller sea lion species (mature males to 390 kg and 2.4 m). The mature males have distinct light colouration on parts of their head and a very unique shape to their foreheads. However, beyond these very apparent physical differences, you could be blind and still tell California sea lions and Steller sea lions apart! California sea lions bark. Steller sea lions growl.

The sea lion activity I witnessed yesterday is really unique and all thanks to the return of the pilchard. I have never seen this many California sea lions anywhere around northern Vancouver Island and it is not often that I have seen mixed groups of both species hunting together. I checked with the locals in Port Alice and no one can recall ever seeing this many California sea lions in Neroutsos Inlet.

This phenomena has fortunately been captured on video for you to enjoy (video from the Village of Port Alice). See below and look very carefully for the lighter coloured Steller sea lions among the barking Californians! All these sea lions are likely to all be male. The smaller ones are the immature males.

Great thanks to the students of Seaview Elementary for caring and knowing as much as they do. Psst, I would be watching the water very carefully because this pilchard driven food chain has transient killer whales at its top!

For locals: Added January 3rd, 2011

Update on the sea lion that crossed the road and entered the Port Alice trailer park on Dec 16th. Because he appeared to be underweight and lethargic, he was taken to the Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue Centre on Dec 18th (I think). It is a male Steller sea lion and was confirmed to be malnourished and dehydrated with no indication of what may have caused his condition. He has been named “Kaouk” after a mountain near Fair Harbour.

My great respect to the people of Port Alice for knowing to call DFO’s marine mammal response line (1-800-465-4336) and have the RCMP conduct crowd control. Ms. Henderson’s class even had made up info brochures on how to best behave around the sea lions.

Humpback Comeback Project – Please Vote!

Update: See this link for the results of the Humpback Comeback Project in the AVIVA competition.

____________________________

I have a whale-sized favour to ask . . . I need your votes.

To be exact, I need one vote a day for the next 10 days and your support in spreading the word to generate more votes for our “Humpback Comeback” research project.

It is of huge importance to me and the others in our small group of dedicated whale researchers on the Northern Vancouver Island (British Columbia) who, for the past 7 years, have been using our own boats, fuel, and equipment to try to learn more about humpbacks.

We have a chance of getting support through the Aviva Community Fund for an essential study to determine the rate of entanglement of humpbacks in B.C. (whales getting caught in fishing gear). In a well-studied area of the North Atlantic ocean, about 75% of humpback whales have been tangled up in fishing gear at some point in their lives but there has been very little research into this threat to humpbacks in British Columbia.

Our motivation for this project is a direct result of what we have observed locally. See below for a very recent example of the severity of entanglement injury to a local humpback. The shocking images are of the before-and-after-entanglement of a whale we have nicknamed “Sharktooth” (no DFO catalogue number yet).

Please start voting today and up to November 26th, so that we might move on to the semi-finals.

Everyone has 10 votes (one vote a day), and you can vote for the same idea all 10 times.

So use your votes, tell your friends, and use Facebook or other social networks to spread the word! Please.

You need to register to vote at this link.

Then, please click the link in the email that is sent to you. You can then vote for the “Humpback Comeback Project” every day by clicking here.

Great thanks.

"Sharktooth" on June 20, 2010 - no injuries. Photo: Jackie Hildering. Click to enlarge.

"Sharktooth" on October 2nd, 2010 - with entanglement scarring. Photo: Bruce Paterson. Click to enlarge.

"Sharktooth" on October 2nd, 2010 - with entanglement scarring. Photo: Bruce Paterson.

Kelp Greenling Colour and Courtship

While diving this morning, I came across a kelp greenling couple while they were courting (Hexagrammos decagrammus to 60 cm).

In addition to being fascinated by the courtship behaviour, I was struck by the intense colouration, especially of the courting male.

Male kelp greenling. Normal colouration. ©2013 Jackie Hildering

Male kelp greenling. Normal colouration. ©Jackie Hildering

Mature male and female kelp greenlings look very different but I had never fully realized how the males’ gender specific colour intensifies during courtship.
Their bodies become much paler while the heads remain dark blue.

Courting male on left (note how much lighter the body is than the head); female on the right. © 2013 Jackie Hildering

Courting male on left (note how much lighter the body is than the head); female on the right. ©Jackie Hildering

My 1.5 minute video below shows the courtship behaviour. After that there is a photo of eyed kelp greenling eggs.

Kelp greenling eggs in a giant barnacle shell. See the eyes?! © 2013 Jackie Hildering

Kelp greenling eggs in a giant barnacle shell. See the eyes?! ©Jackie Hildering

Popcorn for Thanksgiving

I spent Canadian Thanksgiving this week as naturalist aboard the 92-foot schooner Maple Leaf in my own marine backyard, the Broughton / Blackfish Archipelago (Northern Vancouver Island, BC, CANADA).

The exceptionally talented ship’s chef served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Certainly no popcorn there!

But, Nature dished out “pop-corning” Pacific White-Sided Dolphins.

“Pop-corning” is the jargon given to the behaviour when this highly acrobatic species explodes into the air; popping up again and again.

There were some 500 of them, playing in the wind and waves with Steller Sea Lions leaping amongst them. It is difficult for me to express just how exhilarating this was; just how awe-inspiring. With mouth agape, I tried to take photos to capture what we witnessed.

We had already seen so much. In less than 48 hours in a 16 kilometre stretch in this area, we also saw:

Repeat sightings of eight lunge feeding humpbacks. This included seeing three of them lunging for the same mass of small schooling fish; one of them (BCY0728, aka “Conger”) tail slapping at Steller sea lions and; sighting an individual that has never been recorded in the area before (BCY0310, aka “Dragonfly”).
Large numbers of Steller Sea Lions with some choosing to inquisitively circle and surface right beside the boat. This was one of the best opportunities I have ever had to photograph Stellers.
And . . . some 32 fish-eating “Resident Orca” – the A12 and A36; A34, A30 and I15 matrilines. They were travelling slowly, vocalizing intently. Some were foraging while calves played and others had Pacific White-Sided Dolphins leaping around them.

So much to be thankful for. And very worth sharing with you so that together we can work to ensure that this beauty and biodiversity is here for all future generations to give thanks for.

I have put together the 3-minute slideshow below, hoping it provides a sense of how amazing it was to have pop-corning dolphins (and so much more) for Thanksgiving.

Depths of Depression – Dead Zones

Added January 2022:
The Economist: January 6, 2022 Dead zones: how chemical pollution is suffocating the sea

Update December 2019 – See the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) report “Ocean deoxygenation: everyone’s problem“. If the Ocean is warmer – there is less oxygen dissolved in it. If there is more runoff (sewage, fertilizers, fossil fuels), there are more algae using up the oxygen (eutrophication). Warmer surface layers mean less circulation of nutrients as well and less oxygen exchange with the atmosphere.

20100305_DEADZONES.wide_photo.prod_affiliate.91

Original post from October 2010:

Dear Readers,

There is currently an area of ocean in Hood Canal, Washington with very little oxygen (“hypoxic” = very low levels of oxygen; “anoxic” = no oxygen). Too little oxygen means that marine life cannot breathe.

These ocean “dead zones” appear to becoming more common in the Pacific Northwest. As I type there are fish and other marine life that have suffocated in Hood Canal.

The lack of oxygen in the ocean water is the result of increased winds and/or too much nitrogen.

The specific event now in Hood Canal is most likely caused by the accumulation of nutrients like nitrogen (from agricultural run-off and human sewage) “fertilizing” phytoplankton (plant-like plankton / algae). The phytoplankton thrive, increase in number, causing a “bloom” and using up the oxygen. This is called eutrophication. In this case, wind could alleviate the situation as it would cause mixing and oxygenation of the water.

However, increased winds due to climate change can also cause “dead zones”. If the winds bring oxygen-poor and nutrient rich water from the ocean’s depths to the surface, this fertilizes phytoplankton at the surface, creating a bloom. The phytoplankton use up what little oxygen there is and when they die and decay at the ocean bottom, more oxygen is used up. The dynamic is very well illustrated in the Oregon State University image above.

The situation in Hood Canal was painfully captured in images by diver Janna Nichols at Sund Rock (Southern Hood Canal) on September 27th, 2010.

From Janna: “While some of this may appear normal to non-Pacific NW divers, it is most certainly NOT normal. Fish are out of their usual depth ranges (usually found deeper) and all clustered within 15 feet of the surface of the water. They are up so high in the water column because this is the only area that contains oxygen. There are also freakishly huge schools – we don’t usually see that many at once. Fish that normally hide were found out in the open, lethargic and “panting”.

Caption: “The top three feet under the surface are occupied by hundreds of small silvery Shiner Perch. Under them are hundreds of schooling Black and Copper Rockfish – densely packed and hardly moving. (to conserve energy). It is very unusual to see SO MANY of these fish together. All of this is in 9 feet of water or less. (The top number you see on my dive computer is the depth).”

She watched a Giant Pacific Octopus die; finds 4 Wolf-Eels and multiple Decorator Warbonnets out in the open, panting (these are cryptic species that are usually not out in the open and do not “breathe” like this); and she films dense schools of fish attempting to conserve energy to lower their oxygen demands. [I think these images may be all the more painful for fellow divers as you will fully know how aberrant these behaviours are.]

How to solve the problem? Don’t become despondent. Take this for what it is, an additional symptom of the same disease and therefore the solutions are the same – less fossil fuel use, less disposables, less consumerism.
Care more. Consume less.

See Janna Nichols video and photos. Janna provides annotations that explain what she witnessed.
See the excellent video and text explaining the formation of dead zones off the coast of Oregon and Washington.

Help empower change.

Diving After the Storm – My 600th Dive

Today, despite a powerful storm, I completed my 600th dive (thank you dear buddy, Jacqui Engel).

Vermillion rockfish.

Six hundred dives is not such a big deal if you are a warm water diver. However, the vast majority of my dives were in the cold waters of Northern Vancouver Island and, it does feel like a big deal.

I only started diving when I was 36. Now, at age 47, I have been diving less than 11 years and have thereby averaged a dive per week over this time. It’s the equivalent of about 19 days underwater.

I am not usually boastful (I think) but it seems really significant to acknowledge this milestone and to try to share why diving is so important to me.

In an attempt not to be too earnest though, I try to express “Why Dive?” by way of some bad poetry.

Why Dive?

Opalescent nudibranch.

Constricted by my dry suit,
Thirty pounds bound to my waist,
Hunchbacked by my cylinder,
A mask suctioned to my face,

I leave the world we’ve cultivated,
To attempt to meet our every whim,
To where Nature’s voice can still be heard,
Far above civilization’s din.

No governments, no borders,
Nor economies present.
When down here, I’m reminded,
Of life’s depth and true intent.

I’m an awkward and brief visitor,
In this world of colour and perfection.
I fill with humility, wonder,
Passion and quiet introspection.

Red rock crab near a sand-rose anemone.

For Mother Ocean is home to life,
Older than mammals can comprehend.
I’m grateful that I may learn from her,
Leaving solid ground when I descend.

Diving brought me greater purpose,
Love, vision and camaraderie.
I think that what some find in a church,
I find . . . deep . . . within the sea.

On to the next 600 dives.

Postscript: There was additional “poetry” to today’s dive because it took place after a very powerful storm. Flooding caused the ocean to turn chocolate brown.

This “after the storm” dive further made me reflect on how diving is like a metaphor for life’s greatest challenges. At the risk of the repercussions of exposing you to bad poetry AND “Hallmark-esque” reflections, I will only share the following:

Even in darkness, there is great beauty (as evident by these blog images from today’s dark dive).
When you don’t know where you’re going, trust in your compass.
And, when in the depths of it . . . just breathe.

With great thanks to those who have made me the diver I am.

Fish Forever – The Wisdom of a Nine-Year-Old

Nature gave us sockeye salmon this year. A red-scaled, bounding life source, some 34 million fish strong.

This has led to human voices shouting out in all from gratitude to greed; from delight to denial.

Predictably, sadly, there have been far too many who have been at the “greedy denial” end of the spectrum. I will not tire you with that here though.

I want to fish out two voices of sanity from the ocean of opinions. One voice is that of reporter Stephen Hume from the Vancouver Sun. The other is nine-year-old Avery Walker who I am privileged to have as a member of my Northern Vancouver Island Young Naturalists’ Club.

Stephen Hume, award-winning author, in The Vancouver Sun: “Columnists who apparently wouldn’t know the difference between a sockeye and a sculpin cluck and scold in a Toronto newspaper. One enthusiastically advances the argument that we should whack 30 million of the 34 million returning salmon . . . . . Instead of permitting a lust for instant gratification to derail a natural process for rebuilding small stocks, now is the time for restraint, for harvest restraint is a critical investment in future abundance. So enjoy your sockeye. Be grateful for this gift from nature. But don’t let the gong show of greed sway us from good stewardship.”

Avery Walker - Salmon Superstar. Photo by Larry Walker and Anna Marchand.

Avery Walker, 9-year-old Young Naturalist, with his prize-winning submission to the Wild Salmon Circle’s “Spawning Ideas” contest: “I fish only with barbless hooks, I’ve taken all the treble hooks from the all the buzzbombs I have and replaced them with single barbless hooks. I don’t jig the fish, I fish the ones who bite. Sometimes this is really hard to do, because not all of my friends fish like this, and so they sometimes take home more fish than I do. I abide by the regulations about which salmon I can keep and which ones I can’t. I never go over my limit. Or keep undersized fish. Most of the time, I catch and release. I love to fish, and I want to be able to do it forever.”

Thank you Avery. Thank you Stephen. Thank you all who make choices that may allow us to have . . . fish forever.

For insights into the need for precaution in managing the harvesting and threats to the Fraser River sockeye, please click here for information from “Save Our Salmon”.

They’re Back . . . Hooded Nudibranchs

In late August, some of my Young Naturalists alerted me that they had already seen hooded nudibranchs (Melibe leonina) around Port Hardy (B.C., CANADA).

[It so wonderful that these local children know and greatly appreciate nudibranchs.]

Late August is earlier than we historically have seen the hooded sea slugs gather in large numbers. Usually this happens in late September / early October with them beginning to lay eggs in the spring.

Hooded nudibranchs back in very large numbers. Late August 2010.

This week, I had the opportunity to check how many are already in the area and, it’s official – the hooded nudibranchs are very much back.

To see the video from today, click here (2-minute video).

For explanations on the natural history of hooded nudibranchs, please see my previous blog postings from April 10th, 2010 and May 2nd, 2010.

Hooded nudibranch egg masses (March 2011). Each mass is about 1 cm high. Each little white dot is an egg.

Hooded nudibranch egg masses (March 2011).

Mystery Organism – A Jellyfish With a Stalk?!

Blog updated on June 25, 2024.

This is a Marine Detective case for those of you who appreciate mini-mysteries as much as whale wonders.

Gillian Butler and Erin Paul of found this remarkable invertebrate off their kayak base camp in Johnstone Strait, northeastern Vancouver Island in September of 2010.

I was thrilled to get the “What’s this?” email from them as this is a type of jelly I know is off our coast but that I had never been able to find! It’s a jelly that is only 3 cm wide and is usually attached to kelp or Eelgrass . . . by its stalk!

*Stalked Jelly – photo by Gillian Butler*

Yes, it is species of stalked jellyfish (stauromedusae). The species well documented on our coast is the “Oval-anchored Stalked Jelly” (Haliclystus sanjuanensis). Read below for what is believed to be a new (undescribed) species!

Stalked jellies never become free-swimming, bell-shaped “medusa” like most jellyfish species. Their stalk is sticky allowing them to attach to Eelgrass, seaweed, or rocks in the shallows. They have 8 “arms” that look like they have pom-poms at their ends. These clusters of 30-100 tentacles have stinging cells so that the stalked jelly can catch small crustaceans with the pom-poms and bring this food to their mouth (positioned at the centre of the 8 arms).

They are remarkably mobile which you will see in the Lester B. Pearson College video at the end of this blog. If the stalk becomes detached, the animal can hold on with its tentacles till it reattaches its stalk. The student video will also allow you to see the base of the stalk and how the arms can close up.

Only about 50 species of stalked jelly had been discovered worldwide. New extremely deep-dwelling species been discovered around hydrothermal vents AND . . . potentially also in the shallows in front of my community on northeastern Vancouver Island.

*Stalked Jelly found by yours truly on July 1, 2019.*

After my photo (above) went into the world in July 2019, it led to contact with researcher Claudia Mills. She let me know this is an undescribed species (also genus Haliclystus). This is such testament to how little we know about the Ocean. Again, this was in the shallows at only approximately 1 metre depth very near to where I live.

Claudia also thought that the stalked jelly that Gillian and Erin found is likely also the undescribed species. Please note that these are NOT the only known sightings of this “new” species. Their range is believed to include the San Juan Islands (Washington) to southeast Alaska and possibly even northern Japan and sightings go back decades. See Neil McDaniel’s photo form the 1970s below.

From Claudia Mills on iNaturalist in 2020: “This undescribed species is easily mistaken for Haliclystus sanjuanensis. It may still be present in some locations in the San Juan Islands, Southern Vancouver Island, or the Canadian Gulf Islands, but we can no longer find it. My internet searches have found this species in quiet bays along northern Vancouver Island and in at least SE Alaska. It might be the same species as is found in the Russian Far East and Northern Japan, but we are trying to figure that out”

I had hoped to find the species again. Finally, I had success on June 27, 2022. See the photos below. These stalked jellies were again at only about 1-metre depth in the same location as the 2019 “find”.

Limitations in finding the species again were:

(1) That I think it is more likely to be found in the summer months when the visibility while diving is limited due to the richness of plankton in the water column; and

(2) Needing a dive buddy who is willing to gear up in thick neoprene in the summer and do a beach dive when it is usually hotter and much more difficult to see around you in the water. Diving from the beach usually involves more exertion than just rolling off a boat into the ocean. Also the visibility tends to be worse for beach dives because these locations often don’t get as much tidal flushing as do dive sites in narrow passes between islands.

YOU could find this species of Oval-Anchored Stalked Jelly too and carefully document it (not touching it and also being really careful in its habitat e.g. avoid stepping on Eelgrass). Your chances are likely best in summer, on a low tide.

You could upload the sighting to iNaturalist where Claudia Mills would ID. On a recent sighting there she shared: “This is the “other” uncommon, species of Haliclystus that we have found in BC and Alaskan waters. It is usually found in (environmentally) undisturbed quiet bays, on kelp or eelgrass in the shallow subtidal.”

For this Oval-anchored Stalked Jelly to be “described” and get a species name, experts like Claudia would write up and publish their research on how the species is physically and genetically different.

Note that this is an older video. I think we would be less inclined to touch the animal directly with current-day understanding and ethics.

Update: May 28, 2023

Found two individuals again in the same location as where I have seen them previously! See the photos below.

Update: June 24, 2024
Found another two individuals again in the same location.

Resources:
Mills CE, Westlake H, Hirano YM, Miranda LS. 2023. Description of a common stauromedusa on the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada, Haliclystus sanjuanensis new species (Cnidaria: Staurozoa) PeerJ 11:e15944

Inaturalist
www.inaturalist.org/observations/48578263
www.inaturalist.org/observations/85506767

Too Smart To Be “Nice” – Pacific White-Sided Dolphins Interact With Dall’s Porpoise Calf

Before you read further, a reminder: There is no “good” or “bad” in Nature. There is only perfection. Animals do what they do for a reason. We humans may not understand their behaviour but to impose judgement is ridiculous. There is always a net gain for some of the animals involved.

Yes, this is me making very clear that to either typify dolphins as “good” (the Flipper phenomena) or “bad” is sheer anthropomorphism and does nothing to enhance the understanding of animal behaviour.

Dolphins are dolphins and they do what dolphins need to do.

Dall's porpoise calf hit from below by Pacific white-sided dolphin.

Okay, now that I have made that very clear, I dare share the exceptional encounter I stumbled upon today. I found two adult male Pacific White-Sided dolphins negatively interacting with a Dall’s Porpoise calf.

I know there were only two dolphins as they had distinct dorsal fins allowing me to track them as individuals. I know they were adult males since the fins of adult males tend to be chunkier and are often more scarred. I perceive that it was a negative interaction since the two dolphins were corralling the Dall’s Porpoise calf; hitting it with their tails at the surface; pushing down on the calf’s head and hitting it from below. It was an encounter that I witnessed for 10 minutes and was very persistent and intense.

I also saw what I think were only two adult Dall’s Porpoises repeatedly surfacing some 30 to 40 metres away from the interaction between the calf and the two Pacific White-Sided Dolphins.

In years past, I have seen this species of dolphin kill a Harbour Porpoise and a Pacific Harbour Seal pup. It is quite a regular occurrence for these dolphins to interact with fish-eating (“Resident”) Killer Whales in such a way that the Killer Whales dive longer, go silent and group up. Their interactions with Humpback Whales most often lead to the humpbacks “trumpeting”, rolling on the surface and slapping with their long pectoral fins. Such interactions are categorized in science as “harassment”.

Dolphins are smart. Very smart.

I put forward that interactions like this allow them to learn, to feed their hungry brains. If this does not sound plausible to you then you don’t have a younger sibling! Those of us who do have younger siblings know how “provoking” also allows young humans to learn. It allows them to find out “What happens when I do this?” “How about this?” “And when I do this?”

Dolphins are extremely social animals too. I believe such interactions allow the dolphins to exercise social bonds and strategize. The males of some well-studied dolphin species (e.g. Spotted dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins) have been found to have “coalitions” / “alliances”; social units that allow them to group defend, group feed and group mate. The Pacific White-Sided Dolphins off the coast of British Columbia are only beginning to be studied as individuals so science has yet to confirm what sort of social structures they might have. My hypothesis is that the two Pacific White-Sided Dolphins from today’s interaction have an alliance.

I cannot give you a conclusion to the interaction I witnessed today. When I last saw the porpoise calf, it was alive. However, as fate would have it, I had boat engine difficulty and therefore “lost” the animals as I dealt with my boat woes.

I have annotated the photos at the following link, leaving them in chronological order so that you can see how the interaction developed. I have also provided notes that will help you discern the two dolphins as individuals. Photography was challenging due to wind and the speed of the action.

Remember, no judging the wild.

Click here for the photos.

Click here for a study documenting “porpicide” of Harbour Porpoise by Bottlenose Dolphins.
Click here for article about Southern Resident Killer Whales (inshore fish-eaters) harassing Harbour Porpoise.
Click here for the population studies by Erin Ashe (Oceans Initiative) published since my writing the blog = Ecology of Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) in the coastal waters of British Columbia, Canada (2015)