Welcoming Whales
a Multi-platform Project
Sound of humpback whales & sea lions breathing. Increase |||||| on speaker for more volume. Note: the long, deep breaths are the humpbacks, the shorter faster breaths are the sea lions.
Phase 1 Objective: research the human-whale connection
Synopsis
In 2019 it will be 50 years since the bloody hunt that wiped out 90% of the ocean’s whales ended in Canadian waters. Migrating humpback whales are starting to return to their old feeding grounds in the Salish Sea on Canada’s Pacific coast. How can humans; fishermen, whale watching and recreational boaters, industries and local families get to know and welcome their new large neighbours?
Two middle-aged filmmakers are determined to find out. With an old sailboat, a barefoot budget and dreams of singing with humpbacks they embark on an intrepid journey – to make friends with whales.
May 2015: Phase 1 Work Plan
The Summer of 2015 will be a research season for the project. ImpPossible and the Amphibiographer [the filmmakers] will be hanging out on the water in the old sailboat as much as possible. We hope to film humpback whales as they go about their natural business making their living in the Salish Sea. We also hope that local humpbacks will become familiar with the boat. We certainly won’t be chasing whales but if they are curious enough to approach the boat we will welcome their attentions. We will also attempt to communicate with them by singing and talking.
We are also searching for humans who already have whale or dolphin friends to consult with them about how they developed their relationships. In fact this first season could be called “How to Make Friends With Whales”.
Of course it’s helpful to find a whale first. Even then, the whale or dolphin may not be interested in having a human friend. Here’s hoping a cetacean or two are willing to honour us… or humour us. Stay tuned!
Feb 2016: Phase 1I project premise:
START AGAIN to make a film about human-whale connection (see Phase 1)
A reading of the 2015 monthly Whale journals blog will quickly reveal that, during our first research season, we filmmakers got as far out on the Salish Sea as the beach at low tide.. Unfortunately life got in the way in the form of a complex move that dragged on from April through August. Then refusal of the carburetor on their old sailboat engine to quit leaking and cooperate with the work plan schedule ate up September – Jan. 2016.
Finally, thanks to a local skipper and a virtuoso mechanic we will start again in the Spring of 2016 with a purring engine and overhauled carburetor. In retrospect, though frustrating, it doesn’t hurt to have another year of research under our belts (along with a bit of winter fat) and whale song in our hearts.
“How to make friends with your local whales” is still the story on which 2016 Phase II filming will focus. The “multi-platform” portion of the project grows out of this website that will expand its scope into deeper questions. Can humans and cetaceans communicate with each other telepathically? Can humans learn whale and dolphin languages? Can we understand each others’ cultures? even learn how to work together for the health of the oceans?
Which segues nicely into
Phase III: The Website
The website will feature:
- audio recordings of humpback whale language and song with clues to understanding cetacean language and links to research into cetacean language being done around the world.
- inter-species communication techniques – exercises you can do in real time – with links to websites of indigenous trackers and animal communicators practicing telepathic communication and teaching these skills
- fascinating facts about life in the ocean, ocean health and the effect of sick ocean environments on cetaceans trying to make a living in them – with links to advocacy groups and campaigns you may want to join
- the universe according to whales – how whales perceive the world through their unique physiology
WHALE NOW !
WELCOMING WHALES PROJECT
UPDATE DECEMBER 2015
What makes humans want to connect with whales and dolphins? Are we attracted because whales are so enormously charismatic and dolphins so playful? Is it because they are so obviously intelligent yet different enough to be enigmatic? And the attraction seems to be mutual. Whales and dolphins are curious about us too. Since we stopped slaughtering them in 1969 many have even become friendly. More whales of all kinds are returning to their former summer feeding grounds. Here in the Salish Sea [Georgia Strait on maps] a small number of humpback whales are staying in the waters between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada.
Currently most humans in our region are welcoming whales with open hearts. But there are some choices to be made. Choice foods for humpback whales are forage fish like herring, and krill which is a tiny shrimp. Herring were once so abundant in this region that people could go down to the beaches during a herring spawn and scoop up buckets of the 25cm [10in] oily fish. But over-fishing and pollution of their spawning beaches decimated their numbers. Herring only began to return to Powell River beaches 2 years ago after a 30 year disappearance. Does the return of the herring have something to do with the return of the humpback whales? In November 2015 Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) allowed a catch of over 7,000 tonnes of herring in Georgia Strait for food and bait fish with more planned.One humpback whale can eat 1 – 1.5 tons of food per day. Will we choose to leave some food for them?
In September/October of 2015 there were lots of krill in Jervis Inlet. 4 or 5 humpback whales, including a Mom and calf were feeding and frolicking there during that period. We camped in Jervis Inlet in October to wait for the whales. Unfortunately the times they came closest were in the dark of a moonless night.
Here’s two humpbacks breaching and tail lobbing on the far side of the fjord from our campsite. They were 1 km across the fjord so you will see their bodies hit the water and then hear the powerful sound a few seconds later.
In November FOC allowed a krill fishery with 500 tonnes of krill to be taken out of small inlets like Jervis. “Krill in B.C. are harvested mainly as a feed supplement for both fish farms (gives salmon their ‘pink’ colour) and aquariums. Krill are a large dietary proportion of many local finfish (hake, herring, rockfish, salmon) and if krill stocks should fall, finfish could be affected. [ref: http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/oceans/plankton-plancton/zooplankton-zooplancton-eng.html]
To say that a humpback whale is merely large depends on your perspective. When a 16m (52ft) whale swims under your 3m (9ft) boat your voice tends to rise rise 2 octaves in breathless excitement!
A Humpback named “KC” (Kelp Creature) steaming up Jervis Inlet past our 3m(9 ft) inflatable dinghy.
We love to watch them and interact with them. But more and more folks in boats are venturing out onto the water. If we want whales here we will have to leave room for them to go about making their living without interference by humans. However, if whales are curious and approach them why shouldn’t humans welcome their interest?
Many whales get entangled in commercial fishing gear and die slow horrible deaths. Are we willing to use our ingenuity and financial resources to design whale friendly fishing gear?
And what about tankers? The “Northern Gateway” project proposed to drive oil supertankers right through the northern whale migration route along the BC coast. There have been proposals for transporting LNG in supertankers through the Salish Sea. Do we want whales in our waters or supertankers?
So there are Choices to be made. Will we accommodate our large friends in the future? If so, how? Are we planning for coexistence now?
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH WHALES II
In the macrocosm this project is an inquiry into the human-whale-dolphin connection. Distilled to the microcosm it is a story about getting to know your neighbours; a story of how local humans make friends with local whales.
When first meeting anyone from another culture it helps to have a guide who understands that culture and can interpret the language. We will ask humans who have relationships with individual whales or dolphins that have developed into friendships to be our guides. Some of these humans may be biologists who have been studying and interacting with a group of whales or dolphins for decades. Some may be from coastal First Nations who have a long history of living and canoeing along side the great whales before the whaling debacle. We’ve heard stories about homesteaders living beside resident humpback whales in the Broughton Archipelago 50 years ago. Some of those folks may want to share some stories. And there are villagers on the Pacific Coast of Mexico and the Sea of Cortes who live beside the humpback whales on the southern end of their great migrations.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could ask whales and dolphins how they perceive the universe? Would they tell us about their cultures and their history? What do they perceive about the health of the oceans? Humpback whales have been on Planet Earth in their present form for around 18million years. If we could communicate with them would they teach us what they’ve learned?