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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • This photo was taken in my early days with Avalon and my Klepper kayak when the Seymour Canal was my regular haunt with the whales. As mammals, humpbacks must come to the surface to breathe.  Typically, humpbacks dive for 5-10 minutes although they can hold their breath for much longer if necessary. Unlike land mammals who store the majority of air in their lungs, whales store less than 25% in the lungs with almost half of the oxygen contained in hemoglobin molecules.  They also store oxygen in myoglobin molecules in the muscles.  When a whale dives, their metabolism and heart rate decrease so that they use oxygen stores more slowly.  At the same time blood is shunted away from the extremities.  These adaptations allow them to breathe much less frequently than land mammals. They also have a higher tolerance for carbon dioxide (CO2). Their brains do not trigger a breathing response until the levels of CO2 are much higher than what humans can tolerate.
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  • In Southeast Alaska, Sitka black-tailed deer, mountain goats, and beaver are the most important sources of food. Research indicates that salmon are important seasonally where they are available, especially to young wolves. During summer, small mammals including voles, lemmings and ground squirrels are taken. Wolves will also scavenge, and coastal wolves will beach comb.
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  • Humpbacks have an enormous lung capacity, which makes it possible for them to dive for long periods, often in excess of 20 minutes, These extended dives allow the animals to descend to deep water for foraging (up to 500 ft - 150 m). When the whale surfaces to breathe, it only has a few moments to exchange the air in its lungs, so it must exhale with tremendous force. The force of this exhalation vaporises the seawater that surrounds the blowhole and creates a "blow". This vertical plume of water vapour is usually the first indicator that a whale is in the area, and can usually be seen and heard over long distances. On several occasions I paddled stealthily up to a whale resting or sleeping on the surface just to be able to observe the blowhole in operation at close quarters, and was amazed at the power and speed that the blowhole opens and shuts during the exhalation and inhalation, and the explosive force of the breath rushing out and fresh air rushing back in.<br />
I observed them often sleeping in the afternoon, their rotund backs completely motionless with their flukes and long pectoral fins hanging down. Whales and dolphins don't sleep for extended periods the way that we do but just take short naps. To avoid drowning during sleep, it is crucial that marine mammals retain control of their blowhole. The blowhole is a flap of skin that is thought to open and close under the voluntary control of the animal. Although still a matter of discussion, most researchers feel that in order to breathe, a dolphin or whale must be conscious and alert to recognize that its blowhole is at the surface.
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  • Encountering orcas was a much rarer event than being with the humpback whales in Southeast Alaska so I always viewed it a special treat and a bonus for the summer. I always felt like I had to shift up into a much higher gear with the faster swimming orcas, and I usually knew that something out of the ordinary was going to happen. Most of pods of orcas I encountered were small transient pods specializing in hunting for marine mammals. On this occasion I was able to paddle many miles with a very large pod of at least 30 individuals that spanned the width of Chatham Strait. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the sea was calm without a puff of wind, which always makes it a bit easier to keep up with them. They appeared to be hunting for salmon by corralling them judging from the way their speed and direction changed periodically. It’s fascinating listening to the extensive chatter of orcas; they are much more vocal than the humpbacks and can produce a great range of sounds from clicks, squeals and whistles to what sounds like someone knocking on a door. The most memorable thing that happened on this day involved some young calves, which like the humpback calves were very inquisitive about me. I had just stopped for a rest and was observing the behavior of some of the orcas swimming past. Suddenly two calves popped their shiny black heads out of the water right next to the cockpit of my kayak! They were chattering away at me with their squealing and whistling, and after greeting them with a very surprised “hello’, my next instinct was to pat them on the head like puppies, but they disappeared before I had the chance to do that. <br />
I never ever felt threatened by orcas, even when the big bulls would sometimes swim straight towards me, and they would twist sharply at the last minute just before their tall dorsal fins could slice into me. I’m quite sure that they were only ever inquisitive about me.
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  • There is a greater density of brown bears on Admiralty Island in Southeast Alaska than anywhere else in North America. Brown and grizzly bears are classified as the same species even though there are notable differences between them. ‘Brown bears” typically live along the southern coast of Alaska where they have access to seasonally abundant spawning salmon. The coastal areas also provide a rich array of vegetation they can use as food as well as a milder climate. This allows them to grow larger and live in higher densities than their “grizzly” cousins in the northern and interior parts of the state. Brown bears are also larger than black bears, have a more prominent shoulder hump, less prominent ears, and longer, straighter claws. Long claws are useful in digging for roots or excavating small mammals, but are not efficient for climbing trees.<br />
I used to visit this area frequently because there was a well-known man called Stan Price who lived in harmony with the bears in nearby Pack Creek for many years; I enjoyed listening to his bear stories. On this particular occasion I received a wake-up call not to approach the bears too closely. This bear was chasing salmon in the shallow streams and I wandered too close while my eyes were confined to the viewfinder of my camera. It suddenly turned its attention from catching salmon to me and started to walk towards me. When the walk became a canter I realized that I was in trouble so I stopped taking photos and lowered my camera. I froze to the spot and as the pace of the bear increased my first instinct was to point at and shout in a very loud, commanding voice “ Go back!” My voice echoed around the steep walls of the valley and fortunately for me the bear obeyed my order; it slammed on the brakes, snarled at me one last time and then ran away through the tall grass.<br />
Like many other animals, particularly immature males, bears will often make a bluff charge to protect their territory but I wasn’t sure of that at the time!
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  • Based on differences in their lifestyles and food preferences, orcas are characterised as "resident" and "transient". These are transient orcas that were probably hunting for seals up in the glacial inlets of Glacier Bay. Transient orcas generally form smaller and more variable social groupings than residents, roam over a larger area of the coastal waters, and their appearance in particular places is not so predictable. They feed primarily on sea mammals such as seals and sea lions. The name "killer whale" probably stems from observations of transient orcas hunting.<br />
Resident Orcas.<br />
"Residents" are more predicatable because they frequent the same areas where they have a regular source of food in the summer and fall. They feed on salmon, live in close and extended family groups (matrilines and pods) and are highly social. Families can be distinguished from one another by their dialects.
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  • This was the photo that won the Mammal Behavior Category in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition in 2002. It wasn’t until after I attended the award ceremony at the Natural History Museum that I discovered that many of the judges were unhappy that it wasn’t awarded the title of the overall winner of the competition, and I subsequently discovered that that was the general public consensus as well. It was unfortunate that the controversy that surrounded the overall winner that year soured such a proud moment in my photographic career. I was contacted a few years later by the new head of the judging panel, Mark Carwardine, to ask for any guidelines for submitting a winning photo, because he felt that my photo was the best entry that year. C’est la vie !<br />
But the moment that can never be diminished or tainted was the moment that I captured the image. I was photographing a bubble net feeding group very near the community of Tenakee Springs, which can be seen to the left of the whale. They came up behind me and I can clearly remember zooming my lens back so that I could fit the entire throat of the whale into the photo, and fortunately I was just able to do that or else it might not have been a perfect award-winning photo.
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  • Dramatic declines in harbor seal numbers have been documented in Alaska, including a decline from approximately 11,000 seals to 1,000 seals during 1976-1988 on Tugidak Island near Kodiak – a site previously considered to host one of the largest concentrations of harbor seals in the world. That decline resulted in the listing of Alaskan harbor seals as a species of special concern by the Marine Mammal Commission. A 63% decline in harbor seal numbers also occurred in Prince William Sound during 1984-1997. Although seal numbers in the Kodiak area have been steadily increasing since the early 1990s and seal numbers in PWS began to stabilize and show signs of increase in 2002, both populations remain severely depressed compared to pre-decline population levels. Similarly, a greater than 65% decline in seal numbers has been documented in Glacier Bay since the early 1990s. Seals in Glacier Bay continue to decline at a precipitous rate despite conservation measures in place to control vessel traffic, commercial fishing, and subsistence harvest. The declines and lack of substantial recovery of some harbor seal populations in Alaska contrasts sharply with other parts of the world, where the species has proven to be resilient and capable of fairly rapid recovery from perturbations. There is no evidence that movements of seals between areas can explain these declines; the cause is unknown, but multiple factors are likely involved. Harbor seals appear to have responded severely to changes in carrying capacity and therefore may be particularly sensitive indicators of future change, such as ocean warming.
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  • This was an unforgettable wild encounter! The sea was very cold so I had to haul myself back into my kayak to warm up, with my legs dangling over the side and my flippers slapping the surface like a stranded fish. Moments later I was surprised to see another kayaker paddling towards me; It was an American called Corrie who told me that he had just made the long sea crossing from Isla San Jose. It was great to be joined by another kayaker and even greater when I discovered that he had a wetsuit! There was no holding back now so I returned to the underwater circus. I discovered that there was one juvenile sea lion that was bolder than the others. At first it was trying to bite my mask and then it was nipping my chest as if it was trying to suckle from me; I think that the black neoprene wetsuit had transformed me into a marine mammal! This apparent attempt at bonding with me was taken to the next level of hilarity when all of a sudden I was aware of its flippers being wrapped around my body from behind and then feeling the little clown clinging tightly to my back! I reached behind me to feel it and it was very smooth, soft and spongy, making it conform to the shape of my back like an orthopaedic back-support. I continued swimming along with this unexpected diving accessory still firmly clamped to my back like an air cylinder. It eventually released me and disappeared momentarily; then Corrie exclaimed, “look at your kayak!” and to my amazement I watched it hauling itself onto the back of my kayak! It promptly settled down for a snooze on the most comfortable and exclusive bed available. Corrie climbed into the cockpit of my kayak to take some photos of me with my new friend, or should I say foster child, as photographic evidence was surely required. Corrie tried to evict the stowaway with my paddle, but the little rascal nipped at it and promptly slid down inside the cockpit to confirm its status as a stowaway but it was eventually evicted after much protest.
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  • This was another photo taken by Francois Gohier when he was also photographing the bubble net feeding whales around the Morris Reef at Point Hayes. After I won the Mammal Category of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition in 2002 I was commissioned to write an article for the BBC Wildlife Magazine and this photo was used on the cover of the magazine, which was indeed an honour for me as I have been reading the magazine since I was a young boy.
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  • The lighting for photographing humpback whales in Southeast Alaska is unique, with a backdrop of snowy peaksmountains and forest-clad mountains frequently cloaked in wisps of ethereal mist, the rainbows There was commonly extensive cloud cover but any chinks of light that were able to break through the gloom seemed to highlight the outline of the whales and illuminate their plumes of transitory breath. The effect was even more pronounced when they were set against a backdrop of dark, forested mountains.<br />
This photo was Highly Commended in the Endangered Species category of the BBC Wildlife Photographer Competition in 2002, the same year that I won the Mammal Behavior category with a photo of a lunge-feeding whale, also taken in Tenakee Inlet.
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  • The most common predator of harbor seals is the killer whale. Other predators include sharks, sea lions, and land predators such as wolves, bears and coyotes. Since implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, hunting has been restricted to Alaska Natives. Harbor seals play a crucial role in the culture and diet of Alaska Natives; the annual subsistence harvest of harbor seals in Alaska is about1,800 to 2,900 animals, with fewer seals harvested in recent years. The harbor seal's ability to damage or remove salmon from gillnets has caused conflicts between seals and commercial fishers in Alaska. This behavior creates economic losses for fishers and often fosters an antagonistic attitude toward seals. The Copper River Delta, the mouths of the Stikine and Taku rivers, and portions of Bristol Bay are areas with notable harbor seal-fishery conflicts. Sometimes seals are caught and killed or injured in fishing gear, primarily in gillnets and occasionally in crab pots.
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  • I had read about this small mammal, which is actually a member of the racoon family and not a cat, and it didn’t disappoint. They have obviously become habituated to the procession of kayakers that camp on the island, and on one particular beach. One of them crept into our camp even when we were awake and cooking on a campfire, and came very close to us; I could hear the sound of it clattering around with our cooking pots.
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  • This is a rare photo taken from a boat rather than from my kayak. I took it from the deck of a small catamaran owned by the postmaster at Tenakee Springs. It was always such a mesmerising sight watching the blows of the whales being illuminated by the sun when the sun was low in the sky. It was usually emphasised by the dark backdrop of the mountains.
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  • Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) cooperative feeding using a bubble net, Morris Reef, Point Hayes, Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska, USA.
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  • Black and brown bears congregate at the salmon spawning streams during salmon to gorge themselves on the bounty of fish choking the rivers. They always squeeze out the eggs with their jaws to extract the protein-rich eggs. I found black bears to be much more of a problem than brown bears because they were much bolder, and certainly very persistent trying to get to my food. On one occasion I climbed a tree and hung some dry bags out along a branch over the river as far as I could reach, but a black bear managed to climb up the tree, and reach out far enough to use its powerful paw and sharp claws to rip the dry bag away from the heavy-duty nylon webbing sealing the bag. Black bears (Ursus americanus) are the most abundant and widely distributed of the three species of North American bears. An estimated 100,000 black bears inhabit Alaska. The black bear is the smallest of the North American bears. Adults stand about 29 inches at the shoulders and are about 60 inches from nose to tail. Males are larger than females, and weigh about 180-200 pounds in the spring. They are considerably lighter when they emerge from winter hibernation and may be about 20 percent heavier in the fall when they’re fat. Black bears can vary in color from jet black to white. Black is the color encountered most frequently across the state, but brown or cinnamon-colored black bears are sometimes seen in Southcentral Alaska and on the southeastern mainland. Cinnamon-colored black bears are also common in Alaska’s Interior. Some bluish-colored bears called glacier bears may be found in the Yakutat area and in other parts of Southeast Alaska. Black bears often have brown muzzles and some also have a patch of white hair on their chest.<br />
Black bears are most easily distinguished from brown bears by their straight facial profile and their claws, which rarely grow more than 1 ½ inches in length. Black bears have adequate sense of sight and hearing, but have an outstanding sense of smell.
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  • This was a young brown bear that I encountered quite frequently at my regular camp at Point Hayes on Chichagof Island. It was often foraging on the beach for food while I was cooking on my campfire, but it would always make a wide detour around me before continuing along the beach. I always had to be on my guard against bears getting into my food, especially black bears. I usually hung all of my food high up in the trees. On one occasion I arrived at a camp too late and I just covered everything up with a tarp. I disturbed a large bear that visited my camp in the night and could feel it’s heavy weight vibrating the ground when it was running. In the morning I discovered that it had “sucked” all of my bananas and pears through a mesh bag that I stored them in and I eventually found my large empty jar of peanut butter cracked open like an egg and licked spotlessly clean.<br />
This bear was well behaved but on one occasion it walked right up to my tent in the forest, and sniffed the air while looking up at my food hanging in the trees. I had cut open a lemon and the pungent smell was just too much for the curiosity of the bear. I talked to it in a calm, gentle voice, as I had learned to do: I had even made a bear fall asleep once while I was setting up my tripod to photograph it. I didn’t want to startle the bear too much so I just bent down slowly, picked up a small stick, and tossed it so that it hit the bear on the nose, upon which it promptly ran away.
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  • They are opportunistic feeders and eat a wide range of fish including herring, Pollock, salmon, cod and rockfish as well as squid and shrimp. I have even observed them catching seagulls on the surface.
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  • It was amazing to get in the water with the sea lions and witness their graceful speed and agility. They were curious about me as soon as I appeared. This is a popular destination for swimming with sea lions so that are very habituated to the presence of people in the water with them. It was mostly younger juveniles that I could see, with the occasional large bull, which although large seemed quite small in comparison with the Steller sea lions in Alaska.
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  • One of my primary objectives for the trip and for paddling as far south as La Paz was to dive with California sea lions at a well publicised haul out at a small island called Los Islotes, near Isla Partida, just to the north of La Paz. California sea lions are smaller than the enormous Steller sea lions that I was so fondly familiar with in Alaska. I have had so many close, entertaining and interactive encounters with those clowns of the sea and now at long last I had the opportunity to experience their antics underwater, where they are transformed from being lumbering mounds of blubber to agile, graceful underwater dancers. Los Islotes is a pink crest of rock sticking abruptly out of the sea with numerous ledges around its base as if it had been purpose-built for sea lions to sunbathe and loll around on.
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  • One of my first amazing encounters on the trip was this large pod of long-beaked common dolphins. I was paddling quite close to the precipitous rocky shoreline and was just skirting a small bay when I could suddenly hear what sounded like a white water river rushing towards me. I looked around me to locate the source of the noise and saw that the flat calm sea was erupting with a myriad of splashes and leaping dolphins ploughing towards me. Within seconds the water around me was energised by hundreds of dolphins dashing in different directions. Everything was happening so quickly that I didn’t know where to aim my camera next so I had to deploy the shoot from the hip mode. They were evidently herding fish around the bay, so I just sat in the middle of the vortex of feeding dolphins and soaked up the visual energy and excitement.
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  • Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, along with their spectacular cooperative feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching ( jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.<br />
This was one of the whales recorded and photographed in the studies of Dr Fred Sharpe, and he had named her “Butterfly” but he hadn’t seen her for a long time. Photographs of the underside markings and colouration of the flukes can be used like a fingerprint to identify individual whales; They can be predominantly black or white with any variation in between, and cuts, scars and barnacle formations can also be used for identification. There are more predominantly white flukes in the southern hemisphere populations than in the north.
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  • Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), are “true seals” of the Phocidae family, also sometimes called “common” or “hair” seals. They are covered with short, stiff, bristle-like hair. Coloration varies, but two basic patterns occur: light gray sides and belly with dark blotches or spots, or a dark background with light rings. They can be distinguished from other pinnipeds, such as fur seals and sea lions, by the absence of external ear flaps; only a small hole (the external pinnae, or opening to the ear canal) is visible on either side of their head. When on land, harbor seals move awkwardly by undulating in a caterpillar-like motion because their pelvic bones are fused, preventing them from moving their hind flippers under their pelvis to walk. In the water they are graceful and efficient swimmers, using their fore flippers as rudders and their hind flippers for propulsion by clasping both hind flippers together, splaying webbed toes and moving the large hind flippers side to side.<br />
Harbor seals weigh about 24 pounds (11 kg) at birth and gain weight rapidly during a month-long suckling period; perhaps doubling their weight. They can reach five to six feet (1.5-1.8 meters) in length. Average weight for adults is about 180 pounds (82 kg); males are somewhat larger than females and can weigh up to 285 pounds (129 kg).
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  • This was a breaching whale that left an unforgettable visual imprint in my memory for all time. I was camped in Icy Strait where there are usually many humpback whales, and the scenery is incredible, with a fantastic backdrop of the massive Fairweather Mountain Range bordering Glacier Bay. It was a beautiful, flat-calm, sunny morning and one whale had got off to a flying start. It was breaching repeatedly and I got off to an early start to try to catch up with it on the other side of Icy Strait. <br />
Unfortunately by the time I got there it had stopped breaching, as always seemed to happen. I continued to paddle my kayak on that beautiful peaceful morning, gliding across the mirror-calm sea with the sound of the water dripping from my paddles amplified by the stillness. Then suddenly without any warning I could “feel” something erupting out of the water nearby so I spun around trying to locate the source of the disturbance. Glancing over my shoulder my view of the rising sun was eclipsed by the massive silhouette of the whale leaping out of the water, just a few metres behind my kayak; it had an auro of the sun’s rays around it like a religious icon. My jaw dropped with astonishment, and my heart must have skipped a few beats; and before I could react to protect myself or my camera there was a massive thud when the whale struck the water and I was drenched by a whale-sized, icy cold shower: I suddenly felt very small and vulnerable in my kayak. I had experienced the whales so many times at close quarters, but it’s not until you can actually view one in its entirety hovering above you that you can really appreciate the scale of a whale!
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  • Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) on the surface at sunset just after blowing, Frederick Sound, Southeast Alaska, USA.
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  • It continued to breach for quite some time after that shock. To this day I wonder if that whale had intentionally turned back towards me, and deliberately breached so close to me just to give me a warning, or an early-morning surprise.<br />
Later that afternoon I was taking a siesta with my feet dangling over the sides of my kayak, surrounded by whales and with my freshly dried camera on my lap, when I was rudely awakened by another icy-cold shower. This time it was a mischievous calf that had crept up behind me and flicked the water onto me with its flukes. But this time I had an audience because there was a cruise ship within viewing distance, and I heard someone who observed that I was drying my camera: little did they know that it was the second time that same day!
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  • Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, with the additional bonus of their spectacular cooperative bubble net feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching (jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. It creates a thunderclap noise that can be heard miles away. Actually on this occasion it was a cow and a calf lobtailing together, and the calf is often the instigator for play: they kept this up for about half an hour. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.
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  • Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) cooperative feeding using a bubble net, I You Seen Cove, Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska, USA.
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  • This photo illustrates the power of the whales when they surge to the surface. Their gaping jaws, scooping up hundreds of litres of sea water and fish, must exert a tremendous amount of drag. Some of the herring they were pursuing can be see flying through the air to escape their open mouths.
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  • Orcas have many of the same behavioural characteristics on the surface as humpback whales, and possibly for the same reasons. I didn't observe orcas lobtailing or breaching as much as humpbacks. It's quite likely that this orca was lobtailing to herd salmon, just as humpback whales do to shock and herd shoals of herring into bays or along a shoreline.
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  • Humpback whales arch their backs very prominently before sounding, hence the name "humpback".
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  • This was my first really memorable day kayaking with humpback whales in my Klepper kayak in the early 1980s. It was a beautiful sunny day and the sea was flat calm. There was a pod of humpback whales feeding in the area all afternoon.
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  • The unusual and dramatic lighting was created by a forest fire hundreds of miles away in the Yukon Territory. The smoky haze drifted across Southeast Alaska during a rare period of clear weather, intensified the lighting and created a luminous band of light along the horizon.
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  • Humpback whales probably raise their flukes up high like this when sounding if they are going to do a steep vertical dive down to deeper water, but less so when they are just going to be swimming at shallower depths.<br />
This photo was used by Athena International in the late 1980s for posters and cards.
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  • It was always good to have Fred Sharpe and his fellow whale researchers around in their Alaska Whale Foundation boat, “the Evolution”. We both had a lot of mutual respect for each other, and very importantly to me he shared the same respect for the whales, and always operated in a very non-intrusive manner. I was so used to being out there camping alone, but it was always nice to enjoy their company, and catch up on some jovial socializing and fine dining onboard his boat.<br />
Dr. Fred Sharpe started studying the behaviour of humpback whales in Southeast Alaska from a small skiff around about the same time that I started photographing them from a kayak. While I became quite obsessed with photographing the incredible cooperative bubble net feeding strategy of the whales, Fred conducted ground-breaking research into that behaviour and established such things as the task specialisation of individual members within a feeding group, whereby the same whale blows the bubbles and the same one makes the piercing feeding call. he is now stationed at the Five Finger Lighthouse, armed with a wireless hydrophone that AWF hopes will allow them to record and broadcast live, the diverse vocalizations made by humpback whales in Southeast Alaska.
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  • This photo shows how much the whales' jaws are distended when lunge feeding like this. A solitary Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) can be seen in the middle as well as the bristles on the inside of the baleen plates.
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  • This photo was taken near the Tlingit village of Kake on Kupreanof Island and illustrates the problems of the practice of clear-cut logging that persisted during the 1980s and 90s when I was based in Southeast Alaska. The extent of clear-cutting was much worse around native communities because the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) awarded approximately 148,500,000 acres (601,000 km2) of Federal land in Alaska to private native corporations which were created under ANCSA. Transference of public National Forest land to a privately owned corporation removes it from protection by Federal law and allows the owners to use the land in whatever way they see fit without regard to the effects of the use on surrounding lands and ecosystems. This fact has caused much controversy involving the business interests of Native Regional Corporations and the personal interests of local Natives and non-Native residents of Southeastern Alaska, such as subsistence hunting and tourism.
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  • This was one of the very rare occasions when a humpback whale ever showed any aggression towards me. I always tried to avoid obstructing the passage of whales but with so many encounters it was inevitable that sometimes I didn’t have enough time to get out of their way, especially if they surfaced in front of me without any warning. Even then I was often amazed at how they would just roll beneath me like a gigantic ball caressing the soft hull of my kayak with barely a ripple. But on this occasion I encountered a slightly more irritable whale and as it was sounding (diving), instead of just lifting its flukes up before sliding gracefully out of view, it rolled its flukes sideways, creating a large wave that surged towards me, over the bow of my kayak and onto my lap. The icy water of Southeast Alaska was always cold enough to give me a sharp intake of breath, and some degree of punishment for not giving way to a much larger vessel fast enough!
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  • This photo was taken by one of the leading humpback whale researchers in Southeast Alaska at the time, Cynthia D’Vincent. She was actually working with a film crew at the time who were making an IMAX film. We had a lot of encounters during the filming and she pointed out that I was getting into "rather too many" of their shots, and politely asked me if I could try to avoid doing that. I was getting fed up with having to breathe in the exhaust fumes from their fast boats, whilst I was left rocking in their wake. I continued to work in my usual low impact fashion, but eventually they got all of the shots that they needed and I was thanked for obliging with her request, and I was rewarded with a bottle of wine. <br />
The unusual lighting, and atmospheric conditions at sunset, was a result of an extensive forest fire in the Yukon Territory hundreds of miles away to the northeast.
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  • I always felt completely safe in my kayak with the whales. If anyone ever asked me if I was afraid to get as close to the whales as I did, the answer was always a resounding yes because I always trusted them not to be aggressive towards me because I always tried to ensure that I posed no threat towards them. I often stayed with a pod for an entire day from morning to night and they would often surface alongside me and accompany me as if I was one of them. I became a familiar and unthreatening shape and presence to them, with no potentially deadly slashing propeller to concern them; I was virtually no different from other marine creatures like sea lions that often accompany them.
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  • Steller sea lions forage near shore and pelagic waters.They are also capable of traveling long distances in a season and can dive to approximately 1300 feet (400 m) in depth. They use land habitat as haul-out sites for periods of rest, molting, and as rookeries for mating and pupping during the breeding season. At sea, they are seen alone or in small groups, but may gather in large "rafts" at the surface near rookeries and haul outs. They are capable of powerful vocalizations that are accompanied by a vertical head bobbing motion by males.<br />
Steller sea lions are opportunistic predators, foraging and feeding primarily at night on a wide variety of fishes (e.g., capelin, cod, herring, mackerel, pollock, rockfish, salmon, sand lance, etc.), bivalves, cephalopods (e.g., squid and octopus) and gastropods. Their diet may vary seasonally depending on the abundance and distribution of prey. They may disperse and range far distances to find prey, but are not known to migrate.<br />
Steller sea lions are colonial breeders. Adult males, also known as bulls, establish and defend territories on rookeries to mate with females. Bulls become sexually mature between 3 and 8 years of age, but typically are not large enough to hold territory successfully until 9 or 10 years old. Mature males may go without eating for 1-2 months while they are aggressively defending their territory. Males may live up to 20 years and females to 30 years. Females start breeding at 3-7 years and spend the next two decades either pregnant or lactating. Females are bred in June, but the fertilized egg does not implant until October. Single pups are born the following June, with birthdates at southern rookeries earlier than births at northern rookeries. Twins are rare. Pups suckle from 1 to 3 years, with most apparently weaning after their first winter.
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  • The harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), a widespread species in both the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is found in Alaska along the coast extending from Dixon Entrance north to Kuskokwim Bay and west throughout the Aleutian Islands. Harbor seals, and other phocid (true) seals, also are called “hair” seals, which helps distinguish true seals from fur seals. Harbor seals haul out of the water periodically to rest, give birth, and nurse their pups. In winter seals spend up to 80% of their time in the water. In spring and summer they spend more time hauled out during pupping and moult season. Reefs, sand and gravel beaches, sand and mud bars, and glacial, pan ice, and sea ice are commonly used for haul-out sites. The moulting lines on these seals are clearly visible.
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  • The Steller sea lions of Alaska have entertained me many times and provided company during bad weather when there were no other animals around. They were always inquisitive, if not a bit wary of me, and would often swim beneath my kayak and look up at me with their big bulging eyes. Sometimes they would even engage me in a race to show off their speed on the surface where they can leap like dolphins.<br />
Among pinnipeds, it is only inferior in size to the walrus and elephant seals. The males are bigger than the females and grow to a length of about 2.82-3.25 metres long, with an average of 3m. The males have much wider chests, necks and general body structure and weigh 450-1.120 kg with an average of 544 kg. Males are further distinguished from females by broader, higher foreheads, flatter snouts, and darker, slightly tuftier hair around their large necks, giving them a maned appearance. Indeed, their Latin name translates roughly as “maned one with the broad forehead”.<br />
The range of the Steller sea lion extends from the Kuril Islands and the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia to the Gulf of Alaska in the north, and south to Ano Nuevo Island off central California. The global Steller sea lion population has traditionally been divided into an eastern and western stock roughly through the Gulf of Alaska. They have attracted considerable attention in recent decades due to significant, unexplained declines in their numbers over a large portion of their range in Alaska. While the population of the eastern and Asian stocks appear stable, the population of the western stock, particularly along the Aleutian Islands, was estimated to have fallen by 70-80% since the 1970s. One suspected cause of their precipitous decline is overfishing of Alaska Pollock, herring and other fish stocks in the Gulf of Alaska. In 1997 the western stock was listed as threatened but in 2013 they were removed from the U.S Endangered Species List after a major population recovery.
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  • The sea lions have such a thick coating of blubber to cushion their bodies that they can sleep just about anywhere and look very comfortable. It is a different matter when they are trying to haul their bulky bodies around with only their flippers to assist them. It involves a lot of huffing and puffing, heaving and swaying with much grunting and steam belching from their open mouths. They look like big sacks of blubber and bones being dragged across the rocks: in stark contrast to their fluid graceful motion underwater like huge flying fish.
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  • Reproductively mature male sea lions aggregate on traditional rookeries in May, usually on beaches on isolated islands. A week or so later, adult females arrive, accompanied occasionally by sexually immature offspring, and form fluid aggregations throughout the rookery. Steller sea lions are polygamous but they do not coerce individual females into harems but control spatial territories among which females freely move about. Pregnant females give birth soon after arriving on a rookery, and copulation generally occurs one to two weeks after giving birth, but the fertilized egg does not become implanted in the uterus until the autumn. After about a week of nursing, females start taking increasingly longer foraging trips, leaving the pups behind until in late summer when they both leave the rookery. Males fast until August, often without returning to the water, after which time the rookeries break up and most animals leave for the open seas and disperse throughout their range.<br />
Steller sea lions are predated upon by orcas and I actually witnessed the death of one bull that had become quite attached to me. It had been showing so much interest in me and it even raised its head out of the water right in front of me to have a good look with its bulging eyes. A short while later I heard a commotion in the distance and saw that a pod of transient orcas had arrived on the scene and were systematically charging the sea lion and thrashing it with their flukes. It was a difficult event to witness, especially whenever the big bull re-appeared on the surface gasping for breath. It took the orcas about 15 minutes to finally kill it and not long after that they were attacking some humpback whales that had strayed onto the scene. It was an exhilarating experience to be paddling my kayak so close to a pod of orcas engaged in a hunt, but they showed no interest in me. It was one of those occasions when I wished that I’d had someone else with me to witness such an amazing spectacle.
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  • Whenever I was in Angoon, usually at the beginning of a kayaking trip after I had caught the ferry from Petersburg with my kayak, and my gear and food, I always visited the city dump, which was a 20 minute walk from the beach. Sometimes they were having a bath in the ditch alongside the road, and I was able to observe their playful behaviour in the water, although with a little trepidation, because they always seemed to have one eye on me. They seemed to be OK with my presence as long as I just stood in one spot and didn't move around too much.
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  • Two subspecies of wolves are currently recognized in Alaska; wolves in Southeast Alaska tend to be darker and somewhat smaller than those in northern parts of the state. Wolves are social animals and usually live in packs that include parents and pups of the year. The average pack size is six or seven animals, and pack members often include some yearlings and other adults. Packs of 20 to 30 wolves sometimes occur, and these larger packs may have two or three litters of pups from more than one female.<br />
The social order in the pack is characterized by a separate dominance hierarchy among females and males. In most areas wolf packs tend to remain within a territory used almost exclusively by pack members, with only occasional overlap in the ranges of neighboring packs.<br />
This was my first close encounter with a pack of wolves in Southeast Alaska. They are generally hard to see because most of their range is densely forested but the landscape is much more open in Glacier Bay. I was paddling around this island in the middle of winter when I heard some wolves howling. Around the next bend I encountered a pair of cow moose out in the water protecting themselves from a frustrated pack of wolves howling on the shore. I just sat motionless in my kayak and eventually one of the wolves trotted down the frozen beach and stood right in front of me for a few seconds before returning to the rest of the pack. It was a thrilling experience to look a wolf in the eyes at such close quarters.
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  • They originated in Asia and crossed into North America shortly before the Bering Land Bridge between Asia and America flooded about 11,000 years ago, and then dispersed throughout Beringia ( prehistoric Interior Alaska and northwest Canada). About 10,000 years ago an ice-free corridor opened up between the huge continental glaciers that covered Canada, allowing animals like moose, grizzly bears and bison to move south from Berangia to the Pacific Northwest into the continental United States.<br />
Moose subsequently evolved into four North American subspecies (and other sub-species found in Scandinavia and Russia). Alaska is home to the world’s largest, Alces alces gigas, as well as a smaller sub-species, Alces alces andersoni. Gigas, also known as Alaska moose or tundra moose, is found in Alaska, the Yukon and northwest British Columbia; andersoni, or anderson’s moose, is found in Southeast Alaska, the eastern Yukon, and central B.C east to Michigan.<br />
Impeded by mountain ranges, icefields and glaciers, moose did not colonize Southeast Alaska until the 20th century. They are far more recent arrivals than Sitka black-tailed deer and wolves, which moved up the coast from the south about 8,000 years ago as the glaciers melted and land was exposed. Moose from British Columbia accressed Southeast via the river corridors and arrived in the Taku River valley south of Juneau and the Stikine River basin near Petersburg about 1910.<br />
I had a memorable encounter with a large herd of moose in Adam’s Inlet in Glacier Bay in the middle of winter. I was standing on the mudflats at low tide and set up my tripod to photograph the moose on the shore. Gradually they started to walk towards me until eventually I was surrounded by at least 20 moose who were more curious about me than afraid; apparently their protected status in the National Park had made them fearless of humans.
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  • It was always sad to see bears that had become so completely dependent on garbage dumps as their main source of food. The bears that had been feeding at dumps for a long time always looked very mangy, often with fur scorched by the fires in the dump and tape worms trailing from their backsides. There have been many attempts by the Unites States National Forest Service to re-locate dump bears, sometimes long distances by helicopter, but they frequently return to their convenient diners.
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  • They obviously viewed me as a playmate or someone to tease and as soon as they saw me they started their pranks like this one darting towards me at high speed and then veering away as soon as I flinched. Their most annoying and clever prank was to keep picking up the anchor stone that my kayak was secured to on the ledge, swim out to deeper water and drop it so that my kayak would start drifting away and I had to keep swimming after it. I don’t know how they figured out how to do that; maybe it was something that they had already learnt to do from other kayakers, but they certainly appeared to relish my immediate reaction every time they did it. Eventually I had to wedge the rock firmly into a crack in the ledge to stop their merry prank.
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  • If I paddled past a sea lion haul-out I always attracted a tightly-packed group of noisy sea lions like a magnet: they would extend their heads as high as they could to get a better look at me. They always stayed bunched together rather like a shoal of fish that employs the "one in the middle" defensive group strategy that relies on strength of numbers to increase an individuals chance of survival. They were very vociferous but always kept a safe distance, unless they dived underwater to get a closer look at me: I could see them circling beneath me and looking up at me with their big bulging eyes.
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  • Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sounding near the entrance to Pleasant Bay, Admiralty Island, Seymour Canal, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
The weather conditions were frequently overcast and gloomy for days on end, but if the sunlight ever pierced through the all pervading gloom, the whales seemed to attract it; their graceful motion, water shed from their flukes and diaphanous breath became brilliantly highlighted by a spotlight in their murky world.
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  • The total Alaska harbor seal population is estimated at approximately 141,000 in non-glacial sites and approximately 15,000 in glacial fjords. Harbor seals are difficult to census because they can only be accurately counted when they are hauled out. They haul out at different times of the day at thousands of locations in Alaska; both at terrestrial sites and on glacial ice calved from tidewater glaciers. During any survey, some seals are in the water and not available to be counted while others are hauled out, but the proportion of the total population hauled out at any given time is unknown and must be estimated. One way to arrive at this estimate is to radio tag seals in the area, prior to conducting a survey. When the survey is conducted, the proportion of radio-tagged seals that are not hauled out provides a correction factor to estimate the total seal population (e.g., if 3 of 10 tagged seals were not hauled out, an additional 30% would be added to the count of seals hauled out to estimate the total population).
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  • The left eye of the whale in the foreground is clearly visible and shut. The whales are lunging at such close proximity that they usually close their eyes to protect them from any damage, particularly from the flippers that are usually heavily encrusted with barnacles. Whales that are regular members of these teams of bubble net feeders are very distinctive because of all of the scratches inflicted on their bodies by barnacles.
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  • Humpback whales have the longest flipper of any cetacean: 5 metres long or up to a third of the body length. They vary in colouration and can be almost completely white like this individual. Humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere are more likely to have white flippers than in the Northern Hemisphere. I observed how they appeared to use their big flippers to help to herd their prey towards their gaping jaws during lunge feeding. I also observed how they use them for splashing the water to assist in panicking and herding their prey, and they probably also use them for audible communication. But they also appear to use them recreationally like this one laying on its side waving its flippers aloft and then bringing it crashing down onto the surface. This whale rolled over and over towards me with its flippers going around like a windmill or a gigantic propellor.<br />
I once felt the power and weight of a flipper when I was accidentally caught directly above an ascending bubblenet feeding pod. Before I had the chance to get out of the way one of them rolled over and its flipper landed on top of the bow of my kayak, which became partially submerged by the weight: it then rolled back the other way and released me.
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  • Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) lobtailing, Frederick Sound, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
Humpback whales are the most acrobatic and playful whales on the surface, making them the perfect whale for whale watching, with additional bonus of their spectacular cooperative bubble net feeding behavior. They engage in a lot of breaching (jumping) and lobtailing, which is when they raise their flukes out of the water and slap the surface repeatedly as this individual is doing. It creates a thunderclap noise that can be heard miles away. Actually on this occasion it was a cow and a calf lobtailing together, and the calf is often the instigator for play: they kept this up for about half an hour. There are many possible reasons for this behavior including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation.
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  • Humpback whales love to breach; of that there is no doubt. They are the champion breachers of all whales and can continue jumping for an hour or more. Sometimes they jump completely clear of the water and either fall backwards or on their sides with a resounding thud that reverberates around the surrounding mountains. It is exhilarating to watch and it always leaves you begging for more. It is the most frustrating and challenging behavior to try to photograph because you could never be sure when and where they will jump next, so there are always plenty of surprises in store. It became the holy grail of my whale photography, and more often than not I was left empty-handed, but exhilarated. On so many occasions when I was prepared for the shot they failed to jump and likewise on so many occasions when I wasn’t ready, they jumped; they always kept me guessing, and hoping.<br />
There are many possible reasons for breaching that are similar to those for lobtailing including trying to dislodge barnacles and other parasites, communicating with other whales, herding prey and as a threat display to boats that approach too closely. It could also be just for recreation as I have witnessed on many an occasion; what better way could there be for celebrating your power and size than leaping out of the water and making a whale-sized splash! They often seem to do in the morning as if going for a morning jog, and they sometimes breach in synchronization with other whales, which is often associated with cooperative herding and feeding.
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  • This was one of the most unusual pods of bubble net feeding whales because of the appearance of some of their flukes every time they lunged to the surface. The co-operative feeding groups that use bubble nets to catch herring are very cohesive teams of individuals that feed together every summer, and their herding and feeding manoeuvres are tightly choreographed for maximum efficiency. This is the only pod that I witnessed using their flukes in this manner as part of their strategy.
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  • The tightly packed baleen plates are clearly visible. They are smooth on the outside, and coarse and bristly on the inside. They have a series of 270-400 fringed overlapping plates hanging from each side of the upper jaw, where teeth might otherwise be located.
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  • Sometimes the cooperative feeding group would surface unexpectedly. If the sea was calm and there were plenty of seabirds around to help me to track the whales then it was easier, but if it was more difficult to see the bubbles on the surface or there were distracting sounds of boat engines in the vicinity then anything could happen, and on this occasion the whales exploded out of the water right behind me and I barely had enough time to swivel around to take a photo.
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  • I never tired of photographing the whales when they were sounding, because the flukes are such a beautiful shape and the motion is so graceful as they raise them just before slipping into the water, whilst shedding a sparkling waterfall. There was also the additional aesthetic element of their ethereal breath, but it had such a foul unbecoming fishy smell; research has revealed many harmful pathogens contained in their breath. There are also droplets of mucous that often coated myself and my lens, giving the soft-focus effect evident in this photo, but I usually tried to avoid getting engulfed by their foul-smelling breath.
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  • The weather conditions were frequently overcast and gloomy for days on end, but if the sunlight ever pierced through the all pervading gloom, the whales seemed to attract it; their graceful motion, water shed from their flukes and diaphanous breath became brilliantly highlighted by a spotlight in their murky world.
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