Posted by jessmil on 08/03/2006 10:16 am

The following posting is from Carroll, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...

Last night at 11 p.m., I saw the sunset for the first time in weeks. It was a little late in the day for one, but a welcome sight nonetheless, and a nice signpost for the beginning of the end of the tour. We spent last night finishing out our humpback search area, then headed south this morning for a pass between Amak Island and the Alaska Peninsula, our last waypoint before the turn toward Dutch Harbor and home. As we neared the island, we saw a humpback. Then a few minutes later, saw another.

It was nice to spend some time watching real whales. When you’ve been on watch for days on end, staring at the uninterrupted expanse of the sea, the water starts to take shapes of its own. A blow. A fin. The arch of a back. But there’s nothing there. Just ghosts in the waves.

Before we got to Amak, our route took us through the area where most sightings of the critically endangered Northern right whale have occurred in recent years. It would have been nice to see one, of course; but we had no illusions about it. There are no more than 100 Northern right whales left in the east Pacific now, and the true number may be closer to twenty, making them one of the world’s most endangered mammals. The species has become so rare, an accurate count is nearly impossible. Until a few whales were seen with a calf in 1996, there’d been no proof for decades that right whales were even reproducing in Alaskan waters.

The right whale earned both its name and its endangered status from commercial whalers. It was the “right” whale to hunt because the species is slow moving, rich in whale oil, and floats when harpooned. In the Atlantic, right whales were hunted for hundreds of years before being nearly wiped out. In the North Pacific, it took less than seventy. Intensive whaling for right whales started in Alaska in 1835, and by 1900 the species had all but disappeared. And even though the species was completely protected in 1935, it has yet to recover. Although I hope they someday will, the sad truth is the North Pacific’s right whales may never recover. When a population becomes very small, chance starts to play a huge role in its fate: any mortality, any disease, any accident becomes too much. One accident too many, and extinction becomes inevitable. The few animals left become remnants of a species that is already doomed. A collection of ghosts in the waves.

The history of commercial whaling is not a proud one. Blue whales, fin whales, bowheads, humpbacks all were “managed” to the brink of extinction before finally being protected. It’s a story we’ve repeated again and again on both land and sea—with elephants, with rhinos, with crab and cod, tuna and swordfish. Some species, in some places, have begun to recover. Many have not.

In lives saturated with sitcoms and newsflashes and podcasts, we’re trained to believe that problems come and go at lighting speed. The news explodes. The story unfolds. The problem is fixed. Everyone is happy and we move on to the next episode and the next crisis. But nature takes a long time to reveal her wounds, and even longer to heal them. If they can be healed at all.

Each time we mismanage a species or fishery until it disappears, we tell ourselves we’ve learned our lesson. That the next species, the next fishery, will be managed responsibly and cautiously. But then the profits come, and the boom comes, and we don’t want the boom to end. So when little signals arise, when nature starts to show her hand, a litany begins: there’s no evidence; there’s not enough evidence; the evidence is inconclusive; something else is to blame; someone else is to blame…why didn’t someone warn us this was happening? Who took all the fish away? Who took all the whales?

The answer, sadly, is always the same. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I suggest you ask a right whale.

If you can find one.

- Carroll

Posted by jessmil on 08/03/2006 10:13 am

The following posting is from Adam, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...  

2nd August
Near Amak Island
High cloud, gentle breeze, good viz.
After 36 hours of searching through the ocean for humpbacks we finished the pattern and headed south. We had hoped to find whales in that area in order to add whales to the weight of the pollock spawning grounds as an argument against seismic testing and oil drilling in this area already under pressure from over-fishing.

The next day-
Slowly in the south east, around dinner time, an amazing sight began to take shape out of the clouds on the horizon, the massive peaks of Pavlof Volcano, still smoking, and Mt Dana, another volcano but inactive. Below them the silhouette of Amak Island, where we are headed for the pass between the island and the mainland. Craig (the previous whale scientist on board) wants us to have a look around there for killers.
As we approached the island I was out on the back deck having a cuppa watching the world go by when all of a sudden the revs dropped. I stood up, looked over the side and nearly dropped my cup of tea as a humpback surfaced about 60 feet from the boat! We’ve had people up the rig and looking out the windows all day for weeks, and we nearly ran it over! Really goes to show what a difficult creature they are to spot despite their size. This area is well documented and studied re humpbacks though so we took a few photos and moved on.

Only about 20 hours to go now till we reach Dutch Harbour, Unalaska. The crew are pretty excited at the prospect of land, being able to phone family etc. Some fresh food’s going to be a wonderful thing as well. Starting to get pretty sick of freeze-dried broccoli and peas that’s for sure. And to top it all off we get Willie back! Thankfully nothing too bad went wrong with the engine while he was away. We have been religious about following all his instructions and only had to call him with questions once, so we did pretty well I reckon.
With any luck George will meet us at the wharf with a vehicle so we can go into town and shop for the last little voyage of the tour. Either around the island to take samples of the last big oil spill up here, or out what they call the green belt in search of factory trawlers.

Well its back to the binoculars for me, hopefully to find some killer whales that can help us SAVE THE BERING SEA!!!!

Adam