[ Boat motor rumbling ]
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-One of the things that attracts us to whales
is the fact that they are mammals like us.
And they share many of our characteristics.
They breathe air.
They give birth to live young.
They nurse their young.
[ Whales calling ]
They have these things
we can relate to as land mammals that we are.
-Oh, my god.
-Look there.
-Oh, wow.
♪♪
-But humpback whales have a special place.
They're probably one of the most active species.
They're most likely to breach.
Or engage in behavior
like slapping their pectoral fins or tails.
They're also just really beautiful.
They have these long pectoral fins,
longer in relation to their body than any other whale species.
They make them very maneuverable and they use them to, you know,
touch other whales and reach out.
♪♪
Humpback whales are one of the larger whale species
that were exploited and hunted
in what's called the modern era of commercial whaling.
The modern era of commercial whaling
started in the early 1900s,
when steam powered catcher boats and explosive harpoons
allowed humans to hunt these larger species.
There was actually a commercial whaling
that occurred inside the Salish Sea.
They took hundreds of humpback whales in winter months,
suggesting some animals may have been overwintering here as well.
Slowly, the formation of the International Whaling Commission
ended up putting protections,
and that occurred through the '50s and '60s.
There were additional protections that came in
from the Marine Mammal Protection Act
and the Endangered Species Act,
and that's when they finally started to recover.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
And when we first started studying humpback whales
off the US west coast, there were only about 500.
And that was in the late 1970s.
And now we're estimating abundance
on the West Coast at over 5,000.
We've also seen their return to some areas
where they hadn't been seen for 50 years or more.
One of those areas is the Salish Sea, and in that area,
humpback whales were largely eliminated in the early 1900s.
In the period I've studied humpback whales,
we would see hardly any humpback whales
inside of Puget Sound proper.
In our most recent assessment,
we could identify over 700 different humpback whales
that had been sighted within the Salish Sea
in the last ten years.
That's been a very dramatic increase.
[ Air hissing ]
♪♪
But humpback whales,
along with many of the other baleen whales species,
go through an annual migration.
They feed in the spring, summer, and fall
in more productive, higher latitude waters
in the Northern Hemisphere.
And then in winter months,
the majority of the animals migrate to lower latitudes
closer to the equator,
which is where they give birth and mate.
And there is the advantage in these warmer water areas
of avoiding killer whales and warmer waters for their calves.
One of the amazing things about humpback whales
in the North Pacific
is there's been increasing collaboration among researchers,
and so that's created a nice network.
We've actually documented whales from Washington
going to Central America, Mexico,
Hawaii, and the western North Pacific.
And so now we have an ability to track them
along that whole migration.
[ Insects chirping ]
We really benefit from our collaborations
with researchers in Mexico, like Jorge Urbán,
who works out of southern Baja California.
-Inside the Salish Sea,
that dramatic increase in humpback whales
that we've seen in this area is largely good news.
But with that, it's brought them into areas
of increased vessel traffic,
more interaction with human activities.
♪♪
-The humpbacks are coming back to this area.
They're right here in Elliott Bay,
creating some things that we have to start
to think about to make sure
that they're safe, getting their needs met.
But at the same time, we're getting our needs
like this ferry met as well.
Soundwatch was developed by the Whale Museum back in the '90s.
No one was really educating folks about
how to motor around these animals.
We had had reports over multiple days
of a young humpback being here in Elliott Bay.
We made the decision to go out.
We were working with Cascadia Research
to get some pictures to assess its health.
[Chuckles] He was out in the middle of the ferry lanes
doing his little humpback things,
which included a lot of resting.
So when he's resting, he's right below the surface of the water.
And even though he's big, you can't see him.
He was breaching a lot.
I got several pictures of him
breaching down the entire Seattle waterfront.
It became pretty apparent that being in the ferry lanes,
that some contact and outreach
needed to happen with the boats in the area.
So we talked to Port Control in Seattle,
let them know we were out there
letting these big vessels know where the animal was at,
and just making sure you got enough space to do his thing.
That day we all came together.
The big commercial boats, the little private boats,
the transiting boats, harbor patrol,
all of it came together to just make space for this animal.
And I walked off the boat that day just like,
wow, this is what it could be.
We were a part of the solution.
Maybe we'll have more humpbacks here if we make space for them.
I think they will come.
[ Water splashing ]
-Humpback whales now are spared from the threat
of commercial whaling,
but they still face a number of risks and hazards,
and among them include vessel strikes.
The amount of vessel traffic we have bringing goods.
Ships have gotten larger, faster and more numerous.
Another major cause of mortality and injury
is entanglement in fishing gear.
A lot of their use of the US West Coast
is as their feeding destination, spending, you know,
months and months feeding and --
and that requires healthy ocean prey abundance.
It isn't just that they're migrating by,
but they're using these waters on a kind of repeat basis.
And that's an important reason
to protect those resources that they rely on.
[ Water lapping ]
[ Air hissing ]
Humpback whales have shown this remarkable recovery.
They were decimated by human whaling.
It's really exciting to see them come back, not just in numbers,
but also return to these waters
that they were formerly gone from.
It's something that gives me hope.
I hope it gives other people hope
that we can make positive change in the environment
and see these kind of success stories.
♪♪
[ Air hissing ]
[ Whale calling ]
[ Water lapping ]
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Watch CityStream Tuesday nights at 7
on the Seattle Channel
or find us anytime online at SeattleChannel.org.
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