Author: Jude

Winter 2024

This winter has been very stressful. So many wars and fascist leaning regimes, even elected in  “democracies” where the citizens have a choice. This is happening alongside all the wonderful, inventive grassroots organizations in those same countries that are working for peace and regenerating farming, energy sourcing, fishing and community building.

We humans are certainly at a point of crisis/opportunity in our journey on Moma Earth. Stories that introduce themes of joyous, creative cultures we could co-create together with the other-than-human beings with whom we share our planetary home are scarce. Dystopia and Doom porn are trending.

So I decided to write a short vignette and share it here. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Middle Earth Minus Mordor – The Climate Cost of War

“Do you like it?” I turn slowly, breathing in the fresh seaweed scent of algae as it integrates into my skin cells.  “Ah, the first tingle of photosynthesis –  It’s working” I admire the sheen of my deep bluegreen skin. “I should test this symbiosis for any thermal properties”.

Terry nods dislodging a hummingbird sipping from a small blossom in his bushy moss beard. “Are you going to test it in the water?” 

I scan the  horizon “There’s a pod of pacific white-sides at Mace Point now.”

“A dolphin might be too wild a ride for a new algal partner. There’s a grey whale over there” Terry points to a tangle of bull kelp with a few sea otters wrapped up in the fronds.

I step deeper into the Salish Sea, carefully skirting a huge orange sunflower star and spotting a favourite basking shark friend “Hmmm.. maybe Bella might be interested”. A rock full of feeding barnacles agrees and a passing octopus offers to help me hold on to her.

Terry waves at us from the shore as an earnest looking 10 year old approaches.
“Hi Grandpaw, can you help me? I have to go to Every Persons’ Best Landfill  to pick up some materials. 

“What are you building?”  

“It’s a sensory translator for some of the worms in the Lund Regeneration Community Farm. They’re giving a demonstration to the Tri-Galactic conference on wormhole technology next month”

Obviously this is a fantasy. But why not? Why not Avatar without the invasion of mega-metal war machines? Hobbits, Lothlórien elves and Ent forests – Middle Earth without Mordor? Why can’t humans create a future of shared prosperity and partnership with the myriad amazing life-forms with whom we share Mama Gaia?

But what has this got to do with the Climate Cost of War? Well, that was one fantasy of a world we might create if we didn’t consume so much of our Earth to feed Mordor – the military machine. Imagine (reference intended) the human energy, skill and creativity, the immense supply of materials it would free up that we could use to enhance local ecosystems, regenerate our soils, invent truly green technologies available to everyone, build homes, communities, heal the ancient wounds that war and human brutality created.  Is that reason enough to give up war?

How about some basic statistics? In simple terms of GHGs the worlds’ military operations, manufacture and transportation of arms emits around 5.5% of the total global greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. But we can only estimate that percentage because the military won’t give us all the information. Add to that the emissions caused by deployment of bombs and obliteration of infrastructure. Then there is destruction of ecosystems, animals, croplands, forests. And how can we even measure the loss of the brilliant minds, creativity and energy of murdered humans and traumatized children? 

So are humans ready to give up War and repurpose the military? It would mean acknowledging that we have all been damaged by the physical and psychological violence of war even if we were on the “winning” side. It would mean searching our hearts for the intergenerational wounds still festering from millennia of violent oppression and exploitation. It would mean giving up Hate and Demonizing others in order to project our fears onto an “inhuman” Enemy. 

Can we do that? Can we choose compassion and healing – for ourselves and others. Take a deep breath – take another – and another. This isn’t easy – And it’s a practise. And it’s a practise we can’t impose on anyone – certainly not on anyone suffering in crisis in a war zone. But those of us lucky enough to live in Canada, a relatively safe place – we’re the ones who can speak to each other – not to condemn and pile our “righteous” anger onto the “other” side but to listen to each other with compassion and the goal of ending war and saving lives. 

What if Canadians on both sides of a conflict call for an end to the war – together. We can stand united in demanding that our political and business leaders stop the flow of money and arms from our country and allies that enables deranged leaders to destroy their part of the world. We can use those repurposed military resources to support people inside those war zones working for peaceful solutions and get food and medical aid delivered safely to people who desperately need it. 
We can stop feeding the psychological Climate of War with blaming and shaming energy. Then we can work together to start healing.  

Are we ready?

 

December 2022 – Amazing Sounds of Humpback Whales!

In 2019 Terry (aka “the amphibiographer”) got a camera that can shoot 4K video. But in 2019 our 2008 computer was not fast enough to play the clips. This meant that we couldn’t actually review video or audio of the whales that Terry recorded. Further down the line we couldn’t coordinate it with my hydrophone recordings. So in 2021 we finally bought a 2019 computer that could actually play the recordings we’d made.  While listening to audio files of singing whales that I had recorded in October 2019 I heard grunts, growls, belches and squeaks that didn’t sound like a song. Are these these whales practising whale solfège? are they enjoying a good meal? or are they talking?  What a find! I hope you enjoy the underwater conversation as much as we did.

October 2022 – Floating on Whale Song

“I think I see him” Terry calls me – “He’s over there – sails up – coming along Hernando”  Terry and I are floating in Blue Parrot, our 27ft C&C schooner, between Vancouver Island and Savary Island. A dozen humpback whales have been emerging from long dives, probably fishing. I love hearing them breathe and watching their high, heart-shaped blows.

“I don’t see his boat – is he in his trimaran?”  We are looking for our friend Jamie. He’s in a plywood trimaran which he has resurrected out of 2 trimarans he salvaged. One he actually pulled from the sea where it had sunk in shallow water. This monumental job has taken him at least 7 years in between other construction and land caretaking jobs. Jamie rebuilt the trimaran, rigged her and is now sailing towards us on his maiden voyage for a Salish Sea rendezvous.

“You need your binoculars” Terry advises  “he’s not moving very fast in this light breeze”

“Is that him? – he’s way out. It’s going to take him a couple of hours to get here. did you tell him there are whales?”

“I told him. He’s excited to see them” A couple of hours later he arrives! ” “Ahoy Jamie!”  And that’s the long slow story of whale watching from a sailboat.

“Let’s raft up and drift together” Jamie suggests. “Sounds good” says Terry. We pull fenders out of the lazerettes and tie them to the toe rail. Then we tie the 2 boats together. There are a few commercial whale watching boats nearby along with some recreational cruisers and runabouts. But there’s not a lot of thrilling surface action to entertain them, just whales fishing on long dives. So they all depart as dinnertime approaches and the sun arcs towards the Vancouver Island mountains.

“Come see what I did with the boat” We clamber over the attached ama of Jamie’s trimaran onto the main hull to admire his expert carpentry work. “I caught too many prawns this morning.” He tells us.  “Do you want prawns for dinner?” Does he need to ask?

We enjoy dinner together listening to the whales still breathing around us.

Now that the noisy boats are gone I drop my hydrophone again ” Listen to this Jamie” I hand him my headphones. Jamie’s eyes light up “Wow! What’s that sound?” he exclaims. “Sounds like bubble feeding to me but deeper under the water.” I tell him “They’re not lunging at the surface” We all take turns listening and I connect my bluetooth speaker. “One is singing now!” I cry out.

“I’m getting in the water” Jamie announces. He squeezes into his wetsuit, jumps in and tries to imitate a whale singing. “Do I sound like a whale” he asks “No” I laugh. “I can feel the vibrations in my body.”  Jamie is floating blissfully around our rafted boats.”This is incredible! Come on in the water.”

“I want to record them singing.” I tell him. “I can’t record if I’m in the water.”   In the recording below a male humpback is practising his vocal percussion.

 

After about 25 minutes Jamie pulls himself up onto his ship. “I don’t want to leave yet. I just got here and the whales are coming closer” Jamie sighs “Do you want to stay the night?”   Terry and I look at each other. I check the weather prophesy which indicates a 10-15 knot NW wind overnight. But right now it’s calm and there aren’t any signs of a bigger wind coming up the Strait. “OK” we agree.

Kelp Creature “KC” one of the first whales we met in 2016

A group of 3 whales dives under our boats. Another 3 surface close by. “KC! It’s KC!” Terry calls out. The split dorsal fin of the first whale we ever met at close range 7 years ago breaks the surface of the water. “It’s KC” I echo happily. “Was it KC who was singing? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could recognize their voices?”

“One of the other whales looks familiar. I recognize that white mark on herm’s left fluke.” Later, after pouring over the ID catalogs for an hour I find her. “It’s Crescent! We’ve seen them together before. This is so exciting!” I started a “Who Hangs Out With Whom” chart to map humpback relationships that we’ve observed. KC and Crescent are old companions.

It seems that the whales are moving closer. They’re circling around and under our 2 rafted boats. Perhaps they are feeling comfortable with us being here after so many hours of floating with them.  “Are you going up the mast?” Jamie is climbing the steps he has secured on the trimaran mast. “This will be a perfect angle” he says as he lines up an approaching whale. He does and it is. In Jamie’s video you can see his trimaran rafted with Blue Parrot. And here comes the whale who has the most beautiful nostrils!

Video by Jamie McPhail

At dusk Jamie plays the passionate music of Lassa on his stereo. He secures a multi-coloured strobe light on his deck to alert other boats to our presence. Blue Parrot’s 2 solar lights kick in as the darkness deepens.

We’re at half moon but at 23:00 it has just set. “This is amazing – A whale is singing right under us!” I’m ecstatic “I can take the first watch and wake Terry up at 2:00. Go to sleep Jamie.”

After my experiences with heavy dew in Baja I pull on my long underwear, heavy pants and  Pollen sweater and cover  them up with all my old rain gear.

I settle in with headphones on for a long moist watch listening to singing whales.

 

August #1 2022 – How do Whales Nurse Their Babies?

More Moms with calves are showing up here in the Salish Sea this season – 6 pairs sighted so far. Judging by their playful acrobatics and assertive blows the young ones are thriving. The mothers seem to be in good shape as well considering they lose 1/3 of their body weight during the >10,000km (6,000 mile) round trip migrations to Mexico, Central America or Hawaii and back. Add in the previous 4 months of nursing her hungry baby and it’s no surprise that a mother whale’s prime directive once she reaches the feeding waters is to feed.

“It’s Big Mama” “And she’s got a calf!”  Terry is jubilant. Big Mama is one of the whales we have met several times during the years we’ve been on the water. She is a prolific mother and veteran of the humpback comeback to the Salish Sea. Big Mama was the first whale to return to these waters in 1997. Since then she has brought each of her new calves back with her.

Big Mama and her new baby are accompanied by another adult whale. We couldn’t tell who it was because we couldn’t see the whale’s flukes or whether (s)he was female or male. If the companion whale migrated together with Big Mama and her calf from their southern mating/birthing area then this whale is probably a male who is interested in Big Mama as a potential mate. This “escort” can be an asset to Big Mama and her calf if a pod of killer whales attempts an attack on the young one as he will protect the calf with Big Mama. However, he can also be a nuisance if he attempts to mate with her and interferes with nursing.

Mother humpback whales nurse their babies for the first year even though the baby is already learning to fish as soon as she reaches the feeding area. The baby thrives on mother’s rich milk, which is between 45-60% fat  How do whales (and dolphins) nurse in their underwater environment? Terrestrial mammals like humans have nipples which are exposed and easy to suckle. But the mammary glands of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) are concealed inside 2 slits on either side of their genital slit low on the abdomen. The nipples are inverted inside these mammary slits. A whale calf must dive underneath the mother and nudge the mammary slits with her rostrum to release the nipple from the slit. Whale calves might be able to roll their tongues into a tube shape and press their rolled tongue around the nipple to channel milk. The mother could then squirt milk into the calf’s mouth using muscles around her mammary glands. Because of the high fat content the consistency of Mom’s milk is thick and doesn’t easily dissolve in water if some leaks out.

Mom and calf stay in close physical contact in the first months of the baby’s life. So much of what transpires between moms and babies is speculation because it happens underwater out of our visual range. Their vocal communication also happens outside of our human hearing range. Mother and baby communicate through touch and very quiet low frequency grunts, barks and groans. They “whisper”  so their sounds don’t attract killer whales. Because these “whispers” are so quiet Jude can only pick up a signal on her hydrophone within about 200m of the whales. However, since the whale whispers are too low for humans to hear it’s impossible in realtime to know whether any whale conversations are actually occurring. This can be very frustrating! It is only after recording in the vicinity of whales and afterwards importing the recordings into a software program called a spectograph which translates the sound waves into a visual representation that we can see whether we recorded something. It’s also possible to speed up the slow low frequency sound waves 2 or 3 times within the program so they can be heard in our human hearing range. Unfortunately there is no room in Blue P’s small cockpit for any more audiovisual or computer equipment and no budget for expensive hardware and software. All this has to be done later on our home system.

We learn that the whales are communicating all the time, which is obvious with any amount of time observing their interactions. In the plankton filled waters of the summer Salish Sea it is vibration and sound that carry myriad whale messages through the water. Once on the feeding grounds Big Mama and her calf may associate with various other whales through the season and even during one day. We watch them form a group, separate for a while and come back together obviously communicating with each other. Since all Big Mama’s children return to their mother’s feeding area some of these whale companions may be the new calf’s older brothers and sisters.  So many intriguing questions…….

 

August #2 2022 – Surprise!

Terry and I have more than a nodding – pun intended – acquaintance with sleeping whales. In fact sleeping is what whales seem to enjoy most when in close proximity to Blue Parrot, our 50 year old sailboat. So when we encountered 2 humpback whales peacefully snoozing side by side in mid Sutil Channel Terry and I prepared to settle in for an afternoon nap. In fact Terry was just about to put his camera away for a while when this happened.

Which proves once again that understanding the motivations and behaviours of whales is a mysterious journey indeed.

Featured

July 2022 #3 – Bubble Feeding!

“T-Rex is bubble feeding off Wilby Shoals” the voice of whale watching guide ‘Supernova’ sings cheerily over SV Blue Parrot’s VHF radio.
“Let’s go!” I turn Blue P 90°W. We’ve been floating between Quadra and Cortes Islands scanning for marine mammals.
“It’ll take us half an hour to get there. She’ll probably have stopped by then.” Terry sighs .”it would be amazing to see lunge feeding again”
“YES!” I am juiced. We’ve only seen humpback whales lunge feeding once before and that was 4 years ago in 2018 – an unforgettable experience. Here is the link to that Blog:
https://welcomingwhales.com/2018/10/24/october-2018-humpbacks-lounge-feeding/

During the half hour it takes to get there at our extreme cruising speed of 4.85 knots we try to pinpoint the exact location of the whale. Whales are big but the ocean is bigger and they easily disappear from view. “There’s a circle of boats about 200m off the point. 3 look like whale watching boats” Hawk-eye Terry reports from the bow.

“I see them – on our way” If you can’t find whales in their feeding areas during the summer it’s a good bet that somebody else has. Boats that have been lingering in one place for a while without obvious fishing gear are probably with a whale. And people fishing forget to fish when there’s a lunge feeding whale nearby!

T-Rex and friend lunge to the surface with throats full of fish

“I see the whales! 2 just came up in the middle of those boats” I slow to an even slower crawl and inch up to the scene. “Woah!” “Right beside the Boat!” They are less than 30 meters away, in close to the shore. Wilby shoals has depths varying from a few feet to hundreds of feet. Currently Blue P’s depth sounder is reading 18 feet!. “I’ve got to move out from the shore” Jude tells Terry. The whales move too – right past us around all the boats. In the time it takes us to move 30 meters they have covered 230. We wait. 20 minutes later………
“They’re coming back this way. They may be doing a circuit”. Terry shouts.  I drop the hydrophone to record any feeding burps and belches.
“They’re making that sound!” “the whining sound that herds the fish-Uhrrrrrrrrrr? I try to imitate them.  “I hear the  bubbles………. Now they’re coming up! Phshshsh—–BUBUBUBUBUBUBUB”  It’s a fairly pitiful imitation but with the hydrophone I can hear what the whales are doing underwater and predict when they will come up. Terry gets ready with the camera but I can’t predict where they will come up. He watches the sea gulls circle and hones in when they drop towards the water just as the whales break the surface. Focusing the camera on the exact spot where Terry deduces the whales will surface is a finely tuned art, experience and a large lump of luck.

In order to record a decent signal with the hydrophone we have to be within 200m of the whales.  It’s difficult with all the boats starting and stopping their motors to keep up with the whales. But we can’t begrudge anyone this awesome experience. Everyone out here is just as thrilled as we are. And there are times when the whales are close enough for a clear recording. I am over the moon “I’ve waited 7 years to record bubble feeding”. In fact both of us are over the moon. We linger longer with our lunge feeding friends as the other boats leave, the sun sets and the moon rises. Ah…this is the magic time for the best video and audio recordings. We’ll travel back by moonlight – and our running lights of course.

March 2202 #2 – Humpback Whale Concert Hall

Vicki Aireus at the wheel

This is a recording of humpback whales singing in a canyon whose walls bounce sound around like a concert hall. It seems that whales appreciate a venue with great acoustics too! Their operatic pyrotechnics are thrilling as they vibrate through my chilled dew-soaked body in the middle of the night floating on the Sea of Cortes. I’m back in Los Frailes this time in a different sailboat with a different captain. She’s a skipper who has been sailing her 45 ft Morgan ketch around the Sea of Cortes mostly solo for the past 4 years.

Actually we aren’t back in Los Frailes yet. It was our destination but that afternoon the boat’s diesel engine overheated and capitane Vicki shut her down immediately. We spend the day troubleshooting; replacing hoses, tightening screws and listening to every sound. As night creeps in Vicki declares work done for the day to be continued next morning. So we’re floating on the calm seas off the East Cape of Baja California Sur. Good time to drop the hydrophone. Whale voices rise up and envelope us. We are enthralled and calmed. “I’m turning in” Vicki heads down to the aft cabin. I find myself on night watch soaked, exhausted and in love with the undulating stars in the black sky.

Just above the eastern horizon Venus is bright. Orange Mars attends her on one side and dimmer Scorpio on the other. As I watch 2 shiny yellow spots emerge from the sea. They swell into horns and then become a bright bowl floating on the the water. It’s the crescent moon rising out of the ocean! The whales’ songs fade with the starlight as dawn brightens the sky.

When Vicki wakes up we discover that the engine shutdown was caused by flotsam and jetsam clogging up the raw water intake. It’s no big deal and a common problem.

What was clogging the water intake

 

After clearing the intake and hoses and tightening up the water maker belt which was making disturbing noises we get underway again and make it to Frailes to anchor and snooze. In the morning I take the kayak to paddle a surf landing on the beach and freedive along the NW shore. The constant wind and waves stir up the sandy bottom. Visibility is about 5 meters in the silty water. However it’s fun to follow a herd of parrot fish around in the surging surf.

 

We spend a couple of days in Frailes recovering our energy. scanning for whales and listening for whalesong. We see a few whales but not the busy nursery of Moms and calves that I had hoped to encounter. “let’s retrace our track to where we heard the whales and find them again” I suggest. We motor out along our track for a few hours but don’t hear anything. “I want to head back” Vicki says. I would like to stay and give it more time but it takes a lot of patience to be with whales. Mostly it’s long stretches of waiting. So we start to head north in the late afternoon. There’s a little bit of breeze. “I’m gonna raise up the main” Vicki says as she unties Rhiannon’s yellow sail cover. “I’ll leave the hydrophone down while we’re sailing” I say. We rig it off the stern and hear whalesong through my speaker. “I think it’s getting louder” I shout ” Is that a whale that just breached off our beam about 400meters?”  We are sailing along Cabo Pulmo a couple of miles offshore as the sound amplifies.  We zone out to healing sounds of whales singing and ocean waves washing over the hydrophone cable.

It sounds like the ocean is breathing.

March 2022 #1 – Whales and Whale Sharks

We are lucky. Onno is amazing, competent AND easy going!! This is a rare combination in a ship’s captain.

In fact, after Roger and Aashima come aboard the 4 of us spend a lot of time laughing …… and eating. Turns out Onno is a professional chef and Aashima is a great cook. I cook some but most of my contribution is washing dishes – especially in rough weather. I have never been seasick.

The good part: The first days we were anchored in Frailes I recorded the whales singing. They were close. “From the reverb of their voices I’ll bet they are singing near pinnacles” I say to the crew.

“Onno, can I look at your chart plotter? I want to check out the topography of the ocean bottom around here. Up north the whales like to sing in cathedral-like structures; pinnacles and canyons. I think they like the acoustics – they sound fabulous!”

“Aha! There’s a canyon just to the south of Los Frailes” I think we’ve found their concert hall” I record the whales singing on the 4 days we are anchored off Frailes. A few Humpback whales including a mother and calf acually swim past Lost Pearl. These recordings are still not the best because the background of shrimp and sand masks the whale sound when we are anchored so close to the shore. However you can hear more of the song.

Unfortunately this is the last recording I could make from Lost Pearl because we had to leave Los Frailes. Onno’s dinghy was stolen in La Cruz and he has to get to La Paz to pick up another one at the repair shop. Onno and I head out in Lost Pearl early in the morning to catch a calm weather window and motor north to Los Muertos. Roger and Aashima drive there to meet us. We count Olive Ridley sea turtles on the way there and a gorgeous young whale shark glowing in the sunlight slips by Lost Pearl just under the water’s surface. The Sea of Cortes is still magic even though much has been lost.

The view underwater from a whale shark’s tail;  In the murky winter water a 20 ft long whale shark’s head disappears into the gloom

 

February 2022 #2 – Finally, Singing Whales!

After 3 days the social and economic inequalities of Cabo San Lucas are getting to me. They remind me of how privileged I am as a Canadian tourist in this world where 1% of the population controls 99% of the wealth. I am happy to leave a few days later for the east cape.

Several stops and one flat tire later we are in Frailes driving out to the beach as the sand gets softer … and deeper.
“Better get out of this soft stuff while we can.” announces Roger as he contemplates the soft sand mixed with cobbles under the tires. He clambers back into the truck. “We’ll back out on our tracks coming in” I hop out of the camper to find our tracks and guide us out onto the harder pan.

I am relieved “Whew! Let’s look for the boat”. We scan the bay “Is that it?” A double masted wooden ketch is riding high on the 2 foot chop a few hundred meters off the beach. “She’s a beauty” Roger sighs. Lost Pearl is a 1978 45ft custom built Hardin ketch. Quite a few Hardins were built to customer specs at that time. The heavy wood and full keel weighs in at 17,000 pounds. For reference our Blue Parrot is 27ft with a fin keel and weighs in at <6,000 pounds.

“is that him, in the dinghy, heading into shore over there?” The wind is whipping up white caps cresting the chop. The beach ends in sand banks piled 3 meters high at the shore. Pickup trucks push pangas on trailers into the water down a bank that has been slightly levelled. Onno is steering the dinghy toward the panga launch area. He has to jump out of the dinghy and quickly yank it up the bank before the next wave sucks it back into the ocean. We run to help him pull the dinghy up and over the sand bank.

That night I sleep on Lost Pearl squeezed into 1/2 the V-berth amongst sails, empty buckets and fishing poles. But I love the motion of the bow riding over waves on this windy night and soon fall into a velvet sleep rocked by Mama Ocean.

The next day Roger leaves to pick up Aashima from La Paz. Onno and I organize the boat and extend his gopro selfie pole from the deck of Lost Pearl so I can drop my hydrophone into the Sea of Cortes for the first time. “I can hear them. They’re singing!” (Oh frabjous day!) I think it’s a different song from the Salish Sea song in 2020. I didn’t get a good enough recording this Fall.”

Unfortunately this still isn’t a great recording. Because Lost Pearl is anchored in shallow water close to the shore you can hear the sand hissing as it moves with the surging surf in waves towards the shore. There is also an intense snapping sound made by shrimp and barnacles as they feed.

September #1 2021 – How to Sex a Humpback Whale

Terry, the amphibious videographer and I are scanning the water between Powell River and Texada Island searching for a humpback whale that might be entangled. “She said they saw a white buoy on the whale’s back around the dorsal fin.” Reported Susan, the founder of the Wild Ocean Whales Society and monitor of the whale reporting hotline. “They couldn’t be any more specific than that and they weren’t sure but keep an eye out.” So we were, 4 eyes out to be exact. We’d seen half a dozen whales today but none with any trap gear attached. Sometimes the light playing on a wet black back can play tricks on human eyes.

We have been floating in the area of the Upper Sunshine Coast off Powell River for the past few days. We’ve floated around with 1 duo and 1 trio of humpback whales this morning who don’t seem to mind that they are snoozing and/or fishing in the middle of a ferry line used frequently by 2 local ferries that travel across the strait and back. Perhaps they like the predictability of a ferry schedule and time their activities around them although I wouldn’t stake my fishing bank on BC ferries schedules! Staying out of their way and minimizing the effects of rolling ferry wake and loud engine noise on video and underwater sound recordings is a challenge. But whales are where you find them so when 2 of the trio get lively and head South along Texada Island shore we are curious.

A Huge noisy Barge is heading towards them (and us). We’ve observed some sleeping whales reacting to the big wake of a heavy displacement ship with what seems to us to be an annoyed or startled tail slap. These 2 aren’t sleeping but one raises flukes high in the air and slams half their body down in a powerful peduncle throw. The other whale is tail lobbing repeatedly. “Are they pissed off because of the barge?” I wonder. But the barge passes and the high level activity continues.

The whales are raising their flukes high enough out of the water that their genital area is visible in some of the video. It is very difficult to determine the sex of a humpback whale. A very clear view of the underside of their body between flukes and bottom of their throat pleats is necessary. Both male and female whales have navels, longitudinal genital slits and a bump near the flukes called a carina. The females have 2 mammary slits which cover their nipples, one on either side of the genital slit. They also have a smaller “hemispherical lobe” which is a bump at the base of their genital slit.

Humpback Whale Genitalia

Does sexing the humpback whales in the video still elude you? Keep in mind that the clear illustration of Humpback Genitalia is not obscured by jets of seawater coursing over the whale’s body from the tremendous splashing caused by a peduncle throw. Also missing are the many barnacles clinging to all openings and bumpy skin surfaces. Good Luck!