Threatened by the throngs? Tourist boats bring attention (and maybe trauma) to orcas

By Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporter

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Whale watchers from Canada get their money's worth as a transient orca breaches while feeding off Stuart Island.

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SAN JUAN ISLAND — Teams of spotters on land and by sea fan out every morning to scan the waters off San Juan Island. It's only a matter of time before the scouts of a multimillion-dollar industry spot the majestic killer whales that are its lifeblood.

With military efficiency, a coded message triggers dozens of electronic pagers from Everett to Victoria, B.C. Whale-watch operators scramble their speedy boats toting tourists clutching cameras and brochures promising "Whales Guaranteed!"

And a buzzing, for-profit armada moves out to intercept the beloved orcas.

Joining the race this summer day is skipper Tom McMillan, who motors his 36-foot cruiser, Stellar Sea, north from Snug Harbor. "It's going to be crazy out here," he grumbles.

The transient orcas puffing along Stuart Island are the only whales spotted that day. And McMillan's 14 passengers, some from Southern California, paid $55 each to see whales, not just ride around in his 430-horsepower boat.

The guidelines The Whale Watch Operators Association Northwest has adopted a lengthy and detailed set of "Best Practices Guidelines" for whale watching, though the rules are not legally binding. All guidelines are online: www.nwwhalewatchers.org Here are a few recommendations for boaters: • A vessel shall approach an area of known or suspected whale activity with extreme caution. • A vessel within one-half mile of a whale must abide by the guidelines. • Vessels should travel at 7 knots or slower within one-quarter mile of a whale. • When waiting for whales to pass, engines should be turned off. • Boats should generally allow whales to be between the vessel and the shore. • Tour boats should limit the time spent watching whales to give other boats a chance at a view, and to limit the number of boats near the whales.

And if he doesn't get to the whales, someone else will.

His industry has tripled in the last 15 years, to the point that the orcas of Puget Sound are now relentlessly tracked all summer long, seven days a week. But now some island locals and orca advocates, dismayed by what they see as a noisy assault on the pods, are pushing a radical cutback in the whale-watching business.

They point to recent studies that suggest the whale-watch fleets may be hurting Puget Sound's three resident orca pods, which have struggled enough in the past decade that the federal government is considering listing them for Endangered Species Act protection.

McMillan and other whale-watch operators, backed by other local orca scientists, reject notions that whale watching is harmful, instead maintaining that it has helped orcas by raising public interest. At the same time, some of those same folks, including some veteran skippers such as McMillan, are starting to wonder whether it's getting out of hand.

These days, Canadian operators, using fast, inflatable crafts packed to the gunwales with tourists, greatly outnumber their American colleagues. And it's all virtually unregulated, instead largely governed by strict-but-voluntary self-policing — with sharply debated effectiveness.

"They're going to have to start doing something, and say, 'Look, no more,' " said McMillan, who has been a leader in the local industry since he started 12 years ago.

"Something's going to have to give."

More boats, less to see

There are now as many whale-watching boats regularly combing the waters off San Juan Island as there are orcas that live here.

	STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Whale-watching tours from Victoria, B.C., use high-speed inflatable boats to carry tourists to and from the whales. Scientists say they have tallied 83 boats that make regular whale-watching tours this year. About 60 percent of them are operated by Canada.

But as the industry has boomed in the past eight years, the population of southern resident orcas, a specific subgroup of orcas that stay in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca most of the year, has declined at an alarming rate.

The population fell from 98 southern residents in 1995 to 78 in 2001. This year, scientists count 83 orcas spread among three pods called J, K and L.

The state recently added the pods to its endangered-species list, mostly a symbolic gesture. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is considering a petition to put the southern residents on the federal endangered-species list, which would pack more regulatory punch.

But no decision is imminent. Meanwhile, the whales are protected from "harassment" by the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

In 1990, about 25 whale-watch boats motored around the San Juans. Then in 1993 came the hit movie "Free Willy," starring Keiko the killer whale. And all bets were off.

By 1995 nearly 50 whale-watch boats were on the water regularly, split evenly between Canadian and U.S. operators, according to counts done by San Juan Island whale scientists. In 2000, there were more than 75.

This year, scientists say they have tallied 83 boats that make regular whale-watching tours, of which about 60 percent are Canadian.

Voluntary rules

Whale-watch operators on both sides of the border insist they have the best interests of the whales in mind.

"We want to make sure the whales stay around here and are healthy and happy," said Jim Dale, owner of Five-Star Charters of Victoria and secretary of the Whale Watch Operators Association Northwest. "That's our livelihood."

	San Juan Island resident Jerry Riley volunteered to put a sign on his beach aimed at grabbing the attention of whale watchers, some of whom come within yards from the shore at his home.

More than 10 years ago, the association, to which most operators belong, created a series of "best practices guidelines," which have been strengthened repeatedly.

The current rules call for boats to stay 100 yards from resident whales and one-eighth mile from more easily-spooked transients, a separate subgroup of orcas that eat marine mammals instead of salmon and don't stay in one place long.

And operators have agreed to stay one-quarter mile off San Juan Island's western shore.

But many island residents have become more vocal in their complaints, suggesting the self-rule system is failing.

From his beachfront home fronting Haro Strait, Jerry Riley often can sit on his porch and watch orcas hunting a hundred yards away.

But with the orcas invariably come the whale-watching boats, Riley said. Within minutes they race across the strait, outboard motors roaring and loudspeakers blaring. The hubbub draws curious private boaters, who either don't know, or don't care, about unenforceable industry guidelines, Riley complains.

"It's hard to be moderate about it, because when you see it, it makes you so angry," he said. "It's people trying to please their customers, and it's people competing with one another. It's gotten so carried away."

Riley complained to boat companies that they were breaking their own rules. He said he got the brush. So last month he and about 10 neighbors contacted a local group called Orca Relief Citizens' Alliance. The group gave them big banners, which they posted on their beaches, facing the tourists: "Protect Whales. Watch from Shore."

Riley said he knows people may dismiss him as having a raging case of not-in-my-back-yard syndrome.

"But this is not an elitist effort," he said. "It's about somebody trying to raise the issue. If you stood here on a Saturday afternoon and saw these whale boats do what they do, it would make you want to throw up."

Research warnings

Orca Relief is headed by Mark Anderson, a wealthy tech-industry investor and consultant, and Birgit Kriete, a whale scientist who has been a fixture in the orca community for 25 years. Together, they have been pointing to increasing research that suggests whale boats don't just bother the orcas, they may threaten their survival.

Kriete's own research contends that orcas expend as much as 19 percent of their energy when boats are around because they get stressed out and have to go out of their way to avoid the noise.

Other recent research has made similar findings.

Two years ago, a University of Washington study found that boat noise could be drowning out the whales' natural echolocation senses, making it harder to find their way around and harder to hunt for food.

Last spring, a study published in the British journal Nature offered evidence that increasing boat noise is forcing southern resident orcas to lengthen their vocal calls to communicate above the racket.

"These are animals with sensitive hearing being surrounded by 30 or 40 outboard motors," Anderson said. "It's like studying wolves in the wild on a set of 50 Harleys."

Anderson and Kriete are advocating a rollback to 1990 levels through limited whale-watching permits. That would put about 60 whale boats out of commission.

The group's ideas have been received with venom by many whale-boat operators. But on San Juan Island, the group has gathered some 1,500 signatures on a petition for a ban on "chasing" the whales.

Trouble is, San Juan County has no jurisdiction to regulate whale watching. The practice is governed by federal rules and international maritime laws and treaties.

So for now, the group is hoping the banner campaign, along with fliers redirecting people to Lime Kiln State Park on the island's west shore, colloquially called "whale-watch park," will raise awareness with the out-of-town tourists.

"I think people are well-intentioned, and if they really knew what they were doing to whales, they wouldn't go, they'd boycott it," Anderson said.

But the position has been a hard sell even among many of those closest to the orcas.

"It's easy to look out there and see a lot of boats and say nature is being violated, but that's not the case," said Ken Balcomb, a 30-year whale scientist who runs the Center for Whale Research on the island. "The operators out there are behaving far more respectfully than they were 10 years ago."

No federal rules planned

Though orcas are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the law is vague toward whale watching.

The NMFS has no plans to impose rules on the San Juan whale-watch industry because it hasn't accepted any proof that whale boats hurt the whales. "We just don't know enough right now," said Brian Gorman, a NMFS spokesman in Seattle.

But it is looking into the possibility.

On a hillside high above San Juan Island's South Beach late last month, David Bain, a noted UW whale researcher, stood for hours in a chilly downpour in hopes that an orca or two would pass below.

Funded by NMFS, Bain has been using computerized surveying scopes to track the precise paths of southern resident orcas to compare how they behave with and without boats around. Though he hasn't yet tracked enough whales to publish a study, so far Bain has found that the orcas veer subtly off their normal routes when boats arrive.

An earlier NMFS study of northern resident orcas, which can be found along the shores of Vancouver Island, found similar behavior changes.

The changes are small, Bain grants, but he estimates that the resident orcas are wasting up to 5 percent of their energy every year just avoiding noisy boats. That's significant, he says, because the animals already struggle to get enough food.

Even so, Bain rejects the idea of a whale-watching rollback, though he would probably support a cap at current levels. "If I were a whale-watch operator, I wouldn't want to be put out of business based on the data available right now," he said.

Bain, Balcomb and others stress that the whales have much greater problems, from heavy pollution to depleted salmon stocks.

"Whales need public support to deal with all their issues, and whale watching provides that public support," Bain said. "Making whale watching a scapegoat isn't going to help a whole lot."

"They're like bees"

Aboard the Stellar Sea, McMillan joined about 24 commercial boats, including the huge Victoria Clipper III, and a handful of private boats in a holding pattern around the foraging transient orcas.

Most boats were following the rules, killing their motors and bringing a sort of calm on the water as the orcas breached majestically to the cheers and gasps of the tourists.

Still, a few Canadian inflatables were revving their high-pitched outboards and darting in for closer looks.

"They're like bees," McMillan said. "But everyone's actually doing a pretty good job today, with as many boats as there are."

McMillan turned to whale watching about 1992, just before the "Free Willy" craze. Lately, though, it's been harder and harder to compete with the growing Canadian tourist industry, which thrives on volume and speed.

Though he agrees with Bain that the market should probably be capped, he worries about efforts to roll it back. Who would choose which operators to put under? What about the noise from private boaters and other commercial shipping?

And he remains unconvinced that his little boat is killing the orcas that still make his eyes light up after 12 years of shadowing them.

"If they could prove I was hurting whales, I'd quit — I'd quit today," he said, starting the engine to follow the transients as they moved off toward Vancouver Island.

"But I'd like to think I'm showing people whales and getting them interested and maybe they'd want to help them."

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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