Mouthy Marmots of the Olympic Peninsula
Nature news and community goodness from the forests and towns around Olympic National Park. Discover ways to help protect this beautiful area and, of course, join us in having fun!
Olympic Marmots are a threatened species found only here in Olympic National Park. Unique! They emerge from their dens with stories to tell. Just like our Mouthy Marmots podcast crew.
Mouthy Marmots of the Olympic Peninsula
Feminist killer whales? Plus: best spring birding, and a PNW heroine
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Surprising news of the endangered orcas along Washington and Vancouver Island's coastlines! Plus, spring brings birds and birding parties. Avian expert Iris shares tips on finding the best. And it's women's history month! Our shipping news returns with the incredible but true story of the real-life Tug Boat Annie.
BYOB(inocular) Bird Walk with Iris RSVP with North Olympic Land Trust
Birding festivals
Olympic Birdfest
Grays Harbor Shorebird and Nature Festival
Othello Sandhill Crane Festival
Save the whales!
Listen to whales: OrcaSound
....
Speaker 1Welcome to the Mouthy Marmots Podcast, a show where nature lovers and neighbors discover untold wildlife and community news, find ways to enjoy and protect this beautiful area, and of course, have fun. I'm Carol from Port Angeles, Washington. Thanks for tuning in. Amazing Orca mothers, the best bird parties of spring, and a Pacific Northwest heroine are on tap today. First up, our feathered friends. It's looking like spring, so what's that mean? If you're a birder, it may mean a party. And Iris, our very own avian expert, is out tracking spring migration and local birding festivals. She has lots of info. So we're gonna set the scene with this lovely audio postcard from the National Park Service's Sound Gallery, The Sounds of Spring, created by Andy Wilmore.
Best spring birding
Speaker 5As i was recently described. I'll have more on that in a minute. But first, spring migration is here, along with the beginning of nesting season. Turkey vultures are here, and bald eagles are already sitting on their eggs. Likewise, rare bird alerts are picking up. Folks in Jefferson County are seeing a mountain bluebird, Hudsonian Wimbrel, and that continuing rough-legged hawk. The lesser black back gull, say that three times t I can't even say that, is still in Sequim. Neah Bay should start delivering goodies pretty soon, including lots of raptors. And statewide, the alert list is getting long and tempting for road trips. So, this accomplished birder is leading the BYO Binoculars Bird Walk for the North Olympic Land Trust on April 11th at the Lyre Conservation Area west of Joyce. The walk is part of the second Saturday stroll series. We'll get started at 10 and we'll finish probably around noon. The Lyre Conservation Area offers a great mix of habitats. We'll start with a mix of marshland, young trees, and open meadows. It's a perfect spot for warblers and other songbirds. Then we'll walk through some gorgeous old growth forest before getting to the beach, where the Lyre River enters the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I'm guessing we'll see birds like Wilson's warblers, Hutton's vireos, olive-sided flycatchers, bald eagles for sure, harlequin ducks, maybe some black oyster catchers, and some migrating shorebirds. And if we're lucky, we might even hear some singing hermit thrush. That would be cool. RSVP at North Olympicland Trust.org. Click on upcoming events. And if you haven't donated to the Land Trust, why don't you think about it? Their work is really instrumental in conserving a lot of our favorite local farmland and wildlife habitats. Spring also means bird festivals. And you really want to plan ahead for these since they tend to fill up fast. Locally, Olympic Birdfest is April 16th through 19th. It offers a ton of workshops, lectures, and field trips to our favorite hotspots across the North Olympic Peninsula. Options include boat and kayak outings and even a multi-day birding trip to Neah Bay. The weekend kicks off with the popular Birds and Brews Trivia Happy Hour at Peninsula Taproom on April 16th. So get your team together. You can check out all the bird festivities at Olympicbirdfest.org. A little beyond the Clallam border is a spectacular shorebird migration during the Grays Harbor Shorebird and Nature Festival, May 1 through 3rd. This event aligns with the best high tides for shorebird viewing. Every spring, hundreds of thousands of northbound shorebirds stop to rest and feed along the Washington coast, particularly in the Grays Harbor estuary. Some of these birds are actually flying up to 15,000 miles each way. You can expect to see things like Dunlin, Wimbrels, Sandpipers, Turnstones, and more. This is a great chance to see massive murmurations of shorebirds as they elude peregrine falcons. It's really cool to watch. For more info, visit shorebirdfestival.com. Much farther afield is a festival to put on your calendar for next year. In March, I traveled to eastern Washington for the Othello Sandhill Crane Festival. This region is farm country for many of our fruits and vegetables. It's also a migration hotspot for cranes, snow geese, and lots and lots of waterfowl. Othello's cornfields attract tens of thousands of northbound sandhill cranes every season. They spend the day feasting on kernels left over from last year. Be sure to sign up for a fly-in, because it will blow your mind, I promise. Just before sunset, the cranes converge in one massive, swirling, raucous flight to their nighttime roost south of town. Locals and festival goers alike come out every night for the show. The air crackles with anticipation, and then a big collective awe as thousands of cranes begin pouring in from every direction with sunset, offering a blazing backdrop to the spectacle. It's really astonishing. The Columbia National Wildlife Refuge also offers lots of great birding and hiking for a fun weekend road trip to get you excited for the season. I don't know about you, but to me, spring always feels super energizing with all this movement in action. So keep your feeders filled and your binoculars handy. Happy birding.
Orcas are amazing
Speaker 1Listen to this gathering of orcas. They've discovered something spectacular about our orcas. If you've ever assumed the killer whale males run the show, this recent research shows that's not the case.
Speaker 4My name is Tamara Kelly. I am the communications director for the nonprofit Orca Conservancy. We are a 501c3 located in Seattle, Washington, or based in Seattle, Washington. And our whole mission is taking actions to protect wild killer whales, specifically the populations here in the Pacific Northwest. And we have a heavy focus on the critically endangered southern resident killer whales, which as of this recording, counting the two new calves that were born, there are only 76.
Speaker 1It's really amazing. And I think many of our listeners may not know that there's actually three types of orca here.
Speaker 4Yeah, so just in the Pacific Northwest, there's three types, but around the world, there's easily more than 10. But we'll just focus on the ones here. So we have three. We have our resident killer whales or the resident ecotype, and specifically we have the southern residents. And so these guys prey exclusively on fish with salmon making up the majority of their diet. And then we have transient or big killer whales. Those are the mammal eating ecotype. And um, they're actually a bigger type of killer whale, and they have um kind of slightly difference in culture, and I can touch on that more later. But they're different. They are physically and biologically different from our residents. And then the last one, we won't talk much about these guys because they don't really come into the Salish Sea, but they are in the Pacific Northwest. They are the offshore killer whales, and they tend to range out in the ocean, and so they're very difficult to study, which is why we know such little about them. But um the two groups that people see here regularly are the southern resident killer whales and the transient killer whales.
Speaker 1And the southern residents being the salmon eaters that are critically endangered. So one of the things got me thinking about whales for this show is the state of the world, which is awful. So I was thinking about matriarchy, put the women in charge. And that got me thinking about orcas because they have a family structure that is a little different.
Speaker 4Yeah, so , killer whales are matriarchal. And for anyone who may not know, that means that the women are the leaders or the females. In the case of orca communities, and I think there's a few other species, maybe elephants, that the elder non-reproductive females are essentially the leaders. And so why that's interesting is because when an animal is no longer reproductive, in the science realm, they they're not contributing to the population, they're just another mouth to feed. So typically in the natural world, a post-reproductive animal won't live much longer. Um, but that's not the case with the killer whales. And so the thought is what is it about this community, this family structure, and the female, like the elder whales still being a part of the community, it's because they have a lot to offer. They're very knowledgeable, they have the understanding of where prey is, where things are, and they're the leaders, and they also help care for calves, and there's just this cohesion within these groups, these family structures and how they all care for one another. And so it's really interesting because their their leadership and their guidance is the leading reason why researchers think that killer whales can carry on past being reproductive.
Speaker 1You mentioned that there's two babies with the southern residents.
Speaker 4Yeah, so back in December, K-47, I was one of the, it was very exciting. I was one of the first people to see, to spot that little whale. K-47 was born to K-Pod, and that was very exciting because K pod is the smallest of the pods and has the lowest uh reproduction rate. Their last calf was 2022, and before that calf, the last calf was 2011. So it was very exciting to see a calf in that pod. And then the second one was L129, and that was last month, I believe. So haven't I to my knowledge, L's haven't been seen, so no updates on that one. Um, so hopefully in the spring, the summer, when the whales start to come back in, uh, we'll be able to see how those guys are doing or if they're still around.
Speaker 1And how did you spot that little whale?
Speaker 4Well, newborn calves are pretty orangey, pinkish, yellowy when they're born because their skin isn't thick enough to conceal like the blood vessels. So they appear this orange color until they're over a year old. And since Kays hadn't had any new calves in a couple of years, and K45, the calf born in 2022, she's getting pretty big. So when I saw this little orange thing just shoot out of the water, I was like, hmm, that's a new face we haven't seen before. We have the video of it on our YouTube channel.
A baby whale!
Speaker 3Oh my god, there's a new baby! Oh my god, there's a new baby, there's a new baby, there's a new baby. At least I'm I think it was oh my god, there is a new baby! I'm so sorry, you guys.
Speaker 1That's our guest, Tamara Kelly, the moment she discovers the newest family member of our endangered southern resident Orcas. That's very exciting. Then the baby whales, how long are they cared for by their mothers or grandmothers?
Speaker 4In the case of the southern residents, the calves will stay with mom their entire life. And grandma, so in the case that grandma is around, usually what will happen is grandma, her daughters, and their kids will all be one unit, and we call that a matre line. So, for example, the J19s. J19 Satchi is the grandmother. Her daughter, J41 Eclipse, now has three calves. She had J62 at the very end of December 2024. And so her three calves and herself and her mom, J19, make up the J19 nature line.
Speaker 1What happens to the boy whales?
Speaker 4They they also stay with mom their whole lives. So we have this running joke in the whale community that all killer whales, all male orcas are mama's boys because they really are. In the Southern Resident Killer Whale community is the case of L87 Onyx. Um, his mother passed away when he was quite young, and he ended up finding surrogate mothers in different pods. So he's unique in the sense that he has pod switched. He's been in both J and K pods, and now he's back in L's, but he has gone to different females to basically take care of them. And then when they pass away, he moves on to um different ones. So, but he's back with L's, and in the times I've seen him recently, it seems like he's spending a lot of time with L25.
Speaker 1And then in each pod, that could have several m matralines, right?
Speaker 4Correct. Yeah.
Speaker 1Several moms with kids and grandmas.
Speaker 4And then exactly. And then there's um usually there'll be like one group that leads the pod or one female that leads the pod. So in the case of J J Pod, um J19 seems to be the whale that filled stepped up and filled um J1 or J2 granny's role when she passed away.
Speaker 1Wow, that's just amazing. And because there's only, well, we're on 76, the southern residents, the endangered ones, are really I mean, you guys know all the whales. They're really researched very well.
Speaker 4Yeah, the geography of the Salish Sea allows us a very unique opportunity to get quite a lot of shore-based access to these whales. You know, research boats aren't out there and whale watch boats aren't out there all the time, but with the amount of water access that we have, there's a whole network and community of shore-based whale watchers. So, in general, when they're in the Puget Sound between these sightings groups, hydrophones, webcams, we tend to be able to keep pretty good tabs on them when they are within the Salish Sea. And so that has allowed for a lot of data collection and observation. And it's why we know as much as we know about these whales. Um, but it's interesting because in the hindsight, in hindsight, uh, since most of their lives are in the ocean and underwater, we really only have a tiny fraction or snapshot into their lives. And when you kind of scale that back, it's fascinating that these are the most studied whales. And even these guys, we we probably haven't even scraped the surface of what we really know about them, other than things that we can prove through science, like what their diet is, their range, and and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1Yeah. And speaking of their diet, the southern residents being salmon eaters and the salmon population being threatened as officially threatened, it's it's pretty sad what's happening to the whales. Do you want to talk a bit about what the Orca Conservancy is doing about conservation?
Speaker 4Yeah, most of our initiatives are are geared around the the threats that are impacting the southern residents. And so for anyone who doesn't know, the three major threats are lack of food, so diminishing food sources like salmon. Um, unfortunately, many of the stocks that they depend on are, like you said, threatened, or some of them are also endangered. So essentially, we have one endangered species dependent on another endangered species. So that's kind of a difficult position to be in. The other two threats, and these aren't all of the threats, these are just like the biggest ones that have been identified by NOAA. The other two are toxic pollution. So um, food or their food tends to have toxins from humans, and that all that enters the ecosystem and enters the food web, gets in their bodies. And then because these are fat-soluble or fat-loving toxins, they latch on to the fat cells and they're forever chemical, so they're in the whales' bodies forever, and it's contributes to a lot of health issues. And then there's also vessel noise. If you, you know, if you're looking out at Puget Sound, you can see ferries, cargo ships, sometimes cruise ships go through their private boats. Like it's loud out there. These orcas rely on echolocation to find their food, and so they they have to be able to hear when they're sending out those echolocation clicks to know where their food is. So we have an issue where all of these threats are working together, compounding one another to make the other worse. So when you don't get enough to eat, your body starts to break down your fat reserves, and the same is that's the same for orcas. And so, in the case of these whales, they have their their fat storage is loaded with these with poison, basically. And it's interesting because you can compare that to transients, which have tire higher toxic loads, but they're doing much better, and that's because they have enough to eat, so they're not depending on their fat reserves. The vessel noise becomes an issue because it's creating a lot of noise, it's hard for them to find their food, but there's less food to find. So, you know, over a decade ago, when you'd see southern residents, a lot of times they'd be in pretty tight groups and close together. But nowadays you'll see them just spread out, spanning, you know, a large range of area. And the belief is they're doing that because there's just they have to do that to find food. Those are the three issues. So our initiatives are really geared towards trying to mitigate all of those. So our a big one that we've got we've been doing for a while is salmon habitat restoration. Um, we have two parcels in the green Duwamish watershed, and then we share a parcel with a partner, so technically three. And so what we're doing is we're removing invasive plants and replacing them with native trees and shrubs, which have a ton of benefits for the habitat and have a really fast return on investment. So, unlike unlike some other projects that could take years to execute, restoration is fast and then salmon come back fast. We do a lot of work around policy and legislation. We filed a petition back in November with the state of California to get these Southern residents enlisted as endangered on the state level in California, because they are protected in Oregon, Washington, and Canada, and then they're protected federally. So California was the missing piece to close the gap in the habitat, especially with the federal endangered species uh act that uh is is has been coming under attack under the current administration, which is really unfortunate.
Speaker 1Yeah, I like something I heard on one of your videos. You said these endangered southern resident killer whales face extinction and their survival depends on changes that we that we need to make today. And you also you've also said that endangered means there's still time. We need to be their voice. I I really like that call to action.
Speaker 4Yeah, yeah. You know, that's kind of um something that we've worked really hard with Orca Conservancy is is being really honest and getting the hard truth out there of the reality of what's going on, but also not leaving people feeling completely hopeless. We always try to empower people in their own lives, whether they're they're volunteering or assisting with our work or, you know, calling their representatives or making conscious decisions when shopping. Like we always try to uh leave people. People with the sentiment that, yeah, things are pretty bad, but we we're not past the point of no return. We're close to it, but we're not there, so there's still time.
Speaker 1And then over the years, what are some uh surprising things you've learned in your work with the whales, the killer whales?
Speaker 4That they are just, you know, the more I feel like I learn about them, the less I feel like I know about them. Like just the more I learn they just they're so complex. They're so culturally like they they they just socially, there's just so much we don't know about them. Just last week we had some unidentified killer whales show up in Puget Sound after having been in Vancouver for four days, and that was pretty wild because you know, we know who we know who all of the southern residents are, and we know who over 99% of the transient whales are. These whales were not in any of the catalogs, and so it was pretty wild to see like a completely different population in Puget Sound. It's believed they are from an Alaskan transient stock. But, anyways, one of the things we had wondered while they were in Puget Sound, because we had a couple of our regular families that we see here that were in the vicinity, so we were like, hmm, do these what's gonna happen if these two groups of whales run into each other? Because we know in the case of residents and transients, they completely avoid one another or just ignore one another. In the rare instances they have been observed interacting, the southern residents tend to be the aggressors and will actually chase off the transients. So we have no idea what to expect with our West Coast transient population and these presumed Alaskans. Like, what's gonna happen? They ended up joining up with a couple of our family groups. That's so fascinating because we're like, these guys are different populations, they have different ranges. Seeing this unknown population with our local transients was like was quite interesting because, in the case of our residents, northern and southern residents don't interact, even though they're the same ecotype. However, with transients, it seems that these guys tend to be much more socially fluid than our fish eating whales. So that's just like one of the things that's like not even when we're looking at these orca populations, they don't even function the same. Like the residents have different social norms and behaviors than, say, um, the transients. And so that's that's also something that's really interesting to learn about them.
Speaker 1Lastly, you know, I was thinking a lot about ethical whale watching. Do you have tips for people who may want to take a whale watching trip, you know, wondering, is that an ethical thing to do or not an ethical thing to do?
Speaker 4Sure. Yeah, it's it's really this is of one of the most contentious debated topics in the whale community. And it really comes down to your personal preference and your ethics. I myself, I tend to fall in the middle. I think that um whale watching can be very beneficial because it's encouraging seeing animals in their natural habitat, you're educating people and then building an awareness. And I definitely think that has value. And whale watching can also contribute to research. They tend to be the ones to discover new calves or notice when animals are missing or when something looks wrong. We've had a couple instances where we've had whales in sticky situations that have needed help. Um, a couple of summers ago, one of our famous transients got himself wrapped up in a crab pot. And um it was uh it was the uh whale the whale watch fleets that were that saw it and then worked with Noah to kind of like keep people away. They've been helpful to kind of manage private boaters. If private boaters don't know, whales are around and they're going fast. So they definitely have their benefits, but there's also science showing that noise does disrupt the whales, especially in the case of the southern residents. Um, we know that the noise is enough to get a lactating female in her calf to leave the area, which is not ideal. So my personal stance is I support responsible whale watching, but I personally um also support the very strict regulations on the southern residents because they are a very fragile and sensitive population. And we have so many other types of whale species that you can see here that I tell people if you want to go on a whale watch boat, be prepared to see transients or other types of whales. Don't expect to see southern residents because most operators won't view them because of the very strict regulations. The majority of our operators here follow very strict regulations.
Speaker 1That's really great to
Mother and sister whales
Speaker 1hear. And in in closing, it do you have any final thoughts on our great matriarchal whales?
Speaker 4This is so this is so interesting to me. With K-47, we currently do not know who the mother is because there have been two females that have just been hovering around this calf, and it has been documented in the echelon position of both females. So in the case of like mothers and calves, what we tend to see in this community a lot is other females that don't have calves kind of tend to be the helpers or babysitters or nannies for other calves. At least that's kind of what I'm reading it as. In the case of J56 Tofino, who was born in 2019, she had three females that they were like, we don't know which one of these is the mom. And it took them a while to determine who the mom was. These same whales that they didn't know who the mom was for Tofino, those females were doting on another. You'll see those two specifically, like helping out new moms. And it's really sweet because, you know, we as humans can see that, like sisters or friends or moms helping their daughters with the grandchildren. But there's just this sense of community that I try I try to be careful not to anthropomorphosize too much, but I can only understand the world as a human in my human brain. And so when I see a lot of these interactions with these whales, it just reminds me so much of like human relationships and how we are with our family and our friends and our peers. And there's just such a familiarity with it that it's it's really special because it just it makes these whales just feel they just feel familiar, if uh that makes any sense.
Speaker 1Yeah, it does. We gotta save these whales. For more information on the Orca Conservancy, check out the show notes on our website. That's mouthymarmots.buzzsprout.com. April brings many chances to celebrate whales along the Olympic peninsula. On Friday, April 10th at 10 a.m., you can head over to La Push, Washington at First Beach. The Quileute tribe is holding its annual welcoming of the whales ceremony in honor of the gray whales that passed right near the shoreline. And then on April 12th, the North Olympic Land Trust is having an art and conversation gathering for the community. At the gathering, there's going to be portraits of every single one of the endangered Southern resident killer whales. Pretty cool. Truly, the Pacific Northwest is full of natural wonder and surprises.
Real life Tug Boat Annie
Speaker 1Our last surprise of the episode is a woman's history month special. In honor of woman's history, we share the incredible but true story of the Pacific Northwest Tugboat Empire built by the real life tugboat Annie. Here's Leela with the Shipping Report.
SpeakerWelcome to the Shipping Report. I'm Leela, your Mouthy Marmot's guide to the maritime comings and goings in and around Port Angeles. I don't know about you, but I love tugboats. They're the unsung workhorses of most harbors, including our own. If you're a tugboat watcher, you may have now and then seen a Foss tugboat in our waters. Above the bumpers, they're usually a squeaky clean white with green trim and a green Foss logo on the sides. Since March is Women's History Month, it's only fitting to highlight Foss Maritime, originally founded in the late 19th century by a woman, Thea Foss. Fia Foss name Thea Christensen came to Minnesota from Norway as a teenager in 1881 to marry her fiance, then Andrew Olsen, who had emigrated from Norway before her to earn her passage. The Olsons got busy starting a family and changed their name to Fosson or Foss, meaning waterfall in Norwegian, to have their name stand out a bit among all the Norwegian Olsons in Minnesota. They migrated to the Washington Territory in 1888, specifically the Tacoma Waterfront, where Andrew built a floating home. In 1889, Thea Foss fixed up a used rowboat and sold it for $5, founding the Foss Launch Company, which refurbished rowboats for rent and for sale. They continued to expand into the needs of Puget Sound and bought their first tugboat in 1912. Soon after that, they commissioned their first newly built tug that became the first motorized fireboat on Puget Sound. Thea Foss was so widely known that the 1933 film Tugboat Annie was loosely based on her. Foss tugboats were in high demand from the military during the war years to support naval construction projects, and in 1940, Foss tugboats assisted in the construction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and much later the second Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 2003. From humble beginnings, the company expanded to eventually become Foss Maritime, a maritime transportation and logistics company with global reach. For more information about FIA FOSS and the history of FOSS Maritime, see the link in the show notes. So many achievements from one woman's work fixing up a used rowboat.
Speaker 5The adventures of Tugboat Annie!
Speaker 1We hope you've enjoyed the exuberance of nature in this spring episode, and that the powerful legacies of these mother whales and birds, even tugboat Annie, soothe the soul as we navigate our troubling times. Nature heals. Take care of yourself and take care of each other. Thank you.