“I saw a couple of boats following them last night,” Eld Inlet resident Kim Merriman said Monday. “It looked like they were herding them.”
Merriman, who has seen the five orcas several times in Eld Inlet since early September, said she also has seen boaters position themselves closer than the 100-yard distance that federal officials and conservation groups recommend boaters keep between their boats and whales.
Harassing or harming marine mammals violates the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. Violators could be subjected to a $10,000 civil violation, a criminal penalty of $100,000 or one year in prison, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.
NMFS has proposed turning the guidelines into rules and to expand the “no-go” distance to 200 yards, said Lynne Barre, an NMFS marine mammal specialist.
The new regulation would apply to Puget Sound resident orcas, which are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act and also protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, as well as the transient killer whales, which are protected by the federal marine mammal law.
Human disturbance can interfere with a killer whale’s ability to hunt, feed, communicate, socialize, rest, breed or care for its young, marine mammal scientists say.
For the marine mammal-eating transients, human disturbance could hinder their ability to echolocate and hunt their prey, said Robin Baird, a research biologist with Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia.
On Sunday, Baird and fellow researcher Brad Hanson of the federal Northwest Fisheries Science Center used a dart to place a satellite tag on the dorsal fin of one of the five South Sound transient orcas they encountered off the east side of Anderson Island.
The pack of whales includes two mothers and three offspring. The whales have been spotted feeding on harbor seals during their South Sound journey. By comparison, the Puget Sound resident population feeds on fish.
The tag transmits signals 16 hours a day and requires an orbiting satellite to be overhead and the whale to be on the surface of the water to register a reading.
Tagging of several other transient killer whales in the past year has confirmed they can travel long distances in a short time – from Oregon to southeast Alaska in a matter of weeks.
Occasionally, a family or a small group of transients will hone in on one marine area for an extended stay, including nearly a six-month visit to Hood Canal by six transient killer whales in 2005.
Merriman said the current South Sound visitors have put on quite a show in front of her Eld Inlet home, frolicking on the surface, jumping out of the water and slapping their tails.
“We’re blessed to have them here,” Merriman said.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444
jdodge@theolympian.com
