Look's Like the Ventilation's Busted: Day Eighteen on the Alaska Road Trip

Today belongs to the wildlife. I woke up to a foggy morning filled with the barnacled backs of humpback whales. I was too absorbed to take any photos, but not to worry -- I got plenty of pictures during the day.

First there were the mammals...

Harbor seal haul-out.

Pod of orcas!

WEEE!

Male and female orcas in a playful feeding frenzy (just guessing here).

Sea lions, harbor porpoises, and Dall’s porpoises also made the list.

And then there were the reptiles.... (Did I say reptiles? I meant... reptiles! Yes, birds are technically considered reptiles these days.)

Pelagic cormorants.

Rhinoceros auklet. 

Common murres.

A bunch of common murres.

I guess that's why we call them common!

We also saw a herring gull, bald eagle, raven, pigeon guillemot, Canada goose, glaucous-winged gull, mew gull, Bonaparte’s gull, belted kingfisher, crow, and the good old rock pigeon.

I caught up on some blogging.

My favorite office, the sun deck.

The trees are getting mossier as we motor south.

We got in line for lunch in the ship’s cafeteria, but after a few minutes we had to stumble outside for a gulp of fresh air. The cafeteria was filling up with smoke! We looked around for a sign that we should be worried, but the workers just fanned the smoke away from their faces and kept taking orders. The line piled up, the smoke billowed out, and controlled mayhem ensued.

One chef took charge and began hollering for people halfway down the line to place their orders.

“Whadaya want?!"

“Fish and chips!”

“Fish and chips? You’re number six! NEXT?”

“Chicken strips!”

“You’re number four! NEXT?”

“I don’t know yet!”

“Well ya better decide!”

I ended up winning the last order of fried oysters. I took my prize up to the front, eager to leave this smoky hell. The lady at the cash register, suffused in a yellowish-gray cloud, took my money.

“Hmm. Looks like the ventilation’s busted,” she noted without glancing up.

I guess you learn to take things in stride when you work on the Alaska Marine Highway.

A lavender hue before sunset.

Passengers retreated to their solarium chaise lounges when the sky began to spit.

Our last sunset on the Great Alaskan Road Trip.

End of day summary:

• Day of road trip: 18
• Start: Malaspina ferry (Ketchikan), Alaska, United States 
• Miles traveled: 390 (ferry) 
• Hours driven: 0 
• Favorite bird sighting: rhinoceros auklet 
• End: Malaspina ferry (Queen Charlotte Strait), British Columbia, Canada

Share:

Read More

A Marine Mammal Murder Mystery

* Please be aware: there are graphic images of blood and body parts in this post. *

A crowd gathers.

A crowd gathers down on the dock... What's going on?

The body bag.

It's a crime scene. The body is lifted out of the ocean and rolled onto the dock.

The victim.

Then the victim is revealed: a large male harbor seal. Our mission: to determine the cause of death.

Of course, what I'm witnessing isn't truly a crime scene -- it's a seal necropsy conducted by the NOAA Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Anyone who finds a dead marine mammal can call the Network, and a team of responders might be able to collect the animal for a research necropsy like this one.

Here on the dock we have a whole crew of Stranding Network members gathered: a local whale-watching boat guide, the Whale Museum Stranding Network Coordinator, a veterinarian named Dr. Joe, a couple of vet students from UC Davis, and a hoard of curious labbies (me included).

First, Dr. Joe observed the body for external signs and found...

Clue #1: a series of puncture wounds through the seal's backside.

A vet student examines the incision.

He made an incision next to the punctures, allowing us to discover...

Clue #2: a hemorrhage, visible as a block of frozen blood filling the space between the skin and the abdominal cavity. (The seal's body was frozen after it was collected to preserve it for this necropsy.)

For the next hour experts examined the body front and back, inside and out, looking for more clues. Everything looked normal until we cut into the chest around the lungs and heart and found...

Clue #3: another enormous hemorrhage filling the entire thoracic cavity.

Clearly, this seal had been badly injured. But what actually caused the death? Was it attacked by a Stellar's sea lion, then hit by a boat in its compromised state? Or did orcas bite it and smack it around with their tails before deciding they weren't hungry after all?

These two hypotheses seemed to be the most likely, though we'll never know for certain what happened. Dr. Joe took dozens of samples from all over the body to send to the lab for processing, so maybe the Stranding Network will have a better idea once the results come back.

One thing we did find out for sure is what the seal ate for his last meal...

Stomach contents.

A huge salmon! The fish was partially digested, but its head and skeleton were still intact. At least this seal ate well before it died.

After the seal necropsy, the Stranding Network had one more puzzle to solve, this time by examining a porpoise head.

A porpoise ear.

The main question was whether the porpoise had any damage to its ears. Porpoises use echolocation to navigate and find prey, and scientists are concerned that the noise from large ships might be harming porpoises' sensitive ears. The Network will have to wait for lab results to come back before they know the health of the ears.

Although we all would have preferred to watch this seal and porpoise leaping from the ocean, healthy and happy, we were grateful for the chance to learn from these animals' deaths. One day I will be as knowledgeable about anatomy and ecology as Dr. Joe so I too can solve marine mammal murder mysteries.

Share:

Read More