{"id":8286,"date":"2024-08-01T01:06:38","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T01:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/?p=8286"},"modified":"2024-08-01T01:06:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T01:06:39","slug":"07-31-2024-day-11-a-whale-y-awesome-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/07-31-2024-day-11-a-whale-y-awesome-time\/","title":{"rendered":"07.31.2024: Day 11, A Whale-y Awesome Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Blog by Akemi, Evan, Maddie, and Ella<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the title wasn’t fin-tastic enough to catch your eye, maybe this hook’ll reel you in as a tail end to the month of July…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start off the morning\u2026 we SLEPT IN! Yippee! We left for Lime Kiln State Park at 11:45am and met up with Erin Corra, a tour guide at Lime Kiln state park, who enthusiastically showed us around the park. Erin Corra has been an interpretive specialist since 2007 and then became the founder and program director of the Friends of Lime Kiln Society (FOLKS) for short, where she continued to educate the public on Southern Resident Killer Whales. She is genuinely excited to share the wonders of orcas with the public, and has been a driving force in educating people about their habitat and how to protect them. She gave us a better insight of the inner workings at Lime Kiln State Park! Additionally, Erin walked us around the trail towards the lighthouse, educating us on trees such as Madronas, Douglas Firs, and Big Leaf Maples. We also observed about three whales in the distance, coming to the surface for air, and even breaching a couple times! After watching the whales for a while (definitely humpbacks, according to Adam and Emma) we went further, to the actual lighthouse! Erin introduced us to the hydrophone, a non-invasive way to observe whale echolocation, where we can listen on land. Afterwards, we sat on rocks outside the lighthouse, eating lunch, while Erin took six of us up to the top of the lighthouse at a time! It was a beautiful view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view of the Lime Kiln shoreline and lighthouse. Credits to Akemi. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After a very interesting walk around Lime Kiln and a great whale spotting, we headed to Snug Harbor Resorts, the home of Soundwatch, an all-female group of researchers who monitor orcas and help educate boaters about viewing rules. Soundwatch is a derivative of the Whale Museum, and goes out on the water every day to help maintain guidelines on watching the orcas and report boaters who violate the laws. They also conduct their own research on the orcas that help to provide information for the Whale Museum and NOAA. While we were there, we learned about rangefinders, the devices used for tracking the distance between boats and the whales they\u2019re watching. These are used to determine whether or not boats are violating the 400 yd bubble around the orcas, which is used to protect the animals from boat harm. We also learned about the boat they use to conduct their research and stop boaters from getting too close to the whales. Lastly, we got more of an insight as to how they help whales who have been entangled. Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience and we all learned a lot about orca research and conservation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A photo of the harbor at the Snug Harbor Resort, where Soundwatch is located. Credits to Maddie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After meeting with the crew from Soundwatch, our fearless leaders Adam and Emma took us to get ice cream in Roche Harbor! Many of us had not yet been to Roche Harbor so it was great to see one of the other established towns on the island. It had a very different feel than Friday Harbor, it had a few small shops and was overall a lot smaller than Friday Harbor. It was a fun change and a fun surprise that we got to stop for ice cream! Thanks Adam and Emma! It was a cool treat, and very delightful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view of Roche Harbor, photo credits to Maddie. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog by Akemi, Evan, Maddie, and Ella If the title wasn’t fin-tastic enough to catch your eye, maybe this hook’ll reel you in as a tail end to the month of July… To start off the morning\u2026 we SLEPT IN! Yippee! We left for Lime Kiln State Park at 11:45am and met up with Erin Corra, a tour guide at Lime Kiln state park, who enthusiastically showed us around the park. Erin Corra has been an interpretive specialist since 2007 and then became the founder and program director of the Friends of Lime Kiln Society (FOLKS) for short, where she continued to educate the public on Southern Resident Killer Whales. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":233,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/233"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8291,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286\/revisions\/8291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}