It was Earth Day at Wild Cortes, Cortes Island’s centre for natural history, community science and collaborative conservation.

“It is a very exciting place to be, with new displays coming in every year, always on Earth Day. That’s probably the most important thing to say. It’s Earth Day, so let’s celebrate,” explained Sabina leader Mense, a professional advisor to Wild Cortes. 

The centrepiece of this year’s displays is the ‘Humpback Comeback’ section highlighting the stunning recovery of Humpback Whales in our local waters. 

Sabina Leader Mense: “They used to be  everywhere, then the Douglas Whaling Station was set up in Whaletown Bay. Its history is in the little display here, ‘the Dawson Whaling Company, 1869.’ It only lasted a year. They realized it was not the most optimum site, so moved it down to Hornby Island the next year. So we only had the legacy of bonking Humpback Whales on the head and flensing them for a year, but the name stuck. That’s how ‘Whaletown’ got its name. The Humpbacks completely disappeared. We eliminated them from the Strait of Georgia, not a Humpback to be seen.”

Cortes Currents: When did they start coming back?

Sabina Leader Mense: “Some of the first Humpbacks that we saw were in the early eighties. I was working out at the Bamfield Marine Station, running research programs, but I put myself through university fishing off the West Coast and would interact with the fishermen.  They started telling me that they were seeing Humpback Whales out on the finger bank in the early eighties and sure enough, the Humpbacks were coming slowly back to the coast of BC.”  

“Then we have this brilliant work by the Marine Education Research Society (MERS) whose work  Donna Collins is featuring in this display.”

“The Marine Education and Research Society has been documenting them and identifying them individually,” said Collins, who is also one of Cortes Wild’s co-curators.

“Donna  has done a fantastic job. There’s lots of pictures and  all kinds of interesting things, including  two sea lion skulls, both of which were found on local beaches,” added Laurel Bohart, Cortes Wild’s other co-curator.

Sabina Leader Mense: “We can reliably identify Humpback Whales from the underside of their tail flukes, as well as the little nubbin that we call the dorsal fin but the underside of the tail flues is very characteristic. They have these colorations, black and white splotches, big chunks taken out of them, very readily identified by the underside of the tail flukes.”

Donna Collins: “As of 2024, 776 Humpback Whales have been identified.”

Sabina Leader Mense: “That’s in their entire catalog for BC.” 

“We  brought Jackie Hildering, from MERS, in six years ago. 86 individual Humpback Whales were identified in 2019. This figure of 86, why it’s so impressive is it’s from here. There were 86 individua Humpbacks found in the area from the northern end of Cortes to Powell River, across to Heriot Bay on Quadra Island.” 

“This year they started doing some really good work in the Strait of Georgia. Everywhere from the northern tip of Vancouver Island, at Cape Scott, down to Victoria: we’ve seen this Humpback comeback.” 

“One of the hotspots for seeing Humpback Whale is literally the ferry route from Heriot Bay across to Whaletown. The ferry route has the largest number of observations coming in because our crews are doing a great job alerting  people to that.”

Laurel Bohart: “Apparently Humpback Whales may have a small throat, but an enormous mouth. They can suck in a lot of little fish at a time, and they fertilize the ocean out the other end rather frequently.”  

She pointed to a photograph of a whale’s throat (top of page).

Laurel Bohart: “Look at the folds. When you have a large mouth and a very small throat that is like an accordion, so when you open your mouth up all that sea water and fish rush in. You can’t swallow all that so you squeeze it in. The fish go down the throat and the corrugation comes in. It’s like an accordion.” 

Donna Collins: “I call them pleats.” 

Cortes Currents: So their throats are expanding and contracting. 

Laurel Bohart: “Yes, very powerful muscles. and they fertilize the ocean out the other end rather frequently.”  

Donna Collins: “The whales travel from winter to summer grounds. One is for birthing and fooling around, the other one is a feeding area. All along the way they’re pooping and peeing. It tends to stay at the surface. They don’t defecate unless they’re on the surface.” 

 Cortes Currents: Why is whale poop so valuable? 

Donna Collins: “It feeds the phytoplankton and that, in turn, sucks up carbon dioxide and gives out oxygen. As the whales die and go to the bottom, the carbon they’ve collected over the years is just left there.  Each whale sequesters 33 tons of carbon dioxide on average, taking that carbon out of the atmosphere for centuries.  A tree only absorbs up to 48  pounds per year, and this is tons!”

Sabina Leader Mense: “Humpback Whales move from breeding grounds to feeding grounds the world over.  In the North Pacific, we have Humpbacks moving from these incredibly rich feeding areas that we have here. The waters of the Pacific Northwest are cold, oxygen rich and nutrient rich. That’s why they come in droves in the summer to feed. But the waters are too cool for them to  successfully birth their young. So they head off to either Mexico, Central America, or Hawaii. From here to a central warm spot to have their calves, and then they make that journey back again”.

“That’s a lot of energy to be putting out, travelling from here to Hawaii and back again. You don’t do it unless you have to and they have to in order to calve. The water needs to be warm enough for the newborns.” 

“One of the interesting things about that migration is it’s really staggered.”

“Mike Manson got some really good photographs of the underside of the fluke of a Humpback Whale in January, off of his beach on the south end between Twin Island and the southern tip of Cortes. We sent it right away to Jackie Hildering at MERS. She identified the whale immediately and said, ‘isn’t that interesting, we see her there every year, but she’s the absolute last whale to arrive. This is a very important sighting you’ve made at south end of Cortes at the end of January. That’s as staggered as it can be.’” 

“A lot of people used to think, and still do think. that some of the Humpback Whales stay here all year round. MERS maintains that there aren’t any that stay over the winte. Some are heading south as late as January, February and then they’re going to come back again.” 

Bohart proceeded to introduce some new items in the museum.

She held up an animal skull: “This is a Sea Lion skull. You can tell the difference between California Sea Lion and a Steller Sea Lion by the crest at the top of the skull, where the muscles attach. What’s unique about this one is the hole in the skull. That was caused by a boat rotor, or ship rotor.  The animal was hit, died, washed up on the beach in the Seascape/ Sea Vista area. Donna Collins told me about it. I removed the head since the rest of it was not salvageable.”  

“When one of these animals dies, they provide food for a whole variety of creatures from flies to eagles, vultures, crows, ravens, even mice, because the mice need the calcium. They’ll chew on the bones to get that.” 

There’s also a new owl mounted on the wall.

Laurel Bohart:  “This particular Western Screech Owl was hit by a vehicle in Mansons Landing a number of years ago, when Screech Owls were much more abundant than they are now.  The last time I saw a Screech was 15 years ago maybe. I mounted it for a local family.” 

“Unfortunately, Western Screech Owls  are predated by other creatures like Barred Owls who seem to want to eat just about anything . When they spread west and north out of the States and out of Eastern Canada ,they encountered habitats that they didn’t know. They quickly adapted and they usually eat squirrels, mice, rats, but they also bird eaters.” 

Sabina Leader Mense put up the new Western Screech Owl display.

“We did a series of transects in 2022. We play the call of the male Western Screech Owl during the breeding season of February and March and we hope that they call back to us, but they didn’t in 2022. In 2023, we went further up into the northern wilds of Cortes.  That’s when they answered us for the first time on the call playback. So we had one at the very northern tip, Bull Bluff, halfway down the peninsula, and had another one calling right across the channel from Read Island.”

“They’ve never had an autonomous recording units (ARU) on Sonora Island, but they have a neighborhood Western Screech owl that calls every spring, in February and March. We saw one killed on Maurelle Island.” 

“So we know we have them on Sonora, Maurelle, Read, and Cortes Islands. Not many: one here, one there. They’re still listed as special concern, so hopefully we can protect the habitat.”  

“One of the new displays at Cortes Wild is ‘Who are the Wescotti?’  Wescotti is the scientific acronym for the subspecies of Western Screech Owl we have here, the Megascops kennicottii kennicottii – named for the American Naturalist Kennecott.” 

“We engaged families all through the Discovery Islands, Sonora, Maurelle, Read, Cortes itself. The youth strapped these autonomous recording units to trees, turned them on, checked them, monitored them, and the results were sent to the Ministry.” 

“A young woman by the name of Salix Webb, from Read Island, was helping with the ARUs. We engaged her to put together this display and do some research on the Western Screech Owls. I’m so very pleased to have her work here in a display. Her family was engaged on Read Island in 2023, and I approached her in 2024. She was recently a member of the Cortes Island Academy here on Cortes. Over the course of the last couple of years, she did her research and put things together. Mira Andrews and I propped this up on the wall last night, just to help Salix out.” 

Cortes Currents: Tell us a little bit about the partnership behind Wild Cortes.

Sabina Leader Mense: “Many years ago, Lynne Jordan, then President of Cortes Island Museum and Archive Society said, ‘let’s get a new centre going for natural history. The Linnaea Farm Society came in as the host of the actual facility that we have here. The Friends of Cortes Island Society came in as a partner. The Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society came in as a partner. We have the Discovery Islands Ecosystem Mapping Project from the Outer Discovery Islands. Salix Webb’s contribution with the Western Screech Owl display this year comes from their region. Our newest partner is the Cortes School Community. Michael Detura and his entire community  of  parents and youth at the school  will be responsible for the display next year.” 

Links of Interest:

• How Whaletown Got Its Name – Cortes Currents
• Articles about, or mentioning, Humpback Whales
• Articles about, or mentioning, the Western Screech Owl Project
• Articles about, or mentioning, Wild Cortes

Low Whalesong by RebekahDay via freesound.org

Top image credit: A Humpback Whale’s expanded throat – courtesy ‘Humpback Comeback’ exhibit at Cortes Wild; All images aside from the podcast images and are either photographs of exhibits or photographs of images at C.rtes Wild