Category Archives: Ecological Monitoring

Our Last Census Day!

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Sunday, September 29, 2024

Today was our last census!!!

We took our coffees up to the tower for the 7am Low tide.

Animal Census:

Birds:

  • Gulls: 1580
  • Cormorants: 22
  • Canada Goose: 22
  • Turnstones:
  • Shorebird: 1

Would love help on the ID of this.. email us if you know!

Mammals:

  • Stellar Sea Lion: 306
  • California Sea Lion: 834
  • Harbour Seal: 81
  • Elephant Seal female: 2

Animal Tracking and Injuries:

Spotted a Stellar Sea lion with fishing line wrapped around his neck ☹

Reported to DFO.

Since we are leaving on Tuesday, we spent the day cleaning the house, and washing the windows.

As well as our daily fence repair. It’s a particularly nauseating feeling to wake up each morning, look out at the beautiful view, and survey the extent of fence damage that has happened overnight…. This is a task I definitely will not miss.

Weather: Sunny all day, Very windy all night (35+ Knts, dropping all day to around 20knts W/SW)

Whale Watching Vessels: 10

Private Vessels: 2

**Loads of Humpbacks hanging about 😊

Elephant Seal Frustrations

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Tuesday September 24, 2024

This morning we woke up to fog lapping at the shores of the island. Its honestly very magical to be fully socked in on a rock that you know is completely surrounded by water. But also, this really throws the problem of a malfunctioning foghorn into sharp relief.

We were obviously not alone in this thought, as we read an 8am email from the Coast Guard team who will be out here tomorrow to take another stab at repairing it.

We spent the morning cleaning the solar panels, making the daily fence repairs, and doing some general tidying for the week.

We also tried to capture some more identification photos of the Elephant Seal who has been around. Last week we reported her with my best guess of her tag number based off a couple glimpses from when her tail was at just the right angle.

The group we reported her to responded right away with a bunch of interesting information about her life. She was born in Ano Nuevo California in 2013. She has been spotted there many, many times since then, during the winter months, and has even had two babies of her own!

But they have no sightings of her in other locations up until now! So that is super exciting!

From a Race Rocks perspective, she also seems to be a Newcomer. Elephant seals have full reign of the island, and the guys who visit here often know that, and take advantage of it….. as recorded in many previous blogs,

This gal, however, is hanging down on the rocks on the South side of the island amongst all of her Sea Lion relatives.

In addition, speaking with some of the previous Eco-Guardians, there is usually another seal (Beverly) who is the first to arrive. She has a pink tag.. so we know this is not her. Maybe there is new newcomer on the block….?

The previous eco-guardians also shared this neat image, that shows the tag color correspondence with animal birthplace!

What a cool and simple way to track such amazing animals!

Anyways, I will continue on trying to get a clear tag picture.

Whale Watching Vessels: 10

Private Vessels: 0

Weather: Foggy and Overcast Day, Winds SW picking up to 15 knts in the Evening

Census on a Cloudy Day

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Sunday September, 22

Census Day!

This morning, Scott and I headed up to the top of the tower for our weekly animal count.

We added the elephant seal to this week’s survey because she is still sticking around!

Yesterday we beefed up the fence on the West side of the island between the helipad and the generator shed. Since this one isn’t anchored into the bedrock, it has been taking quite a beating from the westerly winds.

Greg also dropped by yesterday and gave us some groceries for the week. The water cistern is quite low, so we have ceased using the desalinator, and are trying to be more conservative than normal with the water. Fingers crossed, Greg will be able to boat over some more water this week!

Today, we checked and topped up the batteries, and tidied up the basement in the main house. I can’t believe we only have a week left on the island!

Whale Watching Vessels: 15

Private Vessels: 4

Weather: Cloudy and Overcast Day, Winds SW picking up to 15 knts in the Afternoon

Animal Census:

Birds:

  • Gulls: 1155
  • Cormorants: 228
  • Oystercatchers: 3
  • Canada Goose: 6
  • Turnstones: 17 ** They are hard to see amongst all the sea lions

Mammals:

  • Stellar Sea Lion: 397
  • California Sea Lion: 780
  • Harbour Seal: 85
  • Elephant Seal female: 1

Elephant Seal!

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Friday September 20th

Last night while we were fixing the fence on the South Side of the Island that had been knocked over….Again.. we spotted a seal looking a little different than everyone else

Looking a little closer, we realized it was an elephant seal! Looks like a small female, and she is tagged, though we couldn’t get a good photo of it. We reported it to the biologists from California who implement that specific tagging study.

Also saw a couple more branded Sea Lions who we also reported, as well as a dead sea lion we spotted along the south side of the island at low tide.

Scott has worked his way through the pile of wood piled down near the Jetty, so the next Eco-Guardians will def be warm for a while.

Whale Watching Vessels: 10

Private Vessels: 0

Weather: Mix of Sun and Cloud. Pretty Calm day, wind pretty consistent around 5knts W.

And like everyday this month lots of humpbacks feeding all day!

The Journey of #444X

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Wednesday September 18, 2024

Not a huge day facilities wise. We did our daily repair of the electric fences, and chopped a little more wood.

However, we did receive some cool news from Brian Wright, the NOAA scientist who we reported the branded sea lions to. He told us that number 444X, was first tagged in Astoria all the way back in 2016, and he has not been reported since.

This information is super valuable to scientists and managers because it shows what areas are being used by these animals, the extent of their ranges, and how long they can live. (Which for a California Sea Lion is 15 – 25 years!).

Mark and recapture studies are also very important for estimating functional population size, and this type of study design is used for lots of fundamental ecological work. This infographic from FishBio, nicely explains how a mark-recapture study can work in an open environment! Again, this is a good reminder to report any tagged animals you encounter!

Whale Watching Vessels: 20

Private Vessels: 0

Weather: Mix of Sun and Cloud.  Calm during the day, wind picked up to 12kts W

Census Day!

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Sunday September 8th

Today we spent a lot of time on the fence again. We painstakingly went through each section to ensure that charge was being held the whole way through. This was a very tedious process and we still don’t have the voltage up to where we want it to be…. but there have been no pinniped breaches yet, so fingers crossed!

Today, Scott and I climbed the lighthouse tower to complete our first wildlife census. As a marine ecologist, I have a lot of experience counting fish underwater. However, counting over 600 Sea lions that all look like overlapping brown logs or trying to count birds that keep on flying away or are hidden between all the sea lions was way harder. With that said, being a top the tower made everything much easier to see and to conceptualize on a greater scale.

While we were up there we also got to enjoy a couple of humpback whales engaging in tail slapping or “lobtailing” behaviour for well over 30 minutes. It is thought that the sound and force generated by the slaps frighten the bait fish into tighter schools making them easier to hunt. Based off gull activity, there were definitely a lot of bait balls around, so hopefully we will get to see more of this behaviour in the coming days!

  • Water Sample
  • Ran Generator
  • Washed Solar Panels
  • Patched and checked new electric fence
  • Island animal census

Whale Watching Vessels: 25

Private Vessels: 7

Census Results:

Birds:

  • Turnstones: 15
  • Killdeer: 1
  • Gulls: 528
  • Cormorants: 70
  • Oystercatchers: 2
  • Canada Goose: 6

Mammals:

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 115
  • California Sea Lions: 497
  • Sea Lions (Too Far for confident ID): 205
  • Harbour Seals: 63

Weather: Slightly Hazy/Overcast. Wind NW Building all day to ~ 15knts

E-Bird June Race Rocks gull survey and Census

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E-Bird Gull Survey https://ebird.org/checklist/S184107190

Subject: June Racerocks Gull Survey

Rocky Point Bird Observatory & Pearson College Race rocks Gull Survey June 2024
Survey conducted by Andrew Jacobs and Ann Nightingale
Thank you to Greg for getting us out there again on the boat and Christine with the assistance during the survey.
This survey was conducted to investigate the phenotypes of the glaucescens-occidentalis hybrid complex using the Great Race Rock as a nesting area. We looked for pairing preference of phenotypes, nest habitat preference and mapped the nests that had parents on them. We looked at the breakdown of the colony diversity into five phenotypic groups – pure type Glaucous-winged Gulls, Glaucous-winged trending hybrids or light morph Olympic Gulls, intermediate trending hybrids or intermediate morph Olympic Gulls, Western trending hybrids or dark morph Olympic Gulls, and pure type Western Gulls. The nesting of Western Gull on the island is of specific interest as there are adult Western Gulls near the island year round and we would like to see if Western Gull pairs are starting to breed in Canada or if they are forming mixed pairs.
The survey also counted other species of gull and age classes as well as other species using the rocks this time of year. The general nesting grounds on the main rock were used by the hybrid complex, Pigeon Guillemot, and Black Oystercatcher although no nests of the latter two were seen they were displaying as if nests were nearby.
Ebird link with photos and sound recordings.
The numbers of pure type Glaucous-winged Gull were up for the breeding season over our previous survey by about 6-7 times at 69 individuals with 64 adults and 5 immatures. The number of hybrid and intergrade type Olympic Gulls was 321 with 314 adults and 7 immatures. The breakdown of colour morphotypes in the Olympic Gulls was light morph (Glaucous-winged trending hybrids) 138 individuals with 133 adults and 5 immatures, intermediate morph (Intermediate trending hybrids) 166 individuals with 164 adults and 2 immatures, dark morph (Western trending hybrids) 17 individuals with 17 adults.
The island at this time contained 4 adult Western Gulls, two of which were on nests, one was in the grassy area on a rocky outcropping and one was on the outer rocky part of the island along the cliff. The two nesting Western Gulls did not have a partner present while we were on the island. Surprisingly one of the Western Gull nests appeared to have a rock placed in with its three eggs in the nest of roughly egg size.
Total glaucescens-occidentalis hybrid complex birds 394
Glaucous-winged Gull 69 (17.51%)
Olympic Gull 321 (81.47%)
-Light morph 138 (35.02%)
-Intermediate morph 166 (42.13%)
-Dark morph 17 (4.13%)
Western Gull 4 (1.01%)
Visible pairings 44
Glaucous-winged + Glaucous-winged 2 (4.54%)
Glaucous-winged + Light Olympic 6 (13.63%)
Glaucous-winged + Intermediate Olympic 3 (6.81%)
Light Olympic + Light Olympic 14 (31.81%)
Light Olympic + Intermediate Olympic 5 (11.36%)
Light Olympic + Dark Olympic 1 (2.27%)
Intermediate Olympic + Intermediate Olympic 11 (25.00%)
Intermediate Olympic + Dark Olympic 2 (4.54%)
Banded individuals included three Olympic Gulls one colour banded adult (cobalt blue over metal right leg and red over cobalt blue left leg), and one adult and one immature with metal bands.
Other Gull species in the survey area included California Gull with 3 immature individuals and Heermann’s Gull with 4 adults.
The other non larid species present
1 Canada Goose
3 Harlequin Duck
11 Black Oystercatcher
2 Killdeer
8 Rhinoceros Auklet
254 Pigeon Guillemot
3 Brandt’s Cormorant
23 Pelagic Cormorant
1 Bald Eagle
2 Barn Swallow
Pinniped abundance and usage of the area
2 Northern Elephant Seal – two immatures one small and one medium sized.
59 Harbour Seals
2 California Sealions
Map of nest locations.
Next time we will also log unidentified nests.
Any other questions or feedback is welcome.
Thank you,
Andrew Jacobs

Race Rocks Lightstation – Weather Conditions – Environment Canada- and Problems for Oil-spill cleanup

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Environment Canada has weather sensors installed at the top of the lighthouse at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. When windspeed was noted for every hour of the year, the reality of how ineffective Oil spill Cleanup would be becomes evident.

Hourly weather conditions summary for the past 24 hours. This includes conditions, temperature, humidity, dew point, wind speed/direction, air pressure, visibility, and wind chill/humidex (when applicable)

 

 

The archive of past data for every hour per day of each month go to this Environment Canada website link and enter the year month and date to access the data.

 

 

From this archive analysis can be made of wind speed conditions in the Eastern Entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We are concerned that although the claim is made that Canada has World Class oils spill  response capabilities , the reality is that for a large portion of time cleanup by booms and skimmers is not possible because the equipment cannot be deployed at wind speeds above 28 km/hr.

Some facts from the Environment Canada data:
1. In July of 2022  there were 11 days when the wind speed every hour was 28 km/hr or greater. and 69.5% of the hours in the month, clean up equipment could not be deployed due to high velocity wind conditions. 
2. In March of 2023, the wind speed was 28 km/hr or greater  37% of the time.
3. In Februarry of 2023 , the wind speed was 28 km/hr or greater 43 % of the time 
4. In January of 2023 , the wind speed was 28 km/hr or greater 36% of the time

5. In the first week of April 2023 the wind speed was 28km/hr or greater 51% of the time

In the graph above, the  white arrows in the current table of Race Passage in the
Eastern entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca represent the times of the day on on April 5 when current speed was above the speed of 3 nauts, the speed at which equipment deployed for containing oil spills on water fails. This means only
brief windows when the tide is changing would oil spill retainment be possible.

Kayaker in trouble

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Rescue day:
Early this morning I was very surprised to find a person yelling at my door for help.  The man was very upset and his broken English difficult to understand, but I eventually figured out that his friend was in trouble.

The pair were fishing in the protected marine reserve when the push peddles on the friends kayak broke. I spotted the kayaker on the south west side of the Main Island, and it was quickly being pushed out on a big ebb tide to the west. The kayaker was trying to paddle against the five knot tide. Witnessing very little progress, I learned the fishermen were not carrying a VHF radio and carried unworkable mobile phones (which often don’t work on the south side without a US plan or roaming).  I immediately took action to launch the Race Rocks boat but the low tide and risky boat ramp conditions would not allow the boat to launch. There was simply not enough water to float the Race Rocks boat to help the kayaker.

Immediately, I contacted the Coast Guard (my cell phone *16) and they tasked out a RIB and lifeboat from Victoria. Myself and the Coast Guard were in constant communication about the troubled kayaker. While in communication, the kayaker managed to find a back eddy and travel to land on the south beach of the Main Island. After a discussion with the kayakers, they decided they were too exhausted from paddling to safely travel back to the mainland, even if they waited for the a slower tide. I confirmed their request with the Coast Guard who continued with the rescue.

One of my responsibilities as eco-guardian is to inform the public about the eco-reserve as a marine protected area. This means there is no fishing, crabbing or prawning permitted. Clearly, the kayaks were both outfitted with all the gear to crab, fish and prawn including a big capture net. I informed the kayakers the Coast Guard may have some questions as to why they were illegally fishing in the protected marine park. To record the incident, I quickly went to the main house to grab my camera.  By the time I returned to the kayakers, the man with the working kayak was paddling frantically back to the mainland shore. Soon he was caught in the ebb tide and heading out to sea. The fear of getting in trouble with the Coast Guard was enough for him to abandon his fishing buddy.

The Coast Guard arrived within 17 minutes from the first call. They picked up the broken kayak and the exhausted kayaker. By now, the second kayaker was on the north west side of the main island in the ebb and quickly heading out to sea. The Coast Guard pulled him and the boat after a 45-minute paddle against the very strong ebb.

As a seasoned marine captain, I have several lessons to share about this incident.  First, don’t head out into the Juan de Fuca straight without being prepared for an emergency. Always carry a VHS radio and/or reliable mobile phone plan.  Second, don’t crab, fish or prawn in a protected marine park. Always check fishing regulations and tide tables. Third, don’t abandon a fishing buddy, no matter the circumstances.  The buddy system saves lives.

Thank you to the Coast Guard for their hard work and commitment.  I am happy to report that both men were returned home safely.

Best wishes,

Captain Rod King

 

 

January 2021 Sea Surface Temperature & Salinity

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Also available from DFO here, along with data from other sites on the West Coast.

Daily Sea Surface Temperature and Salinity Observations
Station: Race Rocks
Observer: Tristan Blaine
Month: Jan-21
Day Time Temp °C Sal ppt
1 17:00 8.2 31.5
2 14:30 8.2 31.4
3 15:30 8.2 31.5
4 20:30 8.1 31.5
5 12:30 8.1 31.4
6 11:00 8.2 31.3
7 12:00 8.2 31.3
8 10:30 8.4 30.8
9 13:30 8.1 31.2
10 13:30 8.2 31.3
11 13:30 8.2 31.3
12 15:30 8.2 31.3
13 15:30 8.3 31.3
14 15:00 8.2 31.2
15 11:30 8.2 31.3
16 15:30 8.2 31.2
17 14:00 8.3 31.1
18 11:00 8.2 31.2
19 8:30 8.1 31.3
20 8:30 8.1 31.2
21 8:30 8 31
22 8:30 7.7 30.9
23 9:30 7.6 30.7
24 11:00 7.9 30.5
25 14:30 8.1 30.6
26 13:00 7.1 30.8
27 14:30 8 30.9
28 14:30 7.9 31.1
29 15:30 8 31.3
30 15:30 8 31.3
31 11:30 8.1 31.3