Plastic Pollution Strikes Again, Injured Sea Lion

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Today we saw another entangled sea lion hauled out near the jetty. It appears to be wrapped in fishing line, which has embedded itself in the sea lions flesh over time causing infection/rotting.

Seeing these injured animals is a reminder that improperly disposing of garbage, fishing (cut/broken lines, lost nets, etc.), and other ecologically detrimental human activities causes the suffering and death of large (and small) marine life.

Even after an entangled animal dies the damage continues. Modern fishing line made of nylon or polyvinylidene fluoride can take hundreds of years to decompose and after that, it continues to have detrimental effects. The majority of plastics used by humans decompose into ‘microplastics’ composed of/leeching out toxic chemicals such as BPA (bisphenol A) which can then magnify up the food chain accumulating in the organs of larger and larger animals, humans included.

BPA and other compounds such as plasticizer (plastic softener) Diethylhexyl phthalate effects humans as well as other animals, long after we pollute our environment. As the polymer chains break down, humans can be easily exposed by eating seafood, drinking contaminated water, and many more avenues of exposure. This may lead to cancer, birth defects, childhood developmental issues and more. 

We’ve notified Marine Mammal Rescue, hopefully they will be able to help this sea lion and the other entangled one.

Solo Sailer Reaches Home (A busy day)

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Weather: 

  • Sky overcast
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 5-15 knots SW
  • Water calm

Boats/Visitors: 

    • This morning we had a group come for a tour of the island
    • Greg also made a trip out to bring us water- thanks Greg!
    • Today Jeanne Socrates sailed past us on her way home from sailing around the world (More Info Here). She is the oldest woman to sail solo unassisted non-stop around the world and the only woman to do so from North America. Way to go! Here is her blog: https://www.svnereida.com/
    • We watched a rental boat from a nearby marina come very close to the sea lions and try to feed them human food from their boat this afternoon. We tried to get their attention to ask them not to but they ignored us.

Ecological: 

  • The sea lion with two neck wraps hauled out near the jetty again today. We’re hoping that a team from the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre (Link Here) will be able to come tranquilize it and remove the plastic soon.
  • A new young elephant seal is visiting today, and it’s tagged! It appears as if it was tagged in California. We think that it might be part of this research: The Costa Lab

Maintenance:

  • The sea lions continue to wage war upon our poor electric fence. Luckily they have stopped knocking over the fence near the generator shed, but they broke right through the fence near the jetty last night! Repairing and keeping the fences standing is a daily task.
  • Greg brought some new fire hose to replace a section of ours that had a leak (we use them to pump water from the boat to our tank). Greg tells us that the new desalinator will be shipped as soon as it is done being tested by the manufacturer.

Coast Guard Visit, The Entangled Sea Lion Is Still Here

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, intermittent fog
  • Visibility varying between 0-15 miles
  • Wind 20-30 knots W
  • Water rough, waves to half a metre with some whitecaps

Boats/Visitors: 

  • No visitors today
  • The whale watching boats continue to decrease in volume, this month looks to be a turning point in their season.

Ecological: 

  • We spotted the sea lion with plastic around its neck on the jetty last night, and today it was hauled out onto land between the helicopter pad and the guest house. We contacted DFO, and the entanglement response team will assess if it’s a job that they can do.
  • This afternoon we saw a blue heron, which we haven’t seen before out here.

Maintenance:

  • The Coast Guard visited briefly a few days ago. They stayed on RR for about an hour and did some maintenance on the fog horn system. Two people came on to land, and a third stayed in the Coast Guard zodiac.

More Sea Lion Injuries Due to Fishing

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, some periods of fog
  • Visibility 1-15 miles intermittently
  • Wind 20-30 knots W – NW
  • Water rough, whitecaps, swells around 1m

Boats/Visitors: 

  • No visitors today, but on Sunday Corey drove us back to Race Rocks with some more water as we were having troubles getting our boat to start.
  • There have not been many whale watching boats but when they are here they often get quite close to the sea lions (within 10m). We can tell when there is a boat present in the reserve by the increase in “barking” and distressed sounds that the sea lions make.

Ecological: 

  • Over the weekend a sea lion was spotted with some fishing line wrapped around its neck. We believe that it could be the same one spotted last year. As it grows it will likely die due to slow suffocation caused by the line. Unfortunately it’s virtually impossible to have someone come to tranquilize and remove the line as the sea lions move on before they can get here. However, if we see it again we will report the injury.
  • Today we found a large fishing hook which must have come loose off of a sea lion. We’ve previously observed sea lions trying to remove fishing hooks from their skin by rubbing against the jetty.
  • There are quite a few sea lions all over the island now. We have been delaying our water sample that we normally take from the jetty to avoid having to chase them off, since when they are startled they climb over each other or rush off of the side of the jetty where the water isn’t very deep. The few that have come near the house don’t seem to be moving around much, just resting and getting away from the crowds.
  • With the return of the sea lions we’ve been getting bitten by little black fleas that we also saw in late spring. They were not a problem while the sea lions were not here, so we’re wondering if the two are connected.
  • Many of the young seagulls have left or are flying very well. A few of the latest hatched are still here, but the mothers are starting to leave them to fend for themselves.
  • We have been spotting the odd young elephant seal hauling out for a few hours before continuing on.
  • We’ve been noticing eagle feathers and dead adult seagulls around the island. Oddly, we haven’t seen the eagles hunting.

Maintenance: 

  • We’ve been needing to do daily fence repairs on the electric fence at the back of the island as the sea lions have been trampling it and breaking the wire and insulators that hold the wire on the posts. Hopefully with some persistence on our part they will learn to leave it alone.
  • Today we also set up the electric fence that runs between our house and the jetty/north island to prevent them from coming up around the infrastructure. They are stinky and destructive if you let them get too close!
  • We are still picking up sharp bits of tin and shingles/tar paper/ misc. litter from around the island. Some of it is from the roofs being redone recently, but a lot of it is older and becoming exposed now that the grasses are dormant for the summer.  Today we filled two buckets in an hour or two of scavenging.

A Foggy Weekend

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, some thick fog banks passing over us
  • Visibility 5-15 miles, intermittent fog
  • Wind 0-5 knots W
  • Water calm

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Yesterday we had a great team of volunteers come to help remove the rest of the shingles and accumulated rubbish from around the island. We still have some more to go but it’s looking great!
  • Greg showed us how to set up the electric fencing to keep the sea lions off some of the island. Yesterday we set up one at the back of the island and will need to set up the fence near the jetty soon.
  • Today Corey and his family will pop in for a visit
  •  Our friend is going home this afternoon

Ecological: 

  • We spotted the seagull chick that had been attacked (and lost an eye) yesterday and it’s doing well. It is missing an eye now but is learning to fly alongside the others.
  • We saw two orcas pass just outside of the reserve on Thursday
  • The sea lions have started to come further onto the island, and there are more and more each day

 

Wacky Warm Weather

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Weather: 

  • Sky blue with some clouds. Thick fog early this morning.
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 20-30 knots W
  • Over the past two days we had wind blowing less than 5 knots NE, which meant very warm, still conditions.

Boats/Visitors: 

  • On the 27th Guy and Corey delivered more water
  • Not too many eco-tourism boats despite the beautiful weather
  • One of our friends is visiting for a few days. Great to see a new face out here!

Maintenance: 

  • Corey and Guy also helped haul away an entire boat full of trash/recycling/unneeded items that we had gathered for removal earlier in the season.
  • We spent a handful of hours over the past few days collecting approx. 50 lbs of smaller bits of shingles and tar paper from the roofing project as well as other trash that has been exposed now that the tall grass is dry and pressed down from the animals.
  • Yesterday we washed the windows with a big brush and squeegee to get rid of all of the seagull poop that had blown onto them- much better!
  • We noticed some bricks protecting a cable by the crane shed were missing, but upon further investigation it turned out that they were simply knocked out of place and buried in the tall grass. We were able to unearth them and get everything back in place.

More Disappointing Eco-Tourism Activity

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This afternoon we observed a vessel enter the reserve while a humpback whale was present. The whales typically maintain position in the strong currents for upwards of 30 minutes, appearing to be feeding on plankton as it’s pushed towards them.

Today a humpback whale entered the reserve to hover in the current. Within 2 minutes an eco-tourism vessel came speeding towards it from the Victoria direction. The boat entered the reserve behind the whale, and the whale turned back the way it had come to move away from it and avoid becoming trapped. The whale was deterred from remaining in the reserve as they normally would do and made swiftly towards Victoria as the boat followed it closely away from Race Rocks.

We have observed vessels conducting themselves in this way on many other occasions, but often they leave the reserve quickly when we make ourselves visible.

 

Continued Documentation of Vessel Activity

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Over the past few days we have been keeping an eye on eco-tourism vessels, and have been documenting their presence and their proximity to wildlife. The somewhat isolated nature of Race Rocks, minimal to no presence of regulating authority, and many other factors lead to a high risk of animals and the delicate marine environment being disturbed and potentially exploited.

While the distance of a vessel from wildlife is important, another considerable disturbance may be vibration and noise. Eco-tourism vessels fighting against the current to get the best viewing angle of resting animals easily vibrates a glass of water in our concrete foundation dwelling, over 100m from the waters edge. Another factor to consider is the volume of traffic. Items shaking in our home is normal, and we often hear boats coming before we see them. Perhaps a handful of boats conducting themselves responsibly would not be a problem, but on some days we see approximately 35+ eco-tourism boats alone. This does not include private vessels.

The below video is from July 31st, 2019 at 1413hr. It shows two zodiacs coming close to a pod of orcas within the reserve. The orcas were visible for over 15 minutes before this video was taken, and conversation on VHF channel 68 and 79 indicated that all boats in the area knew of their presence. Based on what we observed, it seemed as though the boats did not accidentally drift into place. Visible in the background is North Rock, video taken from the jetty.

We were unable to previously post it due to its size, but discovered uploading to YouTube and embedding to be a great solution.

As mentioned in the last blog post, the hauled out sea lions continue to provide an opportunity to observe how closely boats approach the wildlife. Here are three more videos of boats approaching the resting sea lions, all filmed within the last few days:

Additionally, here are some photos of miscellaneous vessels taken within the last 5 days or so:

This boat is interesting, it comes through often (see matching hull numbers) with different passengers but the same operator.

Another interesting boat coming in close for a look:

 

Weather: 

  • Sky clear
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 10 knots W
  • Water flat to rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • No visitors over the last few days.

Ecological: 

On the day the roofers were here a pod of orcas came through the reserve and I misplaced this photo, here it is now.

  • Census as follows:
  • 250 sea lions
  • 200-300 seagulls
  • 6 Canadian geese
  • Ruddy Turnstones and migrating birds come and go frequently

Rooftop Renovations

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Weather: 

  • Sky partially overcast
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 10-15 knots SW
  • Water rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Lots of things going on over the last days!
  • A work crew came out and replaced the roof on the boat house, tank shed, and crane control room.
  • The old shingles and tar paper are heavy! Removing them is messy work – but headway has been made. I think one more load taken away in Second Nature would deal with the leftovers.
  • Today Mara returned, catching a ride with a water delivery.

Ecological: 

  • Sea lions are taking over! Their numbers continue increasing.
  • I’ve seen young seagulls land in the shallow water by the jetty, only to have a sea lion come up under it and eat it whole.
  • The adult seagulls have started to chase and peck at their own young. I think this is probably to encourage their independence.

Soon, The Electric Fence?

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Weather: 

  • Sky partially overcast
  • Visibility 10+ miles
  • Wind 10 knots SW
  • Water rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • No visitors over the last few days.
  • The weekend was quiet, and Monday has been the same.

Ecological: 

  • The sea lions continue their advances on the island! I think that the electric fence will soon need to be deployed.
  • Seagulls continue to develop, see in the picture a family of three young (grouped) and one adult (foreground). The shorter chick hatched roughly 5 days later than its siblings and struggles to keep up in growth. Hopefully there’s lots more growing in it’s future, we named the little one Bonsai!