Beam Reach

What did Lummi hear?

It was just announced that the oldest southern resident killer whale is believed to have died this year. Lummi (K-7) lived to be about 98 years old and was last seen by Brad Hansen of NOAA/NWFSC on December 23rd. As the Center for Whale Research has surveyed all of K pod multiple times this spring, they are now confident that K-7 died this winter or spring.

The full article in the San Juan Journal got me wondering what Lummi heard in her lifetime. How much did the Puget Soundscape change since her birth in ~1910? The old matriarchs of the other pods, Granny (J-2, born ~1911) and Ocean Sun (L-25, born ~1928), also experienced the rise in anthropogenic noise in the oceans. Born at the end of the age of sail, they listened through two world wars, and persist during the crescendo of global shipping in the era of peak oil.  I wonder if they were hard of hearing in their old age!

Steam engines were becoming more prominent than sail power around 1850-1900.  The steam turbine was patented in 1897 and was initially used to power higher-speed ships.  The diesel engine was patented in 1892 and began being used in vessels, including the Danish freighter Selandia in 1903. The current wikipedia entry for ship says that “Transport of people and cargo on sailing ships continued until the 1920’s.” So, it was a time of transition for marine propulsion systems, and therefore for underwater noise.

Locally, it’s clear that many fishing vessels were becoming motorized about the time that Lummi and Granny were born. An article about the refurbishment of an old halibut schooner by the algal energy company Blue Marble, states that their vessel (the Lituya, re-named the Blue Marble) was “one of the 150 or so motorized halibut schooners built between 1910 and 1932 to work the northern waters off Alaska and Bristol Bay — resting during the off-season in the calm waters of Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminal.” I assume the same was happening with shipping traffic that transited the Strait of Juan de Fuca…

A quick search isn’t turning up a synopsis of shipping traffic in the Salish Sea over the last century or so. I’ll have to resolve to look for publications that document number and types of ships in Puget Sound historically. It seems my best bet may be to visit the research library associated with the Museum of history and industry. Does the Coast Guard or the Ports keep track of how many of each vessel type have come/gone? What about on the Canadian side of the border? Can we separate traffic transiting south of Vancouver Island with ships transiting the north side?