The following is carried over from Orca Network;

The Center for Whale Research has shared the results of their 2010 summer Orca Survey, with the sad news that we have lost 3 adult orcas and one calf this year.

Missing and presumed dead are:
L114, new calf born to L77 in February 2010, missing when the whales returned in June.
L73/Flash, a male born in 1986, missing summer 2010 (male in above photo).
L74/Saanich, a male also born in 1986, missing summer 2010.
K11/Georgia, a female estimated to be born in 1933, last observed in May 2010.

This brings the population of the Southern Resident orca community to about 87 individuals. J pod has 28 members; K pod has 19; and L pod has 40, including (approximately):
~9 post-reproductive females (over 40 years old)
~25 adult females (12-40 years old)
~19 mature or adolescent males (over 12 years old)
~21 juveniles (5-12 years old)
~13 calves (0-4 years old)

Visit Orca Network’s website for a List of recent births and deaths, and read more about these missing whales, and the birth of L115, the newest member of the Southern Resident Community, on Chris Dunagan’s Watching Our Water Ways blog on the Kitsap Sun website.

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From a personal perspective, it is sad to see the departure of these whales. Each year I am experiencing what it’s like to become more familiar with and then loose that familiarity with these orcas. I suppose it’s part of the life and death process but in my opinion they seem to die too young.

Here is a photo of L74/Saanich I took in 2005, please feel free to download for personal use;

Please enjoy the slide show of when L74/Saanich paraded for all to see sporting kelp on his dorsal fin

(Thank you for the link http://pugetsound.org/blog/bl100827, I came across it by “fluke” no pun intended)

Quite simply put, it’s a sacred encounter. Perhaps we may be mesmerized by them (orcas) and their closeness to us, to the shoreline and to the earth itself but why are they doing this? Some whales in some places in the pacific north west are known to rub on the soft pebbles near the shoreline. This is more common up at the top of Vancouver Island. At first one is completely taken away by the animals themselves and wants to relive the experience over and over, it’s very powerful and makes us return for more. However, what is it about these rocks that attract them? Lately I decided to pay a bit more attention to them. I have usually carried around with me some rubbing stones in my pockets and during the events of my traveling home from Mexico through my ordeal, relied on them for grounding and stress relief. When I returned back to the coast and to the rubbing beach, I interacted more with it then I had in the past, and more so in my mind. I feel there is a healing mechanism at work here but I don’t understand scientifically why, I am not a scientist nor do I need to be one to understand that their healing effects are working, I just feel they are. Perhaps there is more that I can do with this to better my life and my work.

Recently when I returned from the rubbing beach (I had not seen whales rub this time) I was told I looked younger, softer and rejuvenated. Was it the air? Was it escaping to a place where people, cars, technology and products didn’t exist? Was it camping and sleeping in the clean outside air? Was it the beach and spending the many hours interacting with the stones? Perhaps it was all of the above… But the rocks I can take those with me We can share the experience to help others reach a place of healing. Our planet needs much healing an we need to start by healing ourselves.

This perspective feels important and I want to share with you how I feel about it. I hope you too will find the topic interesting. This is truly a grounding exercise for us all; whale and human alike. I need to thank these whales for bringing my attention to this.

Please check out the “rocks” page to know more about this. This is a project under development right now.

We went around the hurricane until we reached Texas where we entered land and shortly after hit some pretty intense turbulence as we crossed the tail of the hurricane. Alex was a category 2 hurricane, glad it was nothing stronger. It was the first time I have flown through a hurricane. I will be adding some more information in time to this blog post.

Also take a look at this blog post I made over at orcinus orca in regards to the oil spill and hurricanes; Oil spill threatens both wild and captive orcas

On to my story;

Sometime around the first week of June, mayhem hit my life while down in Mexico. We were at the beach, I had just gotten out of the water and lay on the sand to catch some vitamin D. A short time after I got up and the world spun around me like it never had before. I immediately fell flat to the sand and lay there in panic while I felt the sun beating down on me. Slowly Markus (my boyfriend) got me up off the sand and we carefully walked home. That walk felt like an eternity. I got home thinking that I’d not eaten or hydrated properly and then consumed food and water and layed down. I started to calm down, my panic subsiding. Day after day, I didn’t feel right. Things spun around me when I would lay down and get up or moving from side to side. I am used to vertigo from years ago when I was hit hard with Viral Labyrinthitis and was impaired with vertigo for a long time after (1.5 years). I remained self employed while working part time, as that was my only way to participate with my career but that’s ok because I enjoy web development. Over time the vertigo subsided and seems to flare up only with stress, sleep deprivation or when I get a cold or flue which is almost never. Eventually I moved to Mexico (Playa del Carmen) because the vertigo seemed to almost disappear. What a relief! I would encounter it only at key times and found that staying healthy, working out and keeping a low stress life style maintained it and yes I was even able to drive again! BUT this is not what was going on in June while in Mexico although this vertigo was active along side of it. It was really scary!

Eventually the doctor came to the house and diagnosed me with the early stages of an ear infection so I was put on 10 days of an aggressive medication to clear that up. Around the 4-5 day I started to feel better and the spins subsiding, but the vertigo still strong. At the same time, I was suffering from insomnia – we lived in a very noise polluted environment where during high season the base of the bars was a very low frequency and would vibrate through our skulls till 5 am every morning then comes the construction around 9 am so that meant only a few hours of sleep a night. This sure made me wonder how my cetacean friends adapt to their noise polluted environments. People in our community were not sleeping well. Because I was medicated, and highly sensitive to sound (I am highly sensitive), I almost stopped sleeping all together and a new dimension of a nightmare started to unfold. We still had about 2 weeks to go until we were departing Mexico for Canada, at that rate we were concerned how I was going to make the journey home as I was pretty much bed ridden for 3 weeks in total. As the days went by and the heat maintained at what felt to be on average about 45 (so we stayed indoors in air conditioning which didn’t help matters), a storm named Alex was coming our way. I prayed no hurricane would form and hit us, how could I manage to live through that and my current state??? Anyways the pressure drew, headaches amounted on top of everything else and so advil was added to my daily dose; fatigue, vertigo, and occasional spins which were still there after medicating. The days past, my sleep lessened and I started to sink into a very dark dimensional trap. Markus ran all the errands, kept me fed, hydrated and made sure I took my medication that was also beating me down. He kept a careful watch over me. Alex passed but it still remained very low pressure in the Yucatan which only intensified all my symptoms. As our days drew to an end so did my medication, thank god for that! I started to replenish my bacteria as my stomach had taken a beating. I’d lost a lot of weight.

With 1 day to go before getting on a plane, we were facing the “long way home” as our only flight options were from Cancun – Toronto – Victoria and that is a total of 9+ hours flight time (12 hours travel time). Never in my life had I flown that many hours never mind while enduring insomnia with an infection of inner ear. How appropriate!!!!!!! I kept my eyes on the hurricane radar and saw that there would be a hurricane category 2 in the Gulf of Mexico the day we would be traveling. The morning we left to the airport I was so busy that I forgot to check the radar, and that was the best thing I could have done, not looked at it. Had I looked at it, I would have been in a state of panic the whole way home. Now, I was in survival mode, I felt like shit but was eager to get the next 12 hours out of my life.. I can do this!

Our flight lifted off and for the first 1.5 – 2 hours everything seemed normal. We flew directly over the oil spill but weather conditions made viewing very difficult although I could see the Louisiana and Texas shorelines. Big clouds, lots of them. So we entered land and I could see the landscape below me. I chose a window seat to keep my line of sight in order, in case the vertigo and spins should start up. I looked out the window and saw this wall of white coming our way and then the announcement came on. “Here we go” and I thought we got away with not encountering the hurricane but nope. We entered the wall of white and stayed inside of it for about half an hour with no line of sight. During that time, we bounced around like a bunch of popcorn and I held on to Markus’s hand and clenching my whale rubbing stone in the other hand while sweating buckets while trying to maintain my head position – the last thing I needed to do was set off the spins and then a panic attack. Around that time I heard a paper bag come out and a woman position it over her mouth then I heard “are you going to throw up?” and so I prayed “please don’t barf” over and over until the nightmare stopped. Good she never barfed. She was right behind me, that is all I would need and then everyone else would start up as well. And so we flew right through Alex’s tail. I did it. Not only did I face a massive fear but I did it with my current impaling conditions and didn’t activate any panic issues either. Markus patted my back congratulating me. But how appropriate – what a grand finale to the previous hell on earth experience I’d just had. And when I look at the image of the hurricane, I see that I was on the edge of a spiral, of total power. And almost inside my own inner ear, how perfect is that. After arriving home and finally sleeping I looked back on the previous day and thought WOW – I flew through a hurricane and not only that, but while enduring major vertigo problems. Good for me, I am strong!

A few days later after finally sleeping and sleeping (yes I even slept up to 10 hours one night breaking the insomnia like a branch) I went to a walk in clinic to confirm the infection was gone. No infection he said, you are cured. However he wrote down on a piece of paper something for me to research that describes some of my experience and that is not treated with medication. It’s called Benign Positional Vertigo. Yup, that’s it. When I look in one direction when I lay down and then look up to the right my world spins around me in such a turbulent way. So I will make the follow up appointments to have this condition corrected. I suppose it won’t happen over night but at least now I know what I am dealing with and that I don’t have some brain tumor as I feared. Thankfully the symptoms are much more reduced and I feel my life is almost back to normal. It was a humbling time. All at once I had battled; an ear infection, with activated Labyrinthitis, BPV, insomnia AND flew through a dam hurricane. I couldn’t help myself, I HAD to share the story. It was a powerful time (major energy cycle including the lunar eclipse) in my life and I know many others who encountered many powerful things during that time. I was told, we were in the acceleration stages to 2012 and so our energy will encounter stronger energies and we will learn to adapt. I am a warrior who rode on the edge of a hurricane after being kicked in the head and I can take it!

Thanks to my friends who got us to the airport on either side.

Note: There were many more misalignments that happened during June involving many areas of my life and of my friends lives. It was an extreme time, I don’t encounter these times often but when I do they seem to drop the sky down all at once. Right now I am working hard to repair the things that went amiss. I have many things to take care of this month; work, finances, accommodations, family, health, school and so on. I may not be able to respond to people right now as my current load is beyond what I am used to. First priority is my health. I ask my friends and clients to please be patient with me while I up right things which isn’t happening over night. Thanks for your understanding.

Here is the excerpt taken from the Orca Live website stating the sighting;

“CetaceaLab reports that a large group of northern resident whales were nearby yesterday (June 15). The group included the A5s, A24s, A34s, Cs and Ds. The A36s were also there along with A12. This is the second sighting of the A36s with A12. Sadly, it looks as if A32 (Cracroft) is now gone as he was not seen during either encounter. He will be missed very much. On another track, Paul is off to the IWC. The meeting is being held in Agadir, Morocco this year. We have set up a blog on www.orcalab.org (link at the top right) so that he will be able to post summaries and comments during the meeting. It is a crucial year for the IWC and for whales. The threat to resume commercial whaling is a very real possibility.
Helena
16 Jun 2010 08:27:59 PDT”

Also, check out this great video from last summer of the 3 Brothers produced by Rachael Griffin

Right now the “Get out migration” for wild salmon is underway. Kudos to friends Troy and Kate who are marching from Malcolm Island on behalf of wild salmon. This initiative is lead by Alexandra Morton, a biologist who has worked for years to bring the attention of wild salmon health and how (open pen) fish farms are impacting them. Ultimately, people have often shied away from the topic because it’s one that requires a bit of research to understand how the impacts are unfolding, hence her many years of work on the topic.

In 2009, I attended a Hazardous Waste class at University of  Victoria and was given the opportunity to examine this controversial topic a bit more. We were given a law assignment to address and in that I took Alexandra Morton’s perspective and examined current legislation. We found that our government is responsible for protecting the health of wild salmon, and is failing in doing so. With that, we must put pressure onto government to uphold this law and the people’s awareness is needed for this. For this exercise, we also had to interact with the opposition and in my case had the opportunity to interact with a fish farm employee who was also attending the course. It was an intense and interesting experience, and gave me some first hand experience on the topic while exercising legislation to defend the case.

Our assignments were reviewed by a judge and I was given some awesome feedback and encouragement which made me feel proud. At the very least it gives me the opportunity to talk about the topic at a very important time. You can see part of my assignment here. I am by no means an academic on this stuff but I did take the initiative to explore the topic while we were studying hazardous waste topics and fish farms came up as one. Through this I feel I have been given a small opportunity to do “something” on the topic. Here is another article I wrote while attending a law class in 2005; commenting on the topic of law and science; Era of Jurisciences

Funny how the topic follows us here to the Mexican Caribbean though, while people are starting to learn about such things and they feel that farmed fish is the way to preserve the wild populations. However people are unaware of the open net pen problems occurring right now. This effects everyone, everywhere.

You can learn more about the science and the efforts by going to this website; http://www.salmonaresacred.org. Please check the itinerary to know when the migration will head through your area, go down and show your support. They are due to arrive in Victoria tomorrow and will be there for Mothers Day.

Remember that wild salmon are a major part of our resident orca populations diet. They are also the main food source for many other wild animals, the trees, First Nations communities and for us. We depend on wild salmon for the health of our planet… Consider them the blood that runs through your veins. Without it, we die.

Somethings you can do to immediately help our wild salmon;

• Don’t purchase or eat (open seapen) farmed salmon
• Limit your intake of wild salmon
• Choose greener house hold cleaners
• Sign the petition

Also read this great article by David Suzuki Foundation

“If you’re a fish eater, I recommend that you seek out and purchase this sustainably produced Coho salmon and help create a demand that enables closed system salmon producers to grow and profit from a great idea”

This website is a dream come true project for me and want to make your dreams come true too. There for, it is my dream to see Jason’s wish come true. I’d like to gather support that a future Southern Resident orca be named after him; Jason.

I found this little clip and thought that I would include it the blog post. It’s very short, but very sweet. There will be a small gathering held for Jason this coming Saturday (June 5, 2010) in California and was invited to attend. Unfortunately I am in Mexico until the end of June and will be unable to go but will be there in spirit.

Photos from 2 of our 3 visits in Victoria (usually overlapping a full moon)

I am not sure what has happened to my (vegabond/naturalist) friend Jason Sneed but he has been reported as “missing”. He disappeared at the end of March while living in Hawaii. All his personal belongings were left behind at a friends house. It is thought that he’d gone for a swim but never returned. I don’t want to assume anything about his situation but I am concerned. I hope to see him back in the pacific northwest this summer. I hope he is well and just on a solo journey where he couldn’t bring his things.

I met Jason through facebook, through a mutual group about marine mammals. Jason and I met several times while he was visiting Canada. We had a wonderful and magical connection. Jason was a very multi-dimensional man and really enjoyed sharing perspectives on our spiritual experiences. We shared many hours of conversation around the topics of orcas, stories of Luna, tales of Mexico, and discussions of the universe and all it’s magic. We spent many hours talking along the Victoria shoreline, walking Dallas road while looking for orcas. He was very passionate about the welfare of the Salish Sea and in the Mayan culture. He was also training himself in new ways of survival, as we do need new ways to adapt to our world. He often stated things that made me stop to think differently. He was also hoping to come here, around this time, to the Riviera Maya and get to know this part of the world.

Hope to see you again amigo!

He signed his emails with this;

In La Kesh – “I am another you” or “I am another yourself”. (Mayan)

http://www.consynpro.com – Jasons personal website

Family offers reward in man’s vanishing

Gather here to share information, thoughts, feelings, and happenings about our friend Jason

Added May 1, 2010

I am not sure if we will ever see him again, or get to know what happened to him. At that point it will remain a mystery to us all. I just hope that you are not, did not suffer and that you are in a better place now.

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Some parties believed that interacting with Luna would lead to his death, while others believed that interacting would save him. The truth is that Luna received tons of love and affection from many people through the duration of his life, with or without supervision. During my involvement there in 2003, only two of us at a time were on scene, and had to intervene Luna from pushing a float plane rudder around. That means, that the plane has no control over steerage as Luna’s pushing it from behind. And for a moment, imagine you are sitting on that plane under power… how would you feel, a bit scared? Now imagine that only you and one other are around to intervene with that situation. Not quite a walk in the park with your dog!. (And you might want to know that, that day it was move the animal away from the plane or deal with a whale being shot. We know that we saved his life that day.) And so we were instructed to interact with him to protect his life.

Luna was already accustomed to people by the time we arrived in 2003. The previous year, stewardship did what they could to encourage people to leave Luna be as it was best for his survival as a wild whale. This was determined not by those monitoring him but by a larger group of people – those of scientific background. Irregardless of what you personally think is best for Luna, many measures were tried and in the end, he died. It seems easy for those people just now becoming aware of his situation to point fingers, curse and blame various parties for his death and I have even seen people wishing death on others for his death. There obviously needs to be more education in this department, so this is where I am coming in.

In the end, he died alone, where no one could save, see or even salvage his remains. He took the mystery with him, leaving us to ponder what it was all about. For me, this is an ultimate lesson in nature and ultimately the universe, and that sometimes no matter how hard we try, we cannot control the outcome. We simply do not know what is best for Luna. Luna was the only one truly in charge of himself. Many of those involved who are taking much blame from the public worked tirelessly around the clock and out of their pockets to see him survive. I urge you to go and try this sometime yourselves before making such negative comments to others about their “failed” efforts as you may see them.

What is more important here, is not what we should have, or should not have done, but that we did try and that we all loved Luna (well most of us). I have been following behind comments on the internet landing on my media and others, to try to help people understand the situation better, from different eyes because it really was very difficult and impossible to control. I ended up in the situation as a volunteer because i’d had a dream I saw a whale interacting with people at a dock and followed up with documentation. I am a dream-tracker and followed behind other dreams also including Luna, that came true. See my Story “Luna Love” for more about that (still in progress). In the process I was thrown into the most difficult and traumatic experience of my life.

To all those people damming the “Do Gooders” or “Whale Police” from “stopping” affection with Luna, think again, does it look like that was a success??? Luna always had affection and interactions with people and there was nothing anyone could have done about that (like that or not), as you probably already know. Some of us were simply the mechanics of a much larger operation, and we took the beatings, we took the name callings, we took the brunt of the dirty work because we cared and loved Luna. And what did we get back in return? More accusations from more people who unfortunately are unable to open their minds and understand the very complex situation we were involved in. Through this I have seen a very ugly side of humanity. But I have also seen a beautiful side, and this is what motivates me to write this.

There is nothing I resent doing. Sometimes I wonder if I’d really missed out on something by not physically touching Luna, but remind myself that I was touched in my soul in a way very few will ever know and that has made all the pain and suffering worthwhile. He was my dream come true. I hope my grandchildren tell their children some day about my story, and understand that legends are real. Luna was a Chief and a prophecy and I got to know this first hand. Thank you and I love you Luna. <3

I would like to point out that 3 events, one discussing the “lively hood” of orcas, one discussing the “spirituality” of orcas, and one of the “physicality” of orcas are playing out all through the power of technology. Body, mind and soul. This is most definitely a communicative event between orcas and humans on the topic of interactivity. What is the message? From my perspective, the message is that we as a species need to learn and to listen to other species in a new way. The topic of orcas has been dominating the media for a few days now while the tragic death of the trainer continues to baffle people world wide. The anti-captivity movement is mobilized and pushing their message with force – to help free captive orcas and end the future of captivity. Luna continues to break and take hearts while our Southern Residents future seems uncertain while holding us in that same grip. I would like to point out that their (SRKW) numbers were critically reduced when the capture era removed a large number of orcas for marine parks, and many died in the process and their population has never recovered. See Orca Network for more on this. Ironically, marine parks use the excuse that because their numbers are endangered in the wild and that they swim free in a toxic world, that they need to be preserved in marine parks for future generations. This would not be the case for our SRKW, if the population had not been so devastatingly disturbed in the first place. None the less, all of these three events are directly connected and are actively playing out at once.

So WHAT is going on? It most definitely has many people’s attention. For years I have had dreams and visions about orcas… many that have come true and I know many other people are experiencing this but are remaining hush hush about it because we have conditioned ourselves into thinking that that can’t really be the case, that we are crazy or that others will think we are crazy. In that process our species completely undermines the intelligence of other species . But it all brings my attention to a much bigger question; what are they telling us? Are they telling us something? Or have we completely gone insane? I would like to know what you are thinking? It’s time our species deflated from an illusive egotistical and arrogant state and pay attention to the universal language. I started to feel something around this topic many years ago and embarked on my own investigation starting in 1997 which has lead me here. We are in an important time in the history of this planet as many things are calling for our attention, please pay attention and respond mindfully… I am going to call this moment the “Orca Alignment”. For me, it’s an obvious moment in my history that cannot be ignored.

Friday, October 29, 2004 (Canada)
Orca Dream – Transformation

I will write this down before it fades.

I dreamed I was on an island near shore when I saw a pod of orca passing. I ran along side with my camera (typical of me) to get some footage of them. As I turned around the bend the pod got closer and one individual came towards shore. Rather then being a baby this time it seemed to be an almost full grown male… As the animal got closer, he transformed into a man, who then walked towards me. He was a young native man, seemed very happy and smiled the whole time. He came towards me and asked me to go with him however I was shocked and confused. I followed the man into what felt like a tunnel, almost underwater however it felt like we were in an air bubble and there were many others (indigenous looking) there too.

It was very compelling and the first time an orca has emerged into a human being before my eyes.

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Friday, March 10, 2006 (Mexico)
Luna Dies

Very sad news…
Our friend Luna has died apparently struck by a tugboat at 9am this morning.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 (Mexico)
La Sonrisa

He smiled at her, and then she tingled all over while thinking I’ve seen that face before…

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She dreamed of him, and then he came true… Was it destiny? Stay tuned…

A journey that started in 1998 and came full circle in 2009

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