Killer whale

Draft Plan:

• Introduction
• Orcas:
  • Classification
  • Morphology
  • Habitation and Distribution
    • The different groups
  • Communication
  • Nutrition
  • Hunting
  • Reproduction
  • Spatial and behavior structure
  • The population growth
• Pollution:
  • Definition
  • Human activity
    • Traffic
    • Farming
    • Hunting
  • Chemical pollution

• Observation of the animal
  • The different techniques to observe the animal

Your text below is still full of typing mistakes. This has to be corrected. Use the computer dictionary in FireFox or in Word to do so!--Pierre.brawand 15 octobre 2009 à 09:27 (UTC)

Introduction

Few years ago I decided I wanted to make a maturity work on orcas, which are marine mammals and are part of the dolphin family. I am interested in these animals as they are amazing and among the most intelligent ones I have ever studied about. Before doing this work I read about their life and mostly about their hunting techniques. Orcas, aslo call killer whales are huge and intelligent hunters. They are part of the biggest carnivorous on earth and the most cunning of all. At the beginning of my project I wanted to work on the domain of hunting, nevertheless I thought it would not have an impact on people. Would it change anything if I talked about hunting? Everybody could simply read any book about orcas and find about this subject. So I decided to work on a more current subject, we have been dealing with and talking about for a few years, and which concern orcas. This is when we started to study a bit pollution in geography class. We did not talk a lot about pollution and very few about marine pollution, but it was just enough to open my curiosity and to make myself aware of it.
Pollution is a subject that our society has been a lot dealing with for a few years and than has become a sensitive domain as we try to find solutions to it. The subject is so a bit recent and the kind of effects it has on marine life is even more recent and unknown. It is harder and harder not to see the impact and evolution of pollution on nature year after year. In addition pollution is cause by human activities and also affects our health. One of the most contaminated and unknown effects areas on earth is the marine environment. A lot of pollutants are thrown or licks from industries, agriculture activities, boats or ports into oceans and seas. Most of the pollution going into the oceans comes from coastal human activities, nevertheless even the countries that are not near the ocean pollute them as their waste and sewage can reach the oceans or their pollutants simply licks into rivers until it flows into the marine environment. This means that each country on earth contaminates the ocean and so that we are all concern by marine life degradation. However some people do not believe in this impact and think the ocean is so huge that it could never be affected by pollution.
In addition contaminants and pollutants reach the ocean and kill the marine animals living in the oceans. Pollution can affect their food and then them or directly kill them. Most of the pollutants contaminates marine animals by nutrition. The chemical pollutants accumulate in the food of the animal and when this one eats it the pollutants are released in his body or most of the time stock in the blubber. This is why the more you go up in the food chain more pollutants accumulate in the animal’s body and more the animal will be affected. In other words more the animal is situated in a high level of the chain food, more it is contaminated by pollution. This is why orcas which are the highest marine animal found in the chain food are one of the most polluted animals on earth. However how are they polluted? Is pollution affecting greatly their life? In what does it change them, affect them? Will they disappear because of pollution? In conclusion my main question and problem I will try to resolve in this work is: In what way and how much does pollution affect orca’s life?
To answers to these questions I found interesting to discuss with biologist and go directly on their field of investigation. The most well known place in the world to observe orcas is situated in the area of Vancouver in Canada. I have decided after talking with the director of the Swiss cetacean association, who was my first contact for this work, that I should go there and find a work in a research project dealing with orcas. By doing this I could do my own observation on the animal and have some experience in a marine biology domain. It could help me understand what is happening and have a direct contact with researcher who have been working with orcas for years and may have seen a change in orca behavior and life.
In the first section of this work I will present what is an orca and what kind of pollution is affecting marine life. I will then explain how I fond a job in Vancouver and talk about my staythere. Then with all the information I have accumulated thanks to books and interviews I made with biologists specialized on orcas or on marine pollution will write about how does pollution affects orcas. After coming back from Vancouver I have made plenty of deduction and I will talk about them to finally make a conclusion to this work.

Classification: Orcas, Orcinus orca

The scientific name of the killer whale is Orcinus orca. Here is the hierarchic classification of the Orca:
Domain: Eucaryote
Reign: Animal
Crotch: Stringed
Class: Mammals
Order: Cetacean
Family: Delphinia
Genus: Orcinus
Specie: Orca
Genus, species: Orcinus orca

Morphology

The Orcas as often been merged with whales because of his extraordinary size. However Orcas are the biggest ever known dolphins. There other name killer whale can also bring confusion of there real origins which are dolphins.
The size of an orca changes choosing it's sex and also it's geographic location.
Size:

• Male:

When a male orca reaches it's maturity, it can be 9.8 m long. It wises in average 3.6 and 5.5 tone, it can even wise 11t. The back, codal and pectoral fin can be in average 2 meter.

• Female:

When a male orca reaches it's maturity, it can be between 5 and 7.7 meter long. It wises in average an1.3 and 3.6 tone, it can even wise 7.4t. The back, codal and pectoral fin can be in average

• The young:

At the birth the the young measures between 1.8 to 2.7 choosing it's location birth. The weight of the new born is in average 180 kg.

Coloration:

We can easily recognize an Orca because of his distinctive corporal black and white pigmentation. He has a white oval pigmentation just behind his two eyes call the eye patch. His dorsal and pectorals flippers are black.On the buttom of the animal his body is white and elongates itself between his pectoral flippers and his fluke. In addition orcas have each of them a distinct grey stain behind their dorsal fin. This stain is call the saddle and has different kind of forms chosing the individu. Reaserchers use the saddle to recognise an individu from a group.

Body shape:

Orcas have an elongated body that permit them to easily swim fast in the ocean. This shape is common for dolphins and also similar to whales. However, orcas have been built for hunting as all the other dolphins. This is why they are much smaller than wahles and have a more sharp body.

Habitation and Distribution

The different species

for the third or fourth time... there ARE NOT different species... Okay...?--Pierre.brawand 15 octobre 2009 à 09:27 (UTC)

It is quite hard to regroup the different kind of killer whales groups as their names and the groups change choosing which part of the world they can be found. Bad first sentence.--Pierre.brawand 15 octobre 2009 à 09:27 (UTC)

For example in British Columbia, where I am going work for the marine mammal rescue and observe orcas, their exist are 3 kinds of species. Indeed Orcas are considered to be one specie as recent reasarch as proven that all the orcas have little variation of their DNA. However, we can distinguish 3 different species according to their location, nutrition and body shape :

• The residents killer whales: This group is separated into two communities call the southern resudent, which is composed of 81 induvuduals and the northern resident, which is composed of 172 individuals. The residential group is seperated in two, because the northern live in the north of the B.C area, while the southern live in the south. It is important to know that these two groups never intersept or have any contacts together. In addition of this seperation of group they are their self seperated into different pods. The J,k and L pod for the southern residential group. For the northern I will not name them all as they are an amount of sixteen pods.

• Transient killer whales is a groups call transient because we less see them during the hull year in the area of the B.C. However we can still observe them in these regions. This group is composed of 79 individuals and is seperated into 30 pods. They are in conclusion less than the residential group. One of the reason why, is because they mainly eat mairne mammal, which is not the case of the residential groups. We will more explain this in the chapter of nutrition. The transient groups travels in the area of both southern and northern resident, but never interact socially with them.

However you have to be carefull with the name of resident and transient, because the resident are not less transiant in the area of B.C than the so call transient group. In fact, most of the time the resident do not stay much more longer than the transient orcas in the B.C area. However we still call them this way because researchers start it this way and will not change it. For sure, what seperates the transient to the resident group is their kind of nutrition.

• The Off-shore killer whales is a newly known groups. We know really few of it, a part from the fact that they live off shore and that they never came to costs.

However, there exist many other different groups. In Nowhere there exist two kinds of orcas the inshore and the ofshore . These two groups are dinstinct by their nutrition. The ofshore eat in generally marine mammals while the inshore eat more fish. There is also different groups in alaska, but some groups are not really well known as we are not able to observe them a lot. In conlusion we can see that orcas are shaped and seperatd by their location in the world and their main nutrition.

Location: Orcas can be seen in every oceans and travel a lot.They do not seem to follow a specific migration. They are observed in open waters and near costs. Despite the seasonal pack ice, they do not have any restriction of zones, which could be caused by temperature or depth. As a result, their travel path mainly depends on their nutrition and amount of it in a certain areas. However, they have a preference for cold waters like:

• North Atlantic
• North Pacific
• Antartica and Artic

Moreover, some orcas seem to have different places in the world where they constantly go to and stay for a while. For example the orcas of the B.C are commonly observed and more specifically from May until September. http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0311684/orcadietandlocation.html http://www.orcaresearch.org/akwic.htm

Nutrition

Orcas are one of the biggest predator in the world. Their shape, their teeth are specially fit for hunting. As we said many times before there exists different groups of orcas, which are all blood relatives and have their own language. Moreover an other element that differentiates these groups is nutrition. In conclusion nutrition of these predators depends on their behavior, group and location.

During years the searchers noticed, by looking in orca’s stomach and by observation that there was really two different groups defined by their nutrition. The first one, inshore, eat 89.7% marin mammals, 7.1% squid and 3.2% fish. These groups are consisted of 10 to 15 individuals. Their number is in taken account of their hunting strategy. This group is consisted of the most dangerous predator, as it can even attack blue whales and hunt a human thinking it is a seal. The offshore orcas eat 98.5% fishes, 1.1% squid and finally 0.4% marine mammals.

In the British Columbia area there are 3 groups: The residential which is seperated in two pods: the southern and the northern. This groups eats mainly salmons. the transient the offshore

The nutrition of orcas can also be defined by their age and sex. Generally the older males will more eat big prays and the one that are the harder to hunt as they have more experience of hunting than the young orcas.

In conclusion you can see that orcas have a variable nutrition and are always the highest level in the chain food. This will bring consequence on their living,cause by pollution and that we will explain in the chapter effects. )

Reproduction

The Orcas have a close reproduction mode to the non aquatic mammals and including ours. The female reaches her sexual maturity near the age of 6 to 10, while the male reaches it a bit later, near 10 to 13 years old. Females can give birth to calf during 25 years, after when they are near 40 they stop breeding. Females and males will stay in the pod of their mother all their life. To prevent interbreeding, orcas will reproduce their self with other ones coming from an other pod. However, this pod comes from the same group of orcas. Males are competitive and can fight to gain a female.They can be extremely violent, as some times they use their teeth to wound to blood an adverser.

Spatial and behavior structure

During expedition we can observe that dolphins member and so Orcas are structured as a herd. In fact these animals stay in group together and stay closer to each other than to an animal from an other group. We can observe one or two leaders in the herd and the presence of a constant central group. These leaders are stronger and larger than the others. These dominant member observed the area for potential danger or investigates if there is something new happening near the group. We sometimes have also two or three members of the group that are more in front of the others to watch for inshore areas or danger. When there is a danger the animals immediately regroups there self in a packed group with the youngest in the middle protected by the other members. There movement are synchronize and in harmony. The group structure of orcas allows them a good use of the space around them as for hunting in several different conditions.

Futhermore the orcas group is organised in a matriartich way.

Communication

Sounds for marine mammals is very important,as in water the visibility is greatly limited. Even though killer whales have a good vision in water, can see below and above it this capacity is limited by the time of the day and the clarity of water.This is why thanks to their capacity of communication and producing sounds killer whales are no more limited. Killer whales use sounds to naviguate,locate their preys and to communicate with each other.What's special with these mammals is that each group has his own languange which is more communly call dialect.Thanks to these different dialects we can sometimes recombine the family tree and find the lien de parenter between them. The sounds orcas produce is a mixter of whistles, poulsed calls,echolocation clicks,jaw claps and low-frequency pops. These sounds are variable in their volume, pattern and wave length.
Orcas in contrast to human do not have vocal cords. The sounds made by them is produce in the blowhole region. It is made by a movement of air between the nasal sacs. More presisely the orca will force air to go trough the nasa passage, which will reach the phonic lips. This action will make vibrate the tissue surrounding the phonic lips call the dorsal bursa.
Orcas communicate also with thei body. They can show their joy or other state of mind by jumping, breaching, pec-slapping, head butting,jaw-snapping and by lot of other gestures.

Identification

Searchers mostly identifiy orcas by observing specific characteristic on one individu]]. Some of these specific characteristic are natural marking that we can find on the animal dorsal fins or marks all around the body. This identification is the most used as it is the easiest technic to recognise an individu.

Marine Pollution

Par rapport nourriture phytoplankton: The marine pollution influences the way the orcas live in the ocean. The explanation of this contamination is that orcas live in polluted ocean, which will contaminate them and change their being and health. In this part I will explain the different kinds of pollutants and their sources, but let’s start by the beginning of all: We know that 71% of the earth surface is occupied by water and 97% of it is found in oceans. Water occupies an important place on our earth and is essential for it’s suvival. The marine pollution is a big factor in the degradation of our oceans. It is fluent and can quickly extend as it prints itself in the water and cannot after be clean. This is a great problem as it also causes diseases and when the pollution is chemical it penetrates plants, which pollute each animal that, after, eat them.

The marine’s food chain starts with the phytoplankton. This miniscule plant absorbs the sun’s rays which are use to make photosynthesis and thus produces energy. They are the energy resource of the entire living animals, this is why they are at they begin of the chain food. In addition the phytoplankton represents a huge mass of the vegetal specie thus it is the regulator of the earth’s oxygen. Any tiny variation in the ocean temperature as 1C° can cause huge problem, as it alters the phytoplankton’s growth and in consequence changes the entire marine’s life. After the phytoplankton there is the krill, which is in the second place of the food chain. This zooplankton is a bunch of tiny shrimps, which are 3 to 7 cm long. All together they can weight 500 million tones, which represents even more than the weight of the total human population on earth. They essentially grow in zones where the conditions are perfect for phytoplankton growth, which is their nutrition. We can find them in the north pole and mostly in the south pole. The krill represents 80% of the nutrition of sea birds, 100% of certain whales a fanon, most fishes, some penguins and finally some squid. This is one of the only example on earth where only one nutrition exists for so many species. Hence it shows us how important they are and how big the impact they have on the marine worlds. Krill is fragile and if the pollution kills it all the cetacean, fishes and other ocean mammals will disappear with it.

Our earth is fragile and can be easily degraded by anything as pollution. During these last 100 years the human activity has destroyed the earth’s nature and oceans. This is caused by the constant increase of the development of industries and also the high and rapid increase of the earth’s demography and plenty of other factors. For example every day, every month and every year huge quantity of non treated water, of oil, industriel sewage and waste. All these examples and other pollutants are brought into the oceans essentially by the atmosphere, rivers and marine corents. Eventhow there is 1’370 milliards metre cube of ocean’s water, which permits it to dilute easily pollution, there is still a major problem. In fact when there is a big ecological catastrophe it can easily spread everywhere as marine corants and so water l’emporte. This affects a lot marine species and marine plants as they live in water and are attacked by the pollutants agent. They exist plenty of different contaminates that leak into the ocean. We organize them into three different groups: first there is the chlorinated hydrocarbons, than we have conpounds contaning heavy metals and finally the hydrocarbons derived from petroleum. => dioxines, PCB’s, pesticides like DDT and mostly today PBDEs and PFOS. The most dangerous compounds are the ones that are POP, which means persistent organic pollutants. The first group is composed of these kinds of pollutants. DDTs, which is in the first group, is a pesticide mainly use in the agriculture domain. DDT is highly toxic and breaks down hardly in the water, as they are insoluble. As a result it persists in water and hardly degraded. PCBs are part of the same group as they are chlorinated oil. This contaminate is men made and is created by manufacturing companies and consumers. It is a very dangerous contaminant as it is insoluble in the water and hard to break down, as DDT. PCB is not anymore aloud to be use since a while, nevertheless there is still plenty of it in the oceans and it will still persist in them for another 30-50 years. Heavy metals: They are considered, in our case, as common transition metals such as lead, copper, and zinc. However sometimes natural !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Two new pollutants that have been recently discover and destroys the marine life is the PBDE and the PFOS: Fuel oil: There are two kinds of oil pollution: the acute, which is for example an oil spilling and the chronic one, which are little amounts of oil leak. In these areas there is more likely chronic oil pollution, the oil accumulates itself in the water and slowly destroys the marine environment of the area.

Sewage has some of these contaminants in it and cary them to the ocean. It comes mostly from commercial, domestic, and industrial sources. Sewage is created by different common activities as bath water, toilet flushing, laundries, from kitchens, dishwashing in which there is detergents, greases solvent and finally organic waste. There is also sewage coming from animals, vegetable and from food preparation that are sometimes thrown into an in-sink garbage.
Before being directly throwaway sewages generally have to be treated. There are two methods for sewage discharged: first they can be put underground in septic tanks or, after being treated put in a sewage treatment plant, to surface- water bodies (river, lakes, stream and coastal outlet). Nevertheless, when septic tanks are malfunctioning or badly designed sewage will contaminate surface water, groundwater and also coastal waters. When there is a rainfall the sewage pipes tend to over-flow and mixes with the storm water drain. Furthermore, even treated sewage contaminates the environment. When they are treated there is a formation of a semisolid byproduct called biosolid. This disposal is commonly named sludge. However a lot of countries do not prohibit it, which makes that the ocean is still polluted by sludge.
In developed countries non-treated sewage continue to be discharged into opening water in harbors, bays and coastal water. Moreover developing countries, who cannot afford themselves sewage organization, have to throw the raw sewage, waste into surface water and coastal water.

Domestic pollution:

Most of the earth’s population, more precisely 60%, lives at less than 60 km of the ocean and seas costs. This is the reason why, coastal zone are the more touch. In fact because of the presense of human activities, as we explained before, pollutes a lot and by different ways. Moreover, this population is in a constant growth. In consequence, we have even more pollution than before near these sectors.

Sewage is thrown ofently in the ocean and because the purgation stations are rare near costal zones, most of these sewages are not cleaned. Besides, most of the time sewage contains human dejection, which have some microbes. These pathogens will contaminate the ocean when the sewage leaks in it. We will explain in the chapter of ‘’effects’’ what happens then.
In addition human just throw in their sewage heavy metals, plastic, meds, acids, diluents, detergents and waste oil. These different elements will simply enter the water via the flow of our sewage and damage the marine life in the ocean.
Floating waste: One of the biggest pollution made by domestic activity near the costs is floating waste. It is more and more observed on beaches plastic or other kind of waste on the ground or floating in the water. A lot of animals die because of these waste. Scientists say that 80% of these wastes come from coastal areas. These objects reach the ocean by being directly thrown in it or by being push by the wind or rivers. The other 20% of these wastes arrive in the water by being thrown by overboard of boats and sometimes even from airplanes.
This kind of pollution is persistent for a certain period in the water and will so disappear after a certain period. However, a plastic bottle for example takes more than 4 centuries to be degraded, which leaves a long time for the pollutant to make damages. Most of these wastes are not biodegradable and are thrown in the water for more than 30 years.

Ports, Harbours and Marinas

One of the biggest sources of pollution in our ocean are ports. These places are constantly rebuilding themselves and have to be constantly maintained. They receive million of boats, which fuels a lot and destroys the environment all around them. The port has to maintain and take care of some ships by repairing and repainting them. When these factors are not properly measured they can occur to a huge environment disaster. As a consequence, these places products chemical storage, air emission, solid waste generation and disposals, that will pollute the marine environment around them.

Ports, marinas and harbors also reject a lot of contaminants in the ocean. They pollute like ports but sometimes in different ways. Marinas are little ports, they will so reject a smaller amount of pollutants. Harbors also pollute the ocean with some identical pollutants than ports and marinas. Ports, harbor and marinas emit, in the marine environment, hydrocarbons, organic waste and persistent chemicals such as PCPs, TBT, and PAHs. They can also be the cause of the presence of certain toxic metals, such as mercury, copper, lead, nickel, cadmium, silver and arsenic, in the ocean.

The traffic and pollution of boats:

Organic waste and sewage: Another kind of pollutant discharge in the ocean is organic waste. These wastes are mostly rejecting by small recreational vessels. The vessels don’t have sewage-treatment or holding tanks. They will directly throw their wastes in the marine environment. Most of these pollutants are found near small crafts harbors as they usually have smaller vessels. Some boats that have holding tanks sometimes are not able to correctly throw the sewage in pumping sewage. As a result they throw directly raw or treated sewage in the ocean. Finally, in most of the world’s ocean there is no restriction for no-dumping zones, which makes an accumulation of wastes and sewage mostly in marinas and harbors. This is also because these places are not fit to receive or take sewage and wastes from boats in comparison to ports, which receive a lot of cruises and big boats.

Fuel oil: In most harbor’s and marina’s water, there is a large amount of fuel oils and lubricants. In these places there are a lot of small boats as we said before. They are not often new and so pollute much more than new boats. They eject fuel from their carburetors and lubricating oil as their old engines easily chock than new ones. These two pollutants can also leak into water because of over-priming. Old boats also pollute a lot as they have not changed their engines to cleaner-burning ones. In addition, when boats have to be refueled or when there is a fuel transfer, there are often hydrocarbons lost, that mostly leaks into the ocean. Finally, marinas and harbors have a large amount of fuel and lubricants in their areas, because boats start their cold engines in these places. In consequence they will more likely prime or choke. Engines of boats also reject exhausts, more precisely gasoline. The activities, cause by ports, contribute to chronic oiling in the environment. There is oil that leaks from the pipelines while the tanks are filled up or when they are emptied. Moreover some hulls where the pipelines enter are outside of the boats, the oil that leak from it, will directly leak in the water. This structured is often seen on old boats, while in new boats the hull is on board of the boat.

When I went on a whale watching boat I was able to observe the fueling of the boat. On this boat, which is part of a new boat had his hull on board, as you can see on the photo.

The oil even leaks when the tanker is broken or just because the tanker does not keep well the product. The oil can also leak in the ocean when the tank is washed. In addition often little ports are not equipped for waste disposal or even oil wastes. They will sometimes illegally mix it with the ballast water of ships, which treatment machine is not equipped to handle and clean. Ballast water itself pollutes the ocean, when not clean. This is because it can carry some pathogens. Bilge water is the water that is on the deck that does not leak overboard and so goes to the bilge. This water will be clean and then throw in the ocean or be throw in the water without being treated.

Traffic: In this case traffic causes pollution by throwing sewage and wastes in the ocean. They are created by the routine operation of the crew on the boat. The boats also create solid wastes. They come from the exhaust of the boat’s engines. It is exactly the same kind of pollution that happen in ports, a part from certain activities such as the pollutants use for painting a boat or other kinds of activities made only in ports. In addition of all these pollutants thrown in the water by boats engine or the crew on it, there is also the pollutant liberated by boat accident. More precisely oil spills. Each year more than one million of tones are release in the ocean. A big oil tanker can carry more than 40 million of liters of petroleum. In reason of his fragility he has to travel near costs and if he has to stop, he needs a stopping zone. In consequence if there is any problem on his path it becomes a massive problem. Oil spills occur when the boat enter in collision with something, explode, takes fire, groundings and hull failures.

Toxic waste

Industries

The industry pollution has existed for years. Since the industry revolution happened, around 1800s, there has been a constant increase in production and at the same time of pollution. Industries dump their wastes such as organic, nitrogenous products or phosphoric and toxic products in waterways. The dumping of the wastes in the waterways contaminates them and as a result pollutes the water in which waterways flow. Which is even more dangerous is that some of these organic wastes are persistent and are hardly degraded.
Another reasons of pollution in the ocean cause by industries is the mixing of their wastes with groundwater (potable water) and waterways. This happens when industries do not use enough efficient containment in which they store their wastes. Because of this their waste will leak into the groundwater and waterways. Furthermore by contaminating groundwater industries pollution is as bad for us than the marine mammal life.
Liquid waste is discharged into wastewater systeme, the wastes of domestic and commercial activities are mixed together. In consequence sewage has a high level of chemicals and heavy metals. Some waste that has been treated still contains some bad substance. These ones will be carried into rivers and coastal water. They will not be degraded during the travel and will contaminate the ocean. These chemicals substance can also reach the ocean and pollutes it via pipeline discharged.

Industries can also pollute the ocean by polluting the air. The smokestack of sulfur dioxide made by factories is released in the air and pollutes it. The mixture of this air with humidity creates airborne sulfuric acid. This will produce acid rain that falls on land and water, sometimes changing the chemistry and ecosystem of a marine environment.

Agriculture pollution

There are more than 340’000 composed synthesis that the agriculture domain use for their different activities. They use pesticides such as DDT, herbicides, fungicides and manures for their lands. All these elements will create wastes with also the waste created by animals. In addition agriculture wastes contain nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutriments. All these elements can leak into rivers, lakes, coastal waters and even into groundwater. Wastes that will leak into lakes, rivers and coastal waters will enter into the ocean and contaminate marine life. Wastes can leak also into groundwater and in conclusion contaminate also human health. One of the waste in the agriculture domain is made by animals. These wastes are not treated as they are made by animals. It reach waterbodies trough the surface layers or by crossing the land surface via runoff. Animal waste can also reach the ocean by leaking into rivers that reaches the ocean.

Noise pollution

Noise: The boat traffic causes a lot of noise in the water and disturbs the cetacean. Noise spreads very fast and far in the water, even more than in the aire. The engine of boats ,while working, creates a huge amount of noise that spreads than in the water. Tanker and bulks can create sounds levels over 170 dB, while small and pleasure boats produce 145 to 160 dB. Cetaceans have an incredible hearing and can hear 10 times more than a human. As a result a cetacean can easily hear a boat engine when it is at ………………………………?
Military experience also disturbs the cetacean. In fact they generally make bombs experience in the ocean, which creates a huge noise that can disturb cetacean the same way as they are disturb by boat’s engine. Further more of these experience militaries create noise with their submarine that make exactly the same kind of noise than boats.

Sonar: Boats while working use a lot of sonar machines. In fact they use them to know the depth of the water and if there is a further obstacle in front of them. These sonar machines creates waves that will than disturb the cetacean that use the same kind of technique to find their food.
In the military case, submarines create, by their sonars, a lot of waves. However submarine make more noise than boats as some of them do not use sonars. Moreover sonars (which also take in account seismic surveys) create twice more dBs than boats, as they produce 240dB. Furthermore military use low frequency active (LFA) to repair, from far away, silent submarines. These emissions create low infrasound LFA, so low that they can even kill a marine mammal in a perimeter of 200km. They can also disturb them in other many ways, that I will explain later on in the chapter of ‘’effects’’.
We should not forget the disturbance on cetacean cause by oil and gas exploration. These exploration cause disturbance to the marine life, because they emit high-pressure sound waves in the ocean to a seabed. Than these ways jump back to the oil explorers machine at different speeds and intensity, which will let them know if wehter or not there is presence of oil in the area.

Link between marin pollution and the orcas

• not an answer here...just the idea that orcas are in danger due to pollution
• in order to answer to this: trip to Vancouver

Organization of my trip to Vancouver

When I was 12 I made a trip to the côte d’azur with the Swiss cetacean organization. I travelled on a boat for one week to observe whales and dolphins. Later on, when I decided to work on a project based on orcas I called the organization to see if they could help. I went to Lausanne to meet the director of this organization, call Mr. Bourcoud. He explained to me that if I wanted I could follow a week-end course at the EPFL on cetaceans and even go to work with researchers as a volunteer in the South of France. I was really looking forward for the course and accepted to follow it, but for the volunteer work, I said I was not sure. I wanted absolutely to work on orcas, and south France was not the best place to observe these animals. For a year I did not try to go further in my research, because I had a lot of time ahead of me. However did not stop thinking on an issue as I still did not find one. Finally, in second degree in high school we worked a lot on pollution in particular on the Exxon case. I felt concerned of this and was shocked to see how much pollutants destroy marine life. So this was the beginning of my project. When I had to officially work on my maturity essay I was in 3 degree and decided to contact M. Max-Olivier Bourcoud again. I explained to him that I finally found an issue and wanted to meet him. He gave me his phone number, asking me to contact him that way. We met and talked about my work. He gave me books telling me I should be careful with them, because they belong to the association and normally they do not lend books. We discussed about me going to a research centre specialized on orcas and he told me at the end of the meeting that he would get in touch with me as soon as he would have contacts for me. At that moment I decided to go to Vancouver and find a volunteer work during july. I went back to Lausanne a few times, to take for example a software program called mind manager that will help me organize my work. After a while he wrote me an e-mail giving the names of important organization doing research on orcas and different important biologists in the domain. He asked me to go on a website of an important organization call Straitwatch. They organize big trips with searchers that needed volunteers or students with them. I tried to find an expedition based on orcas, but unfortunately this year they did not organize any in the domain of orcas.
Therefore I began writing to researchers directly for months. First I contacted Kenneth C. Balcomb a well known orca researcher. I wrote him an e-mail in which I presented myself, my project and asked him if he could take me as a volunteer in his team. I then contacted other marine biologists also requesting them whether or not I would be able to join their respective teams. Afterwards I called the University of British Colombia and Greenpeace to find out whether or not I would be able to apply for volunteer work relating to marine biology, specializing in orcas. Problems arose due to the time difference but I was able to work around it. Greenpeace did not have any information, nevertheless the university of B.C told me to call Dr. Lance-Berret, a well known marine biologist, specialized in orcas, working for the Vancouver aquarium. As a result I decided to contact him by e-mail. His secretary, Meghan Mckillop, answered and informed me that Dr Lance-Berret was, during summer, in Johnston Strait or in Alaska and did not take any students or volunteer staff for his team. Seeing as it took a long time to receive the information which I needed, I decided to call him directly. I asked if I could meet and have an interview with him, even if he would not hire me. Dr Lance-Berret replied that, if I were in Vancouver he would be delighted to meet me. I was advised, by the secretary, to volunteer at the Vancouver aquarium. I declined as I still wanted to search for work dealing mainly with orcas. I also contacted Orcalab an organization, led by Dr.Spong, found in San Juan island, which is near Vancouver Island. As time passed, I still had not found a job and July, the day, when I was traveling to Vancouver, was approaching. Therefore I increased my efforts and contacted many other organizations and specialists like Dr.Ford and Linda Nichol. Most of them replied that they were not hiring or that I was too young or inexperienced. Finally I decided to look back into the idea of working at the Vancouver aquarium. I found out that I would be working as a part of their voluntary team, with marine mammals, specifically with harbour seals. I thought this was a great opportunity as I would be working in the rescue center, in which they receive ill or abandoned seals. This opportunity would allow me to observe the different effects of pollution on orcas and other animals with which I would be taking care of. As it was an excellent offer I accepted the position as a volunteer worker. In addition I was excited to get to know and meet people who had the experience, knowledge and who could teach me more about orcas and other species. In order to apply for the position, I contacted Meghan Mckillop again and she informed me to speak to Lindsay Akhurst, one of the leading members in the volunteer corps. Through her I was able to find a position in the team, at the Vancouver aquarium, in the marine mammal rescue centre. I bought the tickets for Vancouver for the first of July to the 2 of august. Finally my mum contacted an organization program that had families who welcomed students to their house. We inscribe me and I was able to live with the family Wang, who came to pick me up at the Vancouver aereport.

Vancouver

When I arrived at Vancouver I was pick up by my famille d'acceuil They brought me to their house and welcomed me for the month. They helped me to find how to go to my work telling me I should be careful, because I had to go trough the worst neighbourhood of Vancouver. The first day I went to work it took me 20 minutes by bus, but that was the last time I took the bus by that way as the nieghbourhood did not at all reassure me. I so fond an other to reach my work, but this time took me 45 minutes. When arrived at the centre all the volunteers and vets welcomed me and explained me what I had to do. However I had learned the bases of my work as I had read a file on the rules and work at the marine mammal rescue centre.

I so worked in a marine mammal rescue centre for the Vancouver aquarium.This centre was founded to receive and rescue marine mammals. I personaly worked mostly with prematured seals. Each day I had to be at my work at 7 o’clock. The seals were fed each morning at 7:30 and we had to be on time. We had to prepare milk miltrexd for the youngest pups, which is a mixture of flower, salmon oil, water and vitamins and lookes like orange, thick milk. This milk miltrex is to replace the seals mother one; nevertheless the mother’s milk is always better. We also had to prepare fish as the healthiest and older pups eat fish. We prepared the tubes and syringes that we used to feed the pups. We then put the tubes in hot water bucket so that when the vet inserts them into the seals stomach it slides easily inside the oesophagus. We had two vets and two volunteers that generally fed the animals. The vet put the tube into the seal’s stomach and the volunteer use the syringe to pushe the milk miltrex in the tube and inside th stomach. Sometimes it was hard to do, because the seal did not want to swallow the tube and started to move a lot. We then cleaned the tub, weighted the seals, cleaned their wounds and looked after them if they were sick until we had to feed them again. My scheduled finished at 11 o’clock each day, but generally I left work around 2 o’clock. I liked to work there and look after the seals, there was always something to do. In the centre they also had a porpoise, whose name is daisy, which is the smallest dolphin in the world. I was allowed to play with her if I wanted to, but if I went to see the seals, I could not go to see her anymore during the day. The reason for this is because she was in quarantine and that the sick pups could transmit her bacteria. I so went to see her each morning before going to work with the seals. We did not prepare food for her as the aquarium sends someone to feed her each day and to train her. In fact unfortunately she was doomed to live in the aquarium, because as she was found when she was prematured and so never learnes how to live in the wild, she could not go back into the ocean, where she belongs to.

At work I was able to meet plenty of people that were in the domain of marine biology. In particular, I met Jeremy Fitz-Gibbon, who passed 30 years hunting, training orcas and working in the marine biology. He showed me movies of orca that he took and we discussed an entire afternoon about his experience in the domain. He gave me some contacts like Dr.Ross and Dr.Roverty. He told me that if I wanted to watch orcas I should go to Port Hardy where one of his friend had a boat and organized killer whale watching tours. When I went back home that day I tried to figure out how to go to Port Hardy. It is a small city way up north on Vancouver island. I had to take the boat and a bus and finally the last 50 km a taxi. In addition I had to pay a Hotel and I calculated how much it would cost me, then I realized it was quiet expensive! Moreover, I was alone, a 17 year old girl, and Port Hardy was in the middle of nowhere. This was adventure!. Unfortunately, due to my situation and the cost of the journey, I had to decide to drop this opportunity.

However I called Dr. Ross and asked him if we could meet. He lived on Vancouver Island, in Victoria and was from Quebec, like my parents. He told me that we could meet in Victoria when I wanted and I would be able to ask him some questions. Later on, I discussed with Lindsay and told her I wanted to watch orcas, but could not find a place where to go. She told me that she knew a friend of hers, named Anna Hall that worked for the prince of whales watching. Anna was a biologist working in Victoria, and was writing a PhD on porpoises. I called her and asked if she could take me with her to watch orcas. I also asked if she knew a place where I could stay in Victoria. She accepted and answered that I could stay at her place. She told me then, that she could take me freely on the boat if it was not full. However, the risk was that, I had to wait until 5 minutes before the departure to know if I could go, because I was not able to reserve, if I did not pay. I started to plan my 2 days in Victoria, by finding a date where I would be able to see Anna and Dr. Ross When I found it, I bought myself tickets to go to Vancouver Island and warned my work, that I would not be there for 2 days. A week later I took the boat and arrived in Victoria. The boat was full so I could not watch the whales that day. While I wait for her I visited the city and met Dr. Ross. We talked together for an hour about pollution. (see interview nb°1) After a biology student working on a master and a man working for the fisheries department arrived. Dr.Ross had to meet them to talk about the master. He invited me to stay if I wanted to. Because Anna was not coming back immediately from her work, I stayed. When Anna came back we went to her house and I passed a long time talking with her and her husband about her PHD, their marine activities, my project and other things. The next day I was able to go with Anna to the ocean.

The morning we went to full the boat of fuel for the day. The amount was ….which is a huge amount of petroleum. Anna told me that they fueled the boat each day. I felt quite weird, because I was doing a project against pollution that destroys orcas life and I was still, myself, polluting to see them. We went back to the harbor where we picked up the tourists. Anna told me that I was able to go with her in the cabin, if I was cold or just to stay with her. When we went out to the ocean she explained me how she found the cetaceans. Each day she reported in a book where she saw them and when. She often had contacts and discussed with the other whale watching boats to find out where the cetacean were. I was there when she contacted or they contacted her by radio to have information. Anna explained me that they located generally grey whales or orcas easily, however sometimes they could just not find them. Moreover sometimes the visibility was disgusting, because there was some fog or it was raining. Nevertheless the day I went out in the ocean it was shiny without a cloud in the sky. She hoped that she would be able to find me orcas that day After 20 minutes Anna received information that there was a group of orcas traveling near the area we were. I was finally able to see them. I started to take binoculars and observe them. I could see in approximation 6 of them, despite I learn later on that they were actually near 40 of them in the water. When I went out, I met one of the crew staff. Her name was Marie O'Shaughnessy. She told me that she was nurse but worked as a volunteer for the whale watching organization. She was a passionate of marine animals and had a huge camera. She was the photograph specialist and very good in finding out which group we observed. I started to take photos with a digital camera. She also gave me a book containing pictures of the dorsal fin and saddle of each orca from a certain group. This allowed me to compare my photos we those in the book and find out which orca I had taken in photo. I was able to determine that the orca on this photo was called Capuccino and that I was observing the K pod, that is part of the southern residential group. Yet Marie told me that there was also the J pod. In fact sometimes while traveling groups join together. I was also able to observe a 2 baby orcas, from the J pod born near February and January.

It was so tinny in comparison to the other orcas. It was also impressive to see the difference between the female’s dorsal fin and the male’s one. In fact the male’s dorsal fin was as twice as the female’s one, which as a result made it easy to distinguish the two of them. We followed the southern residential group for an hour, as they were traveling. For me the hour passed like an instant. While looking at them the crew staff presented to the crew what was an orca. Anna had lent me a coat and the whale watching cap, which, as a result, made some people believe that I was part of the staff. They asked me questions on orcas and I was able to explain, them as I had worked on these cetacean for months. We later on went back to the harbor, the tourists went away and new ones came on board. Fortunately I was able to go again with Anna out in the ocean. We went back to observe this time only the J group. This time we observed them near the coast of the San Juan Island in the USA borders. Moreover we follow them while they were hunting. Unfortunately they were doing it under water because they were hunting fish. I was so not able to observe how they hunt. However I noticed that while hunting orcas were also playing. What I mean is that they were more jumping and making gestures with their tails then when they were traveling. Anna explained me that, while traveling orcas were in a kind of sleeping state, while when they hunt they are fully there and generally play a lot. At the end of the day, I thanked Anna for her huge hospitality and hurried to go overboard, as I had to take the bus to go back to Vancouver.

Back home

• assembling the data
• main conclusions
• still some open questions...
• solutions for orcas protection

Conclusion

• propose solutions to solve the problem
• propose several directions for this work to be continued in a longer and larger perspective
• personal thinking (personal level, future studies for you???)

Interviews

Good start but there is still a lot to do. I would definitively talk about YOUR EXPERIENCE in Vancouver. This is UNIQUE... and you have done so much to be able to go there that now you MUST talk about it. For what reasons did you go there? What did you do? What was your mission? What did you learn there? At the same time, you should insert all the theoretical points describe above so your discussion is not only based on personal points but on strong scientific data. OK?--Pierre.brawand 26 août 2009 à 21:28 (UTC)

References

Dolphin Societies, discoveries and puzzles, edited by Karen Pryor and Kenneth S.Norris
The Ecology of whales and dolphins, edited by D.E.Gaskin
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/KillerWhale/home.html http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/03/marine-pollution-how-ocean-became-toxic-waste-dump http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/killer-whale/communication.htm http://videos.howstuffworks.com/animal-planet/27912-a-man-among-orcas-orca-matriarch-video.htm

be careful not to loose the references...--Pierre.brawand 26 août 2009 à 21:28 (UTC) http://www.baleinesendirect.net/FSC.html?sct=1&pag=1-3-2-5.html http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/killer-whale/habitat-&-distribution.htm