1. Correlation between vocalization and breaching Nicole Lee Beam Reach Marine science and sustainability school

2. Status considered for listing as “threatened” in U.S, endangered in Canada Human/ whale interaction throughout history Probable cause of resident status = language barrier Echolocation discovery – helped inform how communication occurs What if communication were better understood?

3. Theories of why Breaching occurs Exercise Aggravation Foraging Socializing, or “playing” All of the above

4. Motivation  Past researchers  Behavior in 4 broad categories: Foraging, traveling, resting and socializing (Ford, Ellis, Balcomb 1994)  Breaching = behavior seen during socializing  Highly variable squeaks, squawks, and whistles while socializing My Curiosities  What kind of vocalizations are made when breaching, no matter what explanation for that activity was correct.  Can a correlation between breaching and vocalizations be found?  What theory will I develop?

5. My Experiment  Designed to record vocalizations and analyze sounds I heard at the time I observed a breach My Expectations To find a correlation between breaches and vocalization No correlation?

6. Methods Instruments used:  “Ears”, “Elephant Ears”  Amplifier  Maranz recording device Software  Ishmael  Creative Wave Studio  Call tutor Behavior observation data sheet

7. Instruments used for Acoustic Observation EARS ELEPHANT EARS

8. Results The most frequent call heard when breaching occurred was S10 *Rainy day breaches were common, out of 11 S10 calls 6 were heard on rainy day.

9. Although S10 calls occurred most frequently during observations, and showed somewhat of a trend, I found there not to be a consistent call when breaching occurred.

10. My theory Breaching is contextual I believe Orcas do things as sporadically as humans do.

11. Acknowledgements/ Bibliography Thanks to Scott Veirs for his teaching, guidance, and support; to Val Veirs for his instruction and equipment, to Captain Todd Shuster for allowing me to reside on his boat for five weeks, to the other Beam Reach students for their help, and to the Friday Harbor Labs for their facilities. Thanks also to Fred Felleman, Ken Balcomb, Rich Osborne, and David Bain for their time, insight and motivation. Finally, thanks to Orca Network for providing us with beneficial information. (Ford et al., 2004) J.K.B. Ford, G.M. Ellis, and K.C. Balcomb. 1994. Killer Whales: The natural history and genealogy of Orcinus Orca in British Columbia and Washington State. UBC Press, Vancouver, British Columbia. Pictures by Scott Veirs, Laura Christoferson and Val Veirs.