Humpback whales in the Puget Sound/Georgia Strait Region Erin Falcone, John Calambokidis, Gretchen Steiger, Mark Malleson, John Ford Introduction The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is a moderately large baleen whale that is found in all major ocean basins of the world (Clapham and Mead 1999). Humpbacks typically spend summer months feeding in productive, high-latitude waters then migrate to low-latitude breeding areas in winter, where they mate and give birth (Chittleborough 1958). In the North Pacific Ocean, there are numerous concentrations of feeding whales that range from southern California north through the Aleutian Islands and west to Russia, which migrate to four major breeding areas of Central America, Mexico, Hawaii, and Japan (Calambokidis et al. 1996). As was the case with large whales throughout the world, humpback whale populations were severely depleted by the mid-twentieth century due to commercial whaling. The North Pacific was no exception, and whaling stations from Northern California to Southeast Alaska reported many thousands of humpback whales taken from the late 1800’s until 1967 when whaling was officially banned in the region due to the collapse of the fishery (Rice 1978, Clapham et al. 1997). Little is known of the size of whale populations prior to the advent of whaling, although inferences can be made from catch data (Gambell 1976, Rice 1978). Detailed studies of humpback populations in the North Pacific began in the mid-seventies, and from these it appears that this population is slowly recovering, although likely remains below pre-whaling numbers (Calambokidis and Barlow 2004). With this recovery humpbacks are returning to areas from which they were historically reported but have not been seen for decades. The inside waters of Washington State and Southern British Columbia are one such region, and reports of humpback whales there have increased dramatically in recent years after a long absence. Here, we review briefly the history of exploitation, the recent increase in sightings, and the identity of humpback whales in inside waters, which suggest they may be returning to this once-important habitat. The history of whaling in Puget Sound and the Georgia Basin Humpbacks were abundant along the coast of British Columbia and Washington State, particularly in inside waters, at the turn of the last century (Pike and MacAskie 1969). Although humpback whales were taken sporadically as early as the 1850’s, detailed records of takes were not maintained until much later, making it difficult to assess how many whales were killed in the initial phase of the fishery. Recording of catch data was standardized in 1907, shortly after the advent of modern whaling in the region, and between 1908 and 1967 British Columbian whaling stations killed at least 5,638 humpbacks (Gregr et al. 2000). The station in Gray’s Harbor at Bay City, Washington took at least 1,933 humpbacks from the coasts of Oregon and Washington between 1911 and 1925 (Scheffer and Slipp 1948). Over-wintering humpbacks were still common enough in the Strait of Georgia in 1907 for a whaling station to open at Page’s Lagoon, near Nanaimo, in November of that year. This small, local population was apparently extirpated in three months, as by January 1908 catches ceased abruptly (Webb 1988). Sightings of humpbacks in inside waters Sightings of humpbacks in the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound remained very infrequent through the late 1990’s. Everitt et al. (1980) reported two sightings of humpback whales in Puget Sound in May 1976 and June 1978; it was not until June 1986 that a third sighting was made (Osborne et al. 1988). Calambokidis and Steiger (1990) reported on the movements of two individually identified juvenile humpback whales, which were observed traveling separately throughout the waters of southern Puget Sound for several weeks in June and July of 1988. Due to their scarcity, humpbacks have not been systematically surveyed in these regions as they are in areas of known abundance; therefore there does not exist a scientific data set with which to document their return to inside waters of the Georgia Basin. However, the increasing human population and the popularity of whale watching has given rise to sighting networks where coastal residents can report marine mammal sightings locally. The Orca Network (www.orcanetwork.org ) is an online forum to which people report, and it maintains an archive of all sightings received since 2001. In that initial year the sighting network consisted of 350 registered members and a total of 710 marine mammal sightings were reported; it has grown steadily to 1,055 members in 2004 reporting 1,057 sightings (Susan Berta, pers. comm.). In 2001 there were three reports of humpback whales, the number had risen to 30 reports by 2004 (Figure 1). This increase in sightings is in part due to growth of the network and the accompanying increase in local awareness, however it is worth noting that the percentage of all sighting network reports of humpbacks has grown from less than one half of a percent to almost three percent. Most reports of humpback whales were made by naturalists aboard whale watching vessels and can be considered reliable in terms of species identification. Inexperienced observers, particularly those that are shore-based, are most likely to misidentify a humpback as a gray whale, which are common in some areas during the late spring. In this case the number of humpbacks reported might actually be an underestimate.