Comments

  1. rael says

    Have you tried playing Abzu for the PS4? I know you’re not a gamer, but it’s not really a gamer’s game – you simply explore the ocean floor and there’s an abstract plot that involves restoring balance to the ocean. Although the graphics aren’t realistic, they’re stunningly beautiful, but the real treat is seeing the actual behavior of the fish in the game. Literally hundreds of different species.

    It’s pretty compelling. Well, just watch the short trailer. Game is only about 3 hours. First time I’ve ever played through a game twice in a row:

  2. dick says

    Chigau, that’s what it does. (The picture’s title is “Food Web”, eh.) ;¬/

    (I’m glad it failed in your case.)

  3. Mark Dowd says

    Won’t be their home for much longer if the Republicans conservatives evil pieces of shit keep getting their way.

    Won’t be anybody’s home for much longer.

    Thought I’d start your week with good news. But then I didn’t have any.

  4. Sean Boyd says

    Didn’t see any this year, but last summer I had the pleasure of witnessing a few orca swimming near the Point Defiance-Vashon Ferry route. My then-camera didn’t get a great picture, but the photos still show several orca-like blobs in the water. It’s pretty neat to see dozens of otherwise engaged people drop what they’re doing and rush to the end of the pier to point, watch, ooh and ahh. Nice also to see all the boats out there give the pod a wide berth.

  5. marinerachel says

    I’ve worked as a naturalist on whale watching tours here in the PNW. Work I’ve done has been off of northern Vancouver Island though so the orca we’re out to see are the northern residents whereas the population seen by whale watchers out of Seattle and Victoria is the southern residents. Lots of the same transient orca will be seen in both regions because, well, they’re transient but the ones you see the most, who the whale watching companies count on, are the residents.

    I went into marine biology and ecology for the killer whales! Them and the humpbacks are what everyone’s excited about and they’re both enormous and charasmatic species so I totally get it. Now it’s the less frequently sighted stuff I go crazy for (not that being in the company of orca ever gets old, really.) Bowriding Dall’s porpoises are a joy! I’ve only ever seen one Mola mola but they are incredible. I saw my first leatherback sea turtle this year. Those things are HUGE. We also have common dolphins in our waters right now. Wut? They don’t belong here.

    Seeing Pacific white-sided dolphins in the wild is just astonishing because they travel in these unbelievably large pods. The dolphins I’m used to are orca. They’re slow reproducing apex predators. Even before SeaWorld dessimated the southern resident population, there was never a huge number of individuals and the same holds true in other populations. I’m used to seeing dolphins in their matrilines of five or ten. Seeing white-sided dolphins in pods of a couple hundred is absolutely bizarre to me.

    I’ll be seeing if I can’t acquire this poster for myself and for teaching. It’s a really perfect example to use for first year bio students who are taking that intro to ecology module. It’ll also look good in my living room. Very, very beautiful.

  6. birgerjohansson says

    What I like about the ocean is that it has produced some of the most venomous critters in the world. It is like super-Australia.

  7. madtom1999 says

    You should’ve gone when you were in Olympia. I was on holiday on Vancouver Island and popped over to Friday Harbour – my dad taught at the marine station for a year and my first memories are from chucking grassnakes into the sea and watching them swim back so I thought I’d go back for a look. Amazingly it smelt right but apart from that…
    On the way back the boat had to wait for a customs officer to turn up so we went whale watching and ended up in the middle of a pod meet with over 200 of them – including mums feeding their young salmon. Best hour and half of my life with my clothes on!