Archive for the 'Random or Unrelated' category
Desastrous Winter Season Puts Snowmobilers On Hot Seat
Karl Woll | April 28, 2009 12:26 pm2 New Baby Killer Whales Spotted Off Vancouver Island
Karl Woll | February 23, 2009 8:18 am
Some good news brought to my attention by Kayak Yak about 2 new baby killer whales off the southern coast of Vancouver Island recently. This is great news as last year 7 resident orcas passed, including 2 newborns.
Two new baby killer whales have been spotted off the southern coast of Vancouver Island, raising the count of the beleaguered southern resident population to 85.
The orca calves were spotted on Feb. 6 off the Victoria waterfront, according Ken Balcomb, the executive director of the Centre for Whale Research in Washington state’s Friday Harbour.
There are other reports the whales have been spotted in Nanaimo as well. One of the babies was in L pod and the other was in J pod, he said.
While any increase in the population is good news for the troubled southern resident population, the two births this winter are not unusual, said Balcomb.
“Over the 33 years we’ve been looking at them here, we have had anywhere between none and upwards of seven born in some years, really good years,” he said.
Last year, seven resident whales died, including two of three newborn calves, he said.
“Two is good for recent years. We had three last year but two of them didn’t make it. Both of these [new whales] look good so we are optimistic we’ll be seeing them again in the spring and throughout the summer.”
One thing I’m hoping to do this summer (or whenever I have the cash) is a kayak whale watching tour, and this gets me stoked!
The above article, from CBC, also talks about how the 3 southern resident pods were all spotted in the same area recently, which is unusual for this time of year. 2 of the pods are usually wintering in California (smart pods) but a lack of salmon down there may have forced them to stay up north.
“We’ve had years of troubled times [with] the salmon that they eat. Right now we have 85 whales. The population should be over 100 in order to be viable. It creeps toward a hundred and then drops back down when we have bad fish years.”
No-Fun-City At 1 Year Olympic Countdown?
Karl Woll | February 12, 2009 11:48 amThe CTV website is running an article today “No-Fun-City Tag Sticks as 2010 parties go elsewhere“. It looks at why a big party today is taking place in Whistler Village, kicking off this morning with the unveiling of the Olympic Torch (pictured), and Vancouver has no celebration slated.
In Whistler they are partying. But Vancouver, it’s a much different story.
For years, the 2010 host city has celebrated every milestone on the Olympic journey. Not anymore. There isn’t a single public event planned for the one-year countdown day for what some call the No-Fun City.
The city had been celebrating since it won the Games, but Vancouver’s mayor, Gregor Robertson, dropped the puck on this one.
“Tomorrow there isn’t big parties all across the city. There’s so much energy focused on pulling the Games together, and the venues specifically, so all of the focus has been there in preparing. Unfortunately no work has been done for the big public celebration,” he told CTV News on Wednesday.
This is actually kind of sad when you think about it, and there’s another article in the Province “Eight Countdown Celebrations Happening Today in BC“, to drive this point home. Of 8 cities celebrating across the province today, Vancouver, the host freakin’ city, isn’t one of them.
At least our local mountains have the spirit, and if you’re in the mood for celebrating, check out 48 hours of Winter up at Grouse, or the LG Snowboard Mountain Fest.
More Nude Hiking
Karl Woll | February 9, 2009 2:25 pm
There was a funny article posted in the latest Wanderung newsletter about a spike in nude hiking taking place in Switzerland.
I found it hilarious given my older post about “nude hiking” and “nude kayaking” coming up as recommended Google search keywords to use associated with with “outdoors” (a funny post and worth the read if you haven’t seen it before). It also made me curious to see how popular my old post about nude hiking has been, since it actually has the keywords of “nude” “hiking” and “kayaking” in the post itself….
So I did a little Google Analytics research and it turns out, of my 193 published posts to date, that stupid post has been the 5th most visited! I don’t get it, are there that many people out there into nude hiking / biking / kayaking, etc, or do you chalk this one up to the “sex sells” category? I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, and this post itself will too, become one of the most popular found by Google searches.
