Kari Koski - at the Heart of Soundwatch
It was sleeting as I walked to The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor to interview Kari Koski about her work with Soundwatch. But the only way Kari knew anything about the weather outside was seeing how wet my clothes were when I arrived. Kari walked me down to her subterranean office where I was greeted by Kelp, a handsome older labrador-mix dog who has become The Whale Museum’s unofficial mascot. Though there are no windows in Kari’s office, there’s plenty the look at. The walls are covered floor to ceiling with photos, posters, business cards, calendars, brochures, and maps. The busy walls reflect Kari’s life – a bit of organized chaos.
The office and museum may be home base, but Kari’s love is to be with people, whether out on the water or collaborating with people to monitor and protect the marine environment and it’s inhabitants.
Kari grew up on the water, or near it at least, in Juneau, Alaska. She spent her summers out on boats volunteering with fisheries biologists. When she arrived at Oregon State University in Corvallis, a decidedly more landlocked place than Juneau, she brought her love of the water and started to pursue a Marine Biology Degree, but soon switched her to focus to environmental education (EE). Wanting to be closer to the water and focus more on marine education, she traveled to an EE conference in Bellingham and planned to take a look at Western Washington University. At the conference she met John Luke, curator at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, and started to work part time at the museum. She made the most of every day by being an interpreter on the Washington State Ferry she took as part of her commute to and from her home in Bellingham. Each day she’d put together a “box of stuff” from the museum to help illustrate her talks on whales, fish, other marine mammals and more about the San Juan marine environment. That led to the development of The Whale Museum “teachers’ boxes” which are available for use by regional schools.
At the time, Rich Osborne was the Director of Research for The Whale Museum and talked Kari into working on a Field Biology Course that was trying to assess the effects of vessels on the southern resident population of orca whales. The group spent most of their time camped out at Limekiln Park or Mar Vista, observing whales from the shoreline. After a lot of observation and other monitoring activities, there was speculation on potential vessel effects on the whales but no real way to measure those effects. What they did clearly see, however, was a vast discrepancy between federal marine mammal protection laws and the actual whale watching activities.
So, Rich, Kari and the students worked to put together guidelines for safe whale watching for a variety of boat types and started to talk to boaters and teach folks about the need for best practices. About the same time, in 1994, Rich Osborne came up with the idea of “No Sound in the Sound” Days, two summer days where boaters voluntarily stayed one mile away from the whales to help minimize noise from vessels. There was great radio and TV coverage of the event and the side effect was that the commercial whale watch boat operators joined together to provide a couple of days of respite for the whales. The cooperation of the whale watch operators was the beginning of the international Whale Watch Operators Association Northwest and launched the Soundwatch Boater Education Program as an official part of The Whale Museum in 1995.
One of the most striking, enlightening and ultimately sad encounters that Kari has had with the whales was with Luna, the young whale separated from L-Pod and left behind in Nootka Sound, B.C. in 2001. Away from its pod, the young whale bonded with boats and people and became the center of a controversy about how humans should work to save whales. Luna ultimately died in an accident with a boat. Kari and the Soundwatch program moved to Nootka Sound for a time to work with the whale and the community there. Kari listened to the First Nations people who believed the whale was a reincarnation of their recently departed Chief, and resisted efforts to reunite the whale with L-pod. The lessons she learned included that the southern resident orcas that many Washingtonians regard as ‘our whales’ have a much larger home that includes much of the pacific coast and that humans, not always for the better, become very proprietary about “their” whales and do not always do what is best for them.
Later, closer to home, Kari was immersed in a different type of orca encounter. While busy on the Soundwatch boat training a new boat drivers in the north end of Rosario Strait, a couple of J-pod whales bee-lined the boat and turned belly up, gave a flick of their tails and just doused the boat. Seems they were saying “pay attention!” After a good laugh, and a bit of bailing, Kari and the new drivers did just that!
Being immersed in stewardship programs here has taught Kari a few good lessons. Like many of us, she was once out to do everything she could to “save the world” and sometimes got mad trying. But she’s realized that it won’t all happen today and that she, and others, are in this for the long haul. It comes down to doing good work, and stopping to enjoy and soak in the paradise we live within.
The Soundwatch program enjoys widespread support in the San Juans. That was demonstrated just this month when a campaign to purchase a new Soundwatch boat was a resounding success. Hundreds of people from the islands donated money toward the cause, and the Orcas Island Community Foundation provided a huge $20,000 boost. Kari hopes there are enough funds not only to purchase the new boat, but also to rebuild the blown engines on the old boat, so there can be better coverage. Soundwatch will be on the water again this Spring. Watch for them!
If watching is not enough for you, there are a number of ways to be involved – and maybe even get out on the water! Committed volunteers are needed to talk to boaters both on shore and out in the Sound. Volunteer training sessions are held in May each year. After training, the new volunteers go out on the boat with a long-term volunteer for some on-the-job training. Potential volunteers should know that the days on the boat are long, in a small open boat with little time for a lunch break, and that they will need to commit to many days out on the water. The rewards can be great, though. Volunteers can often see immediate positive results from their actions, contribute data on whales and vessels used for recovery and conservation plans for the whales and other marine inhabitants, and occasionally, just have a slow and wondrous day in the waters of the Salish Sea.
For more information, contact Kari Koski at The Whale Museum. soundwatch@whalemuseum.org
