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Why whales in Alaska have been so happy

By Anthony Zurcher

North America reporter

5 August 2021

Coronavirus pandemic

GETTY IMAGES

The Covid pandemic brought tourism to a near-halt in Alaska last year. What
will happen to the majestic humpback whale when cruise ships and visitors
return in August?

Christine Gabriele sat at her desk at the Glacier Bay National Park
headquarters in Gustavus, Alaska, and turned up the volume on her computer.

The sound of gurgling and bubbling water enveloped the room. The lull was
occasionally punctuated by the hollow roar of a male harbour seal, seeking to
impress potential mates.

Gabriele's computer is at the end of a five-mile underwater cable that

stretches into the frigid waters of the bay, a national preserve teeming with
fish, birds, sea otters, dolphins, lovelorn seals and the area's feature attraction
- several hundred humpback whales, who migrate to Alaska from the waters
around Hawaii during summer months.

What has been notable for the past 18 months was what she hadn't heard
nearly as much of - ships.
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During a normal summer, Glacier Bay and the surrounding area buzzes with
traffic, as vessels of all sizes, from massive, 150,000-tonne cruise liners to
smaller whale-watching boats, ply the waters as part of Southern Alaska's
massive tourism industry.

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The Covid-19 pandemic brought all of that to a sudden halt. In 2019, more
than 1.3 million people visited Alaska on cruise ships. In 2020, there were 48 -
not even enough to fill a New York City subway car.

Overall marine traffic in Glacier Bay declined roughly 40%.

It takes about a dozen minutes of listening to the soothing hydrophone audio

on a Thursday morning in late May to hear traces of human activity - in this
case, the high-pitched whine of a small boat's propeller.

According to research by Gabriele and Cornell University researcher Michelle

Fournet, the level of manmade sound in Glacier Bay last year dropped sharply
from 2018 levels, particularly at the lower frequencies generated by the
massive cruise ship engines. Peak sound levels were down nearly half.

All this afforded researchers an unprecedented opportunity to study whale

behaviour in the kind of quiet environment that hasn't existed in the area for
more than century.

By analysing hydrophone data, and taking a small park service boat into
Glacier Bay three times a week to photograph and identify whales, Gabriele
has already noted changes.
 She compared whale activity in pre-pandemic times to human behaviour in a
crowded bar. They talk louder, they stay closer together, and they keep the
conversation simple.

Now, the humpbacks seem to be spreading out across larger swathes of the
bay. Whales can hear each other over about 2.3km (1.4 miles), compared with
pre-pandemic distances closer to 200m (650ft). That has allowed mothers to
leave their calves to play while they swim out to feed. Some have been
observed taking naps. And whale songs - the ghostly whoops and pops by
which the creatures communicate - have become more varied.

GETTY IMAGES

Pre-pandemic, whales stayed close together

Out in the middle of Glacier Bay on a park service boat, it was easy to see why
the area is such a tourist attraction. The jade-green water is surrounded on
three sides by sheer cliffs, glacier-fed waterfalls and snow-capped peaks. The
humpback whales themselves are majestic. They spray mist with an audible
rush as they surface to breathe, then display their enormous triangular tails -
each as unique as a fingerprint - before returning to the depths.

If visitors are lucky, they can witness a breach - a whale leaping out of the
water in a remarkable display of cetacean acrobatics, before crashing back into
the water. Only then is the creature's remarkable size truly appreciable.

All this can be viewed from smaller whale boats or the luxurious cruise ships,
where passengers dine on lavish meals as their floating hotels ply the deep
waters of the bay right up to the edge of massive glaciers.

Gabriele acknowledged that the Covid lull in tourism was only temporary. She
said she hoped her research - and long-standing efforts to regulate the ship
traffic in Glacier Bay - will allow a balance to be struck between the
environment and the human desire to witness, and be inspired by, nature's
grandeur.

If the whales were enjoying the relative calm and quiet, they were not the only
ones.

"It used to be that you could just step outside your door and you were in quiet
in nature," said Karla Hart. But the tourism industry has put an end to that
 idyll.

Hart lives in Juneau, the state capital and de facto capital of the Alaskan
cruise ship industry, about 50 miles from Glacier Bay as the seaplane flies.

During a typical tourist season - when cruise ships pull into port and
disembark tens of thousands of passengers - sightseeing helicopters crossing
over her house make conversations in her own home difficult. The lockdowns,
she said, gave people a taste of what Juneau could be like.

"The giant pause that we had because of the pandemic really gave an
opportunity for people to rethink what we have and what we need and want,"
she said.

With tourism activity suspended in 2020, Hart and a few friends thought it
would be a good time to gather signatures for ballot measures that would
limit the days, times and sizes of cruise ships that could stop in Juneau when
the pandemic subsides. That would mean quieter times in Juneau and in the
whale-inhabited waters that surround it.

They called their effort "Cruise Control".

There are around 70 craft in Juneau, and at peak operations they can carry as many as 100 passengers each

Hart's efforts provoked a quick and forceful response from Juneau's business
community, which depends heavily on the money that tourist-laden cruise
ships bring to the town.

Posters with the slogan "Protect Juneau's Future", urging residents not to sign
the petitions, popped up in stores. They were plastered on walls and tucked in
pizza delivery boxes. Employees at local shops were told by their managers
that the proposals threatened their jobs, said Hart, and warned not to support
them.

The business owners saw it differently - particularly given the timing of the
effort, when shops and restaurants were shutting because of a lack of tourist
dollars.

"These are people that should be supporting us, trying to lift us out of the
hardest 15 months of my entire life," said Laura Martinson, who owns Caribou
Crossings, a gift shop across from Juneau's cruise ship terminal. "Everyone
should have a fair shot of being successful in their community, not just the
people that have already done it and are retired and a little bit inconvenienced
by the rest of us."
In the end, Hart's petition drive failed - she wouldn't disclose by how many
signatures she came up short - leaving Martinson and the rest of the Juneau
business community hopeful that the return of the cruise ships will be their
financial lifeline.

If the benefits - and hidden costs - of the cruise ship industry have been a
source of contention and concern in Juneau, there has been rare unanimity on
the other side of America.

At the US Capitol, Democrats and Republicans brokered a deal in May to allow

foreign-flagged cruise ships to travel directly from Seattle to Alaska without a
previously required stop in Canada, whose ports have been closed because of
Covid restrictions.

When President Joe Biden signed the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act at a
closed White House ceremony, Press Secretary Jen Psaki heralded it as an
example of the "critical bipartisan work" Congress can do.

"The legislation is a positive in our view because it helps reinvigorate an

industry that accounts for a great number of jobs in Alaska - jobs that have
been on hold for the past year plus," she said.

The move was one of the few bipartisan accomplishments of the early months
of the Biden administration

Speaking to the BBC in Anchorage, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan dismissed

concerns from environmentalist groups about the cruise industry.

"They want this state to turn into a giant national park." the Republican said.
"We are always trying to balance environmental safeguards with the
opportunity to grow our economy and employ our citizens - and it's a balance
we're quite good at."

With the legal hurdles out of the way, the major cruise ship lines have just
started returning to Southeast Alaska for a shortened 2021 schedule. The first
Royal Caribbean liner, the 2,580-passenger Serenade of the Sea, arrived in
July. Holland America, Celebrity, Princess, Norwegian and Carnival are all
scheduled for the weeks ahead - totalling tens of thousands of arriving
tourists for the month of August.

Martinson, the Juneau gift shop owner, was planning how many balloons to
put out for cruise visitors. For other businesses, the abbreviated tourist season
may not be enough.

Holly Johnson owns a seaplane company that flies cruise visitors from
downtown Juneau to a lodge near a massive glacier field. On a normal
summer, she runs nine flights of 50 people each day. This year, she decided
insurance costs and the risks of weather cancellations were too great to
operate on an abbreviated schedule.

She says she'll be back next year - but the shutdown will haunt her until then.

"Our economy was gone, our business that supports a year's worth of
employees and revenues was gone," she said. "It was unimaginable."

The whale watching boats will make a faster return. There are currently
around 70 craft in Juneau, and at peak operations they can carry as many as
100 passengers each, with 10 to 15 boats gathering around a whale or whale
group at any one time.

Although vessels are restricted from approaching to within 100 yards of the
whales, the sheer number on the water means the humpbacks sometimes get
closer. And additionally, voluntary restrictions are just that - voluntary.
Pearson has been looking into the health of whales in Juneau

"It's the classic tragedy of the commons," says Heidi Pearson, a professor of
marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast, a few miles from Juneau.
"I don't want to deny anyone the chance to see a humpback whale, but I think
it needs to be done carefully and sustainably."

Pearson is conducting her own research into the health of whales around
Juneau before, during and after the Covid-19 cruise pause. She is sampling
and analysing the amount of the stress-induced chemical cortisol in their
blood.

She plans to report her whale-stress findings in December, when they could
serve as another data point to accompany Gabriele's research into the Alaska
marine sound environment. It has the potential of providing tangible evidence
on the impact tourism has on whales - and, perhaps, a warning of the threat
human activity may have on some of the largest mammals in the world.

"Tourism is important to Juneau's economy, and we love to share this place

with others," she said. But, "it's not good for anyone - the whales or the whale
watching companies or the conservationists - if the whales feel too much
pressure and they leave".

More on this story

The people risking their lives to save whales

1 August 2019
 Whale threats from fishing gear 'underestimated'
9 February 2021

'Real and imminent' extinction risk to whales

10 October 2020

Related Topics

Tourism Whales Alaska Travel & leisure industry

Coronavirus pandemic

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