A Digital Gray Whale Sighting!

Date: 11/9/2021

Hours: 1

Event: Google Drive work

This week we did some more work in the Google Drive. There is a document in the Drive titled "Whale sightings" and it is all the whales sighted from 1995-2020. Although this is good data, most of the entries only provided the date seen, the species of whale, the location where the whale(s) were found, and the number of whales seen. No pictures and very few behaviors were recorded. That being said, we wanted to put all the data in one place, so we decided to put all of this data into the database. In addition, we made humpback whales a separate sheet, and added a category for all other baleen whales instead. As Diondre and I were transferring the data over, we found a sighting of a gray whale in 1999 and again in 2005. I was so shocked because it is not common to see gray whales around Homer.

In 2000, there was also a harbor porpoise recorded. Although these are common, especially in Halibut Cove, it is interesting how they are not recorded like humpbacks are. There are occasional sea lion sittings as well. There are some cool behaviors reported like killer whales eating a seal. As Diondre and I were putting the sightings in the Drive, Julia used the location to find the longitude and latitude. In order to make a map of sightings, I emailed Liz to ask what mapping system she used to keep it consistent. Unfortunately, she never responded to my email, so we ended up using Google Maps.

In addition, Diondre added the photos that we took with Olga when we were on her boat and added them to the Drive. We were able to identify them which I think is really cool. The ones we found were

• X107: last seen on 8/26/2019

• Z42: last seen 8/16/2019

• Y134 or Opal: last seen on 8/2019

I want to add our sightings to the Drive, but I am wondering how to edit it because we only have the pdf version. But I think it is really cool how our work is contributing to the catalog. I feel like I am making a difference in the life of humpbacks, and I want to continue going out on the boat with Olga in the future.

X107.

Z42.

Y134.