412 replies to this topic

[aastra]

 

Imagine if humans didn't get puberty until they were 50?

 

The average VVer would still be looking forward to it.

[Matt R.]

Yes, but I'm pretty sure it was confined to a small area at the southern end of the beach kind of near the yacht club but slightly offshore a bit.

A micro Nino, you could say.

[Victoria Watcher]

Celebrity elephant seal relocated to remote Vancouver Island beach

Emerson the elephant seal was transported from the Gorge Waterway in a van.

https://www.timescol...d-beach-8563892

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 April 2024 - 02:32 PM.

[AllseeingEye]

He was a big boy for sure. In spite of what must be a throughly uncomfortable and painful molt he seemed very well at ease with the humans and all the attention he was getting the day I walked by with the dog. 

[Nparker]

I guess part of the "problem" was exactly that, his ease with humans. I hope Emerson remains happy and healthy in his new location.

[aastra]

It's sad that nobody listens to Emerson anymore.

[Victoria Watcher]

It's just after 10 a.m., and Yvonne Malanfant has finished brewing a fresh pot of coffee and placing a plate of homemade quesadillas with a side dish of spicy mayonnaise on a table for everybody to share.

 

A little bell above her door rings to announce the arrival of another local to pick up their mail and catch up on recent events.

 

Customer traffic at the small Canada Post outlet at Zeballos has been extra busy over the past two weeks as residents gather to talk about the drama unfolding in a nearby tidal lagoon where efforts are underway to rescue a trapped killer whale calf that was orphaned when its mother became stranded and died.

 

"This is incredible," says Malanfant, the postmistress for the community of about 200 residents. "It's pretty incredible what's going on. It's made the news every night."

 

Zeballos, located at the end of a gravel logging road more than 450 kilometres northwest of Victoria, has fully invested itself in the unfolding rescue effort, which could occur this week.

 

Hunters, loggers, fishing guides and the area's Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents all say they are deeply concerned about the plight of the two-year-old orca calf, left alone without its mother in Little Espinosa Inlet since March, and a rescue attempt can't come soon enough.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...-effort-8589681

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 April 2024 - 06:10 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Rescue of trapped killer whale calf underway, First Nation says

 

kʷiisaḥiʔis, or Brave Little Hunter, has been stuck in a B.C. lagoon alone for weeks since his mother died

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...erway-1.7172018

[Victoria Watcher]

A rescue attempt to save a killer whale calf stranded in a remote tidal lagoon near Zeballos, B.C., is underway.

 

Road access to the lagoon is blocked by members of the Ehattesaht First Nation, but an official at the scene said an attempt to get the female orca calf out of the lagoon and transferred into the open ocean began before dawn.

 

A First Nation official who declined to provide his name said the attempt was launched because of favourable weather conditions.

 

A statement from the First Nation said work was expected to take “much of the day” and the federal Fisheries Department, the Vancouver Aquarium, and the nation will brief the media when the operation has concluded.

 

 

https://www.cheknews...lagoon-1199116/

 

 

[Victoria Watcher]

A Port Alberni woman has survived surgery after contracting a rare illness called rat-bite fever.

 

Kasey Randall, a mother of two, got the cardiac surgery at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria in March and spent three weeks in hospital.

 

Thirty-seven-year-old Randall is still getting a daily dose of antibiotics.

 

“I still am going to have a long recovery ahead of me, considering the damage it did to my liver, my kidneys.”

 

Randall first shared her story in March about how this past summer she and her family adopted two rats from the Port Alberni SPCA.

 

A couple of months later one of them bit her.

 

 

 

https://www.cheknews...ctoria-1199275/

[Victoria Watcher]

'Very smart' B.C. orca calf evades rescuers, forcing switch in tactics

 

ZEBALLOS, B.C. — A "very smart" orca calf trapped in a remote B.C. lagoon managed to dodge a 50-strong rescue team using boats, divers, nets and sophisticated underwater detection equipment in an attempt to save her life on Friday.

https://www.timescol... life on Friday.

 

 

 

 

If it's "very smart" why is it not allowing itself to be saved?

[aastra]

 

If it's "very smart" why is it not allowing itself to be saved?

 

That's the human condition.

[Matt R.]

All I hear when I imagine this scene is Yakkity Sax.

[Nparker]

That's the human condition.

All I hear when I imagine this scene is Yakkity Sax.

Of course, as a Gen X-er, I hear this.
https://youtu.be/s1ysoohV_zA

[Victoria Watcher]

An adorable local celebrity may have made his way back to the shores of Greater Victoria once again.

 

Pictures and video show a seal that appears to be Emerson the juvenile elephant seal coming ashore in the Gorge area.

 

Staff at the Victoria International Marina say they saw the seal this week, and Stephanie Gurney with the Gorge Waterway Action Society snapped pictures of the seal at Lime Bay Park on Friday.

 

 

https://www.cheknews...ctoria-1199366/

[Victoria Watcher]

https://www.cheknews...lagoon-1199314/

 

[Victoria Watcher]

A Vancouver Aquarium expert who has been involved in attempts to rescue an orphaned orca says the calf may be feeding on fish in the B.C. lagoon where she has been trapped for more than three weeks.

 

Veterinarian Martin Haulena said he got a good look at the calf during Friday’s failed attempt to corral the whale, and it was possible she had been foraging, “based on her body condition being maintained.”

 

Haulena said there were salmon, perch, ling cod and rockfish in the Vancouver Island lagoon, and while those species aren’t part of the normal marine mammal diet of a Bigg’s killer whale, the calf could go after them if she was hungry.

 

The whale has been trapped alone in the tidal lagoon near Zeballos, 450 kilometres northwest of Victoria, since March 23, when her mother became stranded and died.

 

“(The calf) didn’t seem to be in terrible body condition. Actually, she has been maintaining body conditions quite well. It looks like she is also quite active diving for prolonged periods of time, you know, six to eight minutes,” Haulena said on Monday.

 

“People have offered seal carcasses, but I don’t believe anyone has actually seen her eat those,” he added, noting that a report from the Fisheries Department suggested the calf might have eaten a duck.

 

 

 

https://www.cheknews...rategy-1199587/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 April 2024 - 10:40 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

A break-in by a wild turkey at a long-term care home south of Quebec City over the weekend is a sign that the range and population of the birds are expanding in Quebec, bringing them closer to people.

 

The wild turkey smashed through the third-floor window of the care home Saturday morning in Beauceville, Que., the local health authority said in an email. The office it entered was empty at the time, and fast-acting staff members at the care home closed the office door to prevent the bird from leaving.

 

"The bird came to its senses a few minutes later and it left the way it came in," said the health authority for the Chaudière-Appalaches region. "Fortunately, there was no impact for the residents."

 

It's surprising that a turkey would fly through a window that high, said Tadeusz Splawinski, a biologist with the Canadian Wild Turkey Federation, a conservation group founded by hunters.

 

"It could just be random bad luck, birds sometimes just fly into windows," he said in an interview Monday. Male turkeys, he added, are known to attack windows, mirrors and other reflective surfaces during the spring mating season because they mistake their reflection for a competitor.

 

 

https://www.timescol...ulation-8601779

[Nparker]

Too late for Easter dinner and too early for Thanksgiving. 

[LJ]

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Herb Tarlick.