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This offer comes with bells, whistles and clicks

By Meg Olson

Local orca monitoring group Lifeforce is kicking off a membership drive with considerable perks.

Speaking at a July 15 meeting of the Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce, Lifeforce director Peter Hamilton unveiled the new Ocean Friends membership, which for $75 Cdn a year will put members on a phone list so they get a call whenever the whales are approaching a land-based viewing location, such as Lighthouse Park for Point residents and visitors. “We’ll either tell you to come down to the park or take you out on our boat,” Hamilton said. Members who choose to can join Hamilton on the group’s recently donated 28’ Streamline to help with monitoring the whales and their interaction with people and boats.

Lifeforce was formed in 1980. “We thought there was a need to have an organization that looked at the relationship between humans, animals and their environment,” Hamilton said. “We want solutions so that people, animals and the environment are not harmed,” he said. The organization’s first campaign was to work with Greenpeace to steer orcas away from the nets of aquarium crews trying to capture the animals and their early history focused the organization on marine mammals, specifically orcas, in local waters.

In 1993 the group received a donated boat, which they located in Point Roberts, and Hamilton began turning from activism to education and monitoring of the whales. “Education is a form of activism,” he said. By educating people about how to approach orcas and about the effect their innocent curiosity can have on the animals, Hamilton hopes he can gain the breathing room the endangered local orca population will need to get its numbers up.

“Orcas are wild animals,” Hamilton stressed. “The continual pressure of boat traffic on them interrupts their lifestyle. They can’t do what they normally do – social activity, resting, feeding. They are always on guard, always on the run.” Lifeforce research has found that the orcas socialize more and exhibit more relaxed behavior in areas of low boat traffic, which he feels is one reason they are often very active off the Point where they get less pressure from whale watching boats.

Through grant funding Lifeforce was able to publish a whale watching guidelines information card and a field guide to orca identification and behavior. Hailton also spends hours on the water reminding boaters about the guidelines and keeping an eye on whale watching boats. “We’ve made a lot of suggestions to the whale watching companies but sometimes they just won’t listen,” Hamilton complained. “Those boats are up from sunup to sundown. When Hamilton spots a boat cutting off the whales, getting too close, approaching too fast, or spending too long following the whales he initially tries to contact the vessel on the radio but sometimes he needs to go further, such as a recent incident in which a whale tour operator was trying to push his boat into the center of the pod. “We went over and on the loudspeaker told him it’s harassment to block their pathway,” he said. “It’s a violation of the Marine Mammals Protection act and you could be fined $100,000. He left.”

Hamilton said he is lobbying both the U.S. and Canadian governments to create marine protected areas and include one that covers the Boundary Bay and Point Roberts area, perhaps by including the area in a proposed Orca Pass Initiative which would create a heightened regulatory environment in the southern Georgia Strait, designed to protect and aid recovery of marine species.

Another Lifeforce effort to relieve pressure on the whales while allowing the public to enjoy them is the Orca Trails program through which Lifeforce monitors the movement of local J and K pods and gives park managers a call when their headed their way. “Land-based whale watching means less boats on them,” he said.

The new Ocean Friends memberships are one of several ways Hamilton is trying to raise money to support the growing list of programs Lifeforce runs.

The agency receives no federal funding and Hamilton relies on a combination of grant funding and donations to run Lifeforce. “What’s sad is all the things we can’t do because we don’t have the budget,” he said. To join Lifeforce look for Hamilton at Lighthouse Marine Park or call 604/649-5258