{"id":20086,"date":"2026-03-16T15:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=20086"},"modified":"2026-03-16T15:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:46:15","slug":"humpbacks-in-howe-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/humpbacks-in-howe-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"Humpbacks in Howe Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A photo by Burns Jennings of a whale that surfaced near his boat in Seymour Bay in 2022<\/em>. I’m on the shore in front of a garage door, watching through my binoculars<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2005, my friend Pauline Le Bel wrote a musical about the history of Bowen Island, starting with the Big Bang and coming up tot the present day. I was watching the video of the performance today and was struck by the scene where the protagonist, Duncan, learns about how \u00c1tl’ka7tsem\/Howe Sound used to be home to 100 humpback whales.<\/a> The narrator Raiva tells him that the last whale was killed in 1908 and their voice hadn’t been heard in the Sound since. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2005 this was pretty true. Humpbacks hadn’t visited our inlet since the last one was killed in 1908. But in 2008, when they returned.<\/a> My friend Bob Turner made a video <\/a>about this remarkable turnaround.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2022, there were 396 humpbacks in the Salish Sea<\/a>, and the population has continued growing. Now baby humpbacks come with their mothers to spend the summers here, making this region their permanent home. When I asked Bob what was responsible for the remarkable comeback he said, “well, food of course, but mostly it’s amazing what happens when you just stop killing them.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching Pauline’s performance made me remember that in 2005 we had no idea if this would happen. I remember thinking that if I could just see humpbacks back in the inlet in my lifetime I’d be a happy man. Three years later the first one returned. These days, once they return from their winter breeding grounds, they are almost impossible to miss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little hope-core for a rainy March Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A photo by Burns Jennings of a whale that surfaced near his boat in Seymour Bay in 2022. I’m on the shore in front of a garage door, watching through my binoculars. Back in 2005, my friend Pauline Le Bel wrote a musical about the history of Bowen Island, starting with the Big Bang and coming up tot the present day. I was watching the video of the performance today and was struck by the scene where the protagonist, Duncan, learns about how \u00c1tl’ka7tsem\/Howe Sound used to be home to 100 humpback whales. The narrator Raiva tells him that the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bowen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image0000001.jpg?fit=2232%2C1191&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-5dY","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20088,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20086\/revisions\/20088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}