September 24, 2015 KILLER WHALE EXPERT AND AUTHOR ERICH HOYT IN OCTOBER ³ORCA TOUR 2015² TALKS IN BC AND PUGET SOUND Contact: Donna Sandstrom, The Whale Trail, (206) 919-5397 Internationally-renowned author and killer whale expert Erich Hoyt will speak in October along the Whale Trail at locations in British Columbia and Puget Sound. ³Orca Tour 2015² celebrates the seasonal return of the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales to central Puget Sound and builds awareness of the whales throughout their range. This transboundary tour is especially timely with the birth of the fifth calf in the Southern Resident Killer Whale pods since December 2014. Promoted by The Whale Trail and local sponsoring organizations, Hoyt¹s talks are scheduled for: Oct. 3- Saturna BC. ³Creatures of the Deep² hosted by Saturna Island Marine Research & Education Society and sponsored by the Capital Regional District at the Saturna Community Hall; Oct. 6- Sidney BC. ³Adventures with Orcas in the North Pacific² hosted by Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre and Raincoast Conservation Foundation at the Centre; Oct. 10- Olympia WA. ³Adventures with Orcas in the North Pacific² hosted by The Whale Trail at the Olympia Friends Meeting Hall; Oct. 11- Tacoma WA. ³Adventures with Orcas in the North Pacific² hosted by Citizens for a Healthy Bay at the UW Carwein Hall; and Oct. 13- Seattle WA. ³Ants, Orcas and Creatures of the Deep² hosted by The Whale Trail at the Hall at Fauntleroy in West Seattle. Tickets for the Saturna talk are available at the door for $10; for the Sidney talk, go to Eventbrite http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/orcatoursidney-tickets-18576310244?aff=es2 . Tickets for the Washington talks are available through Brown Paper Tickets, http://brownpapertickets.com (search Erich Hoyt). Erich Hoyt¹s first killer whale expedition to Johnstone Strait sailed from Victoria, BC in June 1973. He proceeded to spend parts of the next 10 summers with orcas, culminating in his now classic book Orca: The Whale Called Killer. He is the author of 22 books including The Earth Dwellers and Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises. His most recent book is the greatly expanded Creatures of the Deep, with state-of-the-art photographs and stories of amazing species new to science. In 1999 Hoyt, a Whale and Dolphin Conservation Research Fellow, co-founded the Far East Russia Orca Project (FEROP) to learn more about orca pods targeted for aquarium captures and to get Russian students involved in science and conservation of killer whales in Russian waters. Now in its 15th year, FEROP has recorded the Russian pods and photo-IDed some 1500 orcas off Kamchatka and in the Commander Islands including three white orcas found so far in the study areas. ³We are living in an era and in a part of the world where whale research has exploded,² said Hoyt. ³And we¹ve got some amazing orca stories to tell heremostly positive, some heartbreaking, but all compelling.² ³Orca Tour 2015² celebrates the growing transboundary success and collaboration between British Columbia organizations and The Whale Trail a model for conservation everywhere. The Whale Trail is working closely with the BC Cetacean Sightings Network and other groups to add new Whale Trail sites from Victoria to Prince Rupert. Interpretive panels will be installed at five locations this fall, and 30 sites in the southern Gulf Island will be marked with distinctive Whale Trail markers. East Point, Saturna Island was the first BC Whale Trail site, and the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney is the most recent. Orca Tour 2015 marks an historic return to Olympia, where Erich gave his first presentation in the region almost 40 years ago. Erich spoke during the first Orca Symposium at Evergreen State College in 1976. The Symposium coincided with orca captures in nearby Budd Inlet that led to their banning in Washington State. For more information on The Whale Trail and Orca Tour 2015, go to http://orcatour.org and http://www.facebook.com/orcatour2015 http://www.thewhaletrail.org and http://www.facebook.com/thewhaletrail.org # # # -- Mike Sato Salish Sea Communications: Truth Well Told http://salishseacommunications.blogspot.com/2011/10/salish-sea-communication s-truth-well.html msato@rockisland.com 206.229.2844 http://salishseacom.com http://salishseanews.blogspot.com