Alexandra Bryant Hubbard Morton is a Canadian American marine biologist best known for her 30-year study of wild killer whales in the Broughton Archipelago in British Columbia. Since the 1990s, her work has shifted toward the study of the impact of salmon farming on Canadian wild salmon.
Alexandra Bryant Hubbard was born on 13 July 1957 in Lakeville, Connecticut. In her memoir, Listening to Whales, she said of her birthplace, "I can't imagine a more whaleless environment."Her father was an artist and her sister, Woodleigh Hubbard, is a children’s book illustrator. Hubbard said that her passion for animals came from the time when she would explore the woods with her brother.In 1977, she started working with psychonaut John C. Lilly as a volunteer in the Human/Dolphin Society. She catalogued 2,000 audio recordings of bottlenose dolphins. She then graduated Magna cum Laude from the American University with a Bachelor of Science.
Hubbard married Canadian wildlife filmmaker Robin Morton in 1981. The couple had a son, Jarret, who now works as a rocket scientist for NASA. In 1986 however, her husband drowned after his diving equipment failed. Morton decided to continue her study alone. In 1997, Morton became a Canadian citizen while keeping her American citizenship.
While in California, Morton started studying the communications of dolphins at the now-defunct Marineland of the Pacific in Palos Verdes. When she realized there were too many individuals and that bottlenose dolphins are too quick to record their behaviour, Morton decided to shift her study toward Marineland’s pair of orcas, Orky and Corky, whom she had previously called “boring”. At that time, Corky had been pregnant many times and Morton was interested in studying how baby orcas picked up new language. However, no calf survived more than 45 days and Morton recorded from Corky a behaviour somewhat close to mourning. She also discovered that orcas invented games to distract themselves. One of them, the Double Layout consisted in Orky and Corky laying on their backs, putting their flukes on the platform next to the tank and raising their right flipper.
In 1979, Morton contacted pioneering killer whale researcher Michael Bigg who told her Corky and Orky had come from A5 Pod in British Columbia. She spent her summer there and found A5 pod as well as other orca families. The next summer, she returned to British Columbia and met future husband Robin Morton. Alexandra Morton’s study gradually shifted toward wild orcas. While continuing her study of Orky and Corky at Marineland of the Pacific, she started recording the sounds of northern resident pods in the summer, living on a boat called The Blue Fjord. To support their work, Morton and her husband rented out their boat for tourists and researchers. In 1984, while following the A12 matriline in Northeastern Vancouver Island, Morton discovered the village of Echo Bay in the Broughton Archipelago. She and her husband decided to settle there to pursue their study of wild killer whales.
In 1973, marine biologist Michael Bigg developed a pioneering photo identification system which consists in photographing the dorsal fin and saddle patch of each individual killer whale. Starting in 1975, Bigg and his colleagues began assembling catalogues containing the genealogical tree of every killer whale family in British Columbia and an ID photo of each individual orca. Since arriving in the Broughton Archipelago, Morton has been one of the main contributors to theses catalogues, providing ID photos of northern resident as well as of transient killer whales.
Transient Orcas
For many years, only resident orcas were intensely studied, as their predictable behaviour and their particularly stable social structure enabled researchers to follow them easily over a whole summer. Transients, on the contrary, have erratic route patterns and are thus difficult to study. However, the Broughton Archipelago was the home of many tansient groups and since the mid eighties, Alexandra Morton has been conducting the study of this little known community. One of her main discoveries has been that the differences in feeding habits between residents and transients lead each community to different behaviours. She noted that transients, unlike residents, are mostly silent. As their mammalian prey have very good hearing, vocalizing could alert them of the predators approaching. Moreover, the seals and sea lions’ good eyesight and their ability to teach their offspring make it imperative for transients to swim as stealthily as possible by taking longer dives than residents and hiding their breaths among other noises. One transient Morton knew well even used to hide behind her boat to avoid being detected by potential prey. In 1987, Morton expanded her study to Pacific white-sided dolphins which had come back to the archipelago three years prior.
Raincoast Research Society and BASA
In 1981, Morton founded Lore Quest, later renamed Raincoast Research Society. Its original purpose was, according to its website, to "conduct year-round research on the acoustics of the orca of the British Columbia coast". Over the years, Raincoast Research has also been involved in making identification catalogues of the Pacific-White-Sided Dolphin population in British Columbia. Following the expansion of the salmon farming industry in the Broughton Archipelago, Raincoast Research has been involved in studies on the impact of salmon farming and has provided support for a number of field workers and scientists interested in this subject. In 1999, Morton established the Broughton Archipelago Stewardship Alliance (BASA) to hire and educate local people to assess, monitor, recommend restoration and restore small salmon-bearing creeks in the Broughton Archipelago.
In 1988, the first salmon farms arrived in British Columbia. Since then, the salmon farming industry has grown, notably in the Broughton Archipelago. Starting in 1993, Morton began an active campaign against Acoustic Harassment Devices (AHD), which salmon farmers used to deter seals that approached the farms. Sound being killer whales’ main tool for foraging and travelling, most of them left the Broughton Archipelago. Morton’s campaign, which included sending 10,000 letters to various levels of government paid off in 2001 when salmon farmers withdrew the use of AHDs. However, the killer whales haven’t come back yet to the Archipelago. Moreover, Morton has been studying the effects of sea lice on wild salmon populations. By collaborating with international scientists, Morton has documented the loss of the whales, thousands of escaped farm salmon, lethal outbreaks of sea lice, and antibiotic resistance near salmon farms. She has called for further efforts to limit the spread of sea lice and move salmon farms further offshore so they have no impact on wild salmon.
