Whales & Dolphins & Marine Protected Areas, Oh My!

A few stories from Don Kelly.

Killer whale close pass

Don, Warden and Patrol Captain for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, takes his job seriously. He’s out there day after day ensuring that people comply with the regulations protecting our wildlife resources. So he’s seen it all! But once again, it’s those whales, in this case, orcas, that made his day. Don shares his whale tales, while also giving us a glimpse into a warden’s rounds enforcing the law and working with the public.

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE WARDEN DON KELLY is currently a Patrol Captain for the North Coast District. Don heads the southern-most Captain’s District in the North Coast District, which includes Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties. He has been with the Department for forty years.

Don was born in Los Angeles and grew up on a small farm in the San Fernando Valley, where he had a lot of experience learning animal behavior. He was actively engaged in 4-H, and a lot of his background is associated with the animal husbandry he did in 4-H. Those activities gave him really good insight into domestic animal behavior, as well as wildlife behavior.

His interest in law enforcement arose from a positive experience he had as a child with his grandparents who took him fishing three times every summer. One time they got checked by a game warden, while fishing at a reservoir in the eastern Sierras. For Don it was an incredibly positive experience, and he told his grandmother, “This is a great job, wow!” That moment stuck with him.

That early encounter with a warden, plus Don’t passion for the biological field, being with animals, invertebrates, and everything in the biological realm led him to pursue a career with wildlife law enforcement.

In college, Don got a general degree in biology, but then did graduate work at Cal State Hayward in marine ecology. Cal State Hayward was associated with Moss Landing Marine Lab back then when it was just a singlewide trailer. His education gave him a really good sense of the ecological issues involved in the marine environment.

You can watch Don’s story on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6jIibUgSe4

WHALES AND DOLPHINS, AND MARINE PROTECTED AREAS, OH MY!

I can tell a combination of all the things that I have done. A lot of people have done very positive things here in the Bay from a research or purely biological standpoint. Mine is a little different, in that enforcement usually deals with the negative side of things. OK.

We’re out there to ensure people are complying with the regulations, wherever they have been established.  And so we are looking for violations, but in looking for these violations, we find some phenomenal things. So few people ever get the opportunity to see a pod of orcas. I’ve only seen orcas on the water twice in my career!  And the nine that we saw the one time was the first time I took one of my brand new wardens out with me to teach him how to use the boat. And there were nine of them that we watched for awhile. I told him, “You know, this is not normal, so this is a special occurrence.”

That first time I saw orcas, all I saw was this (hand motion). I’m driving the boat, and “What the heck was that?” I’m watching, and I saw it again.  I’m going, “What the heck was that?” And then I go, “Oh, I’m seeing dorsal fins coming right at me, so I took a hard left out of their path, and stopped the boat and just waited for them to go by, and then I knew I was able to confirm. They were orcas. I wasn’t able to confirm until I actually saw them go by me.

This was six weeks ago where we saw that pod of orcas. Phenomenal experience! I told Rich, I said, “Be very careful how you explain how you had such a hard day on the water today, to your wife, ok?” (Big smile) “She may not want to hear how much fun you had.” And it is. No two days in forty years have ever been the same. That’s one of the reasons I hate to give it up. I hate to give it up. (Don has just been forced to retire by state regulations.)

I’ve flown the Monterey Bay area so many times and also seen things like when a pod of Risso’s dolphins comes in following the giant squid. And you see three hundred or so dolphins from the air that are in a feeding frenzy – it is a phenomenal sight. These are the things that people don’t get to see from land, because you have to get out there on a boat or a plane.

Then we’ve gone out to check the albacore fleet at Pioneer Seamount, and on the way out there we had dolphins surfing our bow wake for hours! Those are the kinds of things that are intrinsically valuable that you don’t forget about, even though you’re focusing on making sure that the people that are engaged in activities involving consumptive use on the ocean and in the bay are complying with the regulations.

Yes, we’re the enforcement division of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Our job is to ensure people are complying with the rules and regulations that are set up to protect and control consumptive use on the oceans and the environment.

It’s negative from the standpoint that we’re stopping people from doing something that they want to do. A lot of people don’t have self-control when it comes to catching fish, or crabs, or abalone, or something like that. We’re there to ensure that they do.

We also get the positive spin on that when we do find people in compliance, and we get more and more people to buy-in on the regulations there to protect something that they really enjoy.  Fishing is a passion for a lot of people as well as a recreation. They are basically coming into a situation where they are part of the solution. And you gain compliance by making sure that they understand what the rules and regulations are so they want to comply with them.

Ninety percent of the people will do the right thing if you give them the right information. And so another aspect of the job is to get that word out there, “Hey these are what the regulations are, and this is why.” We explain to them why. Once you explain the ‘why’ to most people, they do, in fact, want to comply and make sure that they can continue with their passion, their recreation and pass it on to their kids and grandkids. It’s a very positive thing.

Then there’s the Marine Protected Area process. I’ve been involved with that since 2002. It was the most wide-sweeping change of regulations and regulatory issues involved in ocean fishing in my lifetime. It’s been a very difficult road. But what we have seen is people understand that the Marine Protected Areas can help to protect and perpetuate these populations of fish that they enjoy from a consumptive standpoint.

They enjoy going after salmon and rockfish and so on and so forth, and to set aside areas, that either protect their habitat totally or allow for moderate take in reasonably good habitat was a hard sell right at the beginning. But then we were able to get the word out with the help of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and with the help of a lot of non-governmental organizations. We were getting the word out to people as to why we need these protected areas, and how we are making a difference. Then there’s also been research that’s going along to show that this is a positive thing, and will, in fact, help to perpetuate those species well into the future. And that’s the plan.

We don’t want to see anything get diminished or go extinct, and that’s why I’ve done what I’ve done for forty years. I want to make sure that continues on, because that’s the right thing to do, for everybody. And for the resources themselves, the resources are what our focus is. So from that standpoint, that’s what we’re going to do

A pod of killer whales

Killer whales

Thank you for sharing your stories with us Don!