THE MARINE DETECTIVE

The Marine Detective aka Jackie Hildering is the winner of SWCC’s 2018 People’s Choice Award for Canada's Favourite Canadian Science Site. She is an educator, Humpback Whale researcher, underwater photographer, and author living on Vancouver Island, BC. She co-founded the Marine Education and Research Society and is active in conservation and as a naturalist trainer.

The Marine Detective

sea slug, Alabaster Nudibranch (Dirona albolineata) at a depth of 3 metres

The first sentence on The Marine Detective’s page reads, “Join me in the cold, dark, life-sustaining NE Pacific Ocean to discover the great beauty, mystery and fragility hidden there.”

It’s an invitation. If you accept, there’s a good chance your mind will be blown (in a good way).

An excellent place to start is the photos. Many of The Marine Detective’s underwater images are from a part of the ocean that even most divers have never seen. She dives the cold, dark waters off Vancouver Island’s northeast coast. As promised, she captures great beauty, mystery and fragility with her camera. If you think exquisite, colourful life forms are only found on tropical coral reefs and not in dark, cold water, prepare to be amazed.

Photos

One of the things I like about The Marine Detective’s site is that there is no sign-in and no ad-packed slideshows. You can view the lush, full size images without annoying distractions, possibly for much, much longer than you’d planned to spend oohing and aahing at the mysteries of the deep. For the divers and photogs, there’s technical info about the photographs.

Jackie’s blogs about marine animals drew me in and kept me reading. I came across something called Bubble-Net Feeding. What could that possibly be?

Turns out it’s a co-operative hunting strategy of humpback whales. A well-coordinated team works together to corral a school of small fish by blowing bubbles into a netlike shape. While some whales are hard at work doing that, another whale, the caller, screams like you’ve never heard a whale scream before. It’s one of the freakiest sounding things you’ll ever hear. You might not be anthropomorphizing when you think you hear rising excitement in the caller’s shriek. You can learn how and why, watch the humpbacks work together, and listen to the astounding caller here: Bubble-Net Feeding

While checking out Jackie’s Orca blogs, I came across a whale of a tale spawned by a viral video in 2015. Orca were seen rubbing their bellies on a pebbly bottom in shallow waters off the Discovery Islands. The internet went wild. No Orca had ever done this before! Um, wrong. According to The Marine Detective, “It’s not rare behaviour at all. It is rare that people get to see it.” Not only does Jackie explain what’s going on, she even identifies the individual belly-rubbing whales! Other recordings have surfaced since the original viral video and have been added to the story:  Beach Rubbing Orca

And if you’ve ever wondered how, exactly, an octopus poos (and let’s face it, who hasn’t), you’re welcome. Octopus Pooing

The blog includes links to more resources and research, and there are informative excerpts of The Marine Detective from various TV programs on the site as well.

There’s something for the kiddies too. Her book, Find the Fish, is a Where's Waldo of the fish world. It’s intended for kids aged 5 to 10 and the adults who love them. There is another Find the Fish in the works, scheduled to be published in 2019. Find the Fish is available on The Marine Detective site, along with calendars, cards and prints featuring Jackie’s photographs.

The Marine Detective, Canada’s Favourite Science Site, is a love letter to nature, to the ecosystems that support all life. If you love something, you want to learn more about it, and when you know more about it and realize its true worth, you want to protect and nurture it. You want others to discover, love, and protect it too. And that, in short, is what The Marine Detective’s site is all about.

Along with her fact-based blogs, Jackie writes about the things that are on her mind and in her heart. Below is a meme she created for her site, and closing thoughts from The Marine Detective herself.

Humpback Whale “Jigger”

It is such a limitation to think, and feel, and speak in a way that this is somehow about something outside ourselves . . . saving “the environment.” We are the environment. It’s not about saving something outside ourselves ... whales, wetlands, trees, fish. It’s about choices that benefit ourselves and future generations, providing the greatest chances for health and happiness. It’s about children. That’s what all these photos and words are about here on “The Marine Detective” folks. Inspiration. Connection. Understanding our capacity for positive change. Caring More. Consuming Less. Voting for the future. And, knowing our place IN the environment.

Jackie Hildering

The Marine Detective