Author and marine conservationist Erich Hoyt will be the featured speaker when The Whale Trail’s Orca Tour 2014 comes to the Port Townsend Marine Science Center on Wednesday and to the Port Angeles Red Lion Hotel on Thursday.
Hoyt, the author of Orca: The Whale Called Killer and Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises, will speak on “Adventures with Orcas in the North Pacific — From A1 Stubbs to Iceberg, the White Russian Bull.”
The Wednesday talk will begin at 5 p.m. at Building 204 at Fort Worden State Park, immediately after the marine science center’s annual meeting.
Hoyt will sell and sign his books at 6:30 p.m.
Admission is $7 for adults, $3 for youths younger than 18 and free for members of the marine science center, which is sponsoring the program with The Whale Tail.
Thursday’s talk will begin at 7 p.m., with doors open at 6:30 p.m., at the Red Lion Hotel, 221 N. Lincoln St. in Port Angeles.
Admission is $5 for adults. Children younger than 12 are admitted free.
The program is presented by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, the Feiro Marine Life Center and The Whale Trail. It is co-sponsored by Sound Community Bank.
Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/633364.
“We are living in an era and in a part of the world where whale research has exploded,” Hoyt said.
“And we’ve got some amazing orca stories to tell here — mostly positive, some heartbreaking, but all compelling.”
Orca Tour 2014 is a monthlong series of event in May that follows The Whale Trail, a series of 50 sites where people in British Columbia and Washington, Oregon and California can view orcas and other marine mammals from shore.
“The tour is especially timely in light of National Marine Fisheries Service’s recent decision to consider designating the Pacific Coast from Cape Flattery to Point Reyes as part of the Southern Resident killer whale critical habitat,” said Donna Sandstrom, executive director of The Whale Trail.
More information can be found at www.orcatour.org.
