Most people think of killer whales when they think of the Salish Sea, but in the early 1900s humpback whales were one of the most common large whales seen in the region. Whalers killed them off by the 1950s and erased them from most people’s memories. Humpback whales were seen again in the San Juan Islands late in the 1980s, and the population is now rebounding.

On Tuesday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m., Dr. Jeremy Goldbogen of Cascadia Research will give a presentation on humpback whales. In a feat that makes Olympic distance runners seem like toddlers, humpback whales migrate every six months between their summering grounds in the North Pacific and their wintering grounds in Hawaii or Southern Mexico. It’s quite a journey, even for a whale that is 1.5 times as long as a school bus. Goldbogen will entertain with stories about the singing of male humpbacks, their interesting feeding behaviors and new findings on these whales that, like killer whales, can be identified individually.

Goldbogen, a whale researcher at Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, was a 2010 Scripps Postdoctoral Research Fellow in marine biology. He received a B.S. and Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of British Columbia, respectively.

“The 2010/11 Marine Science Lecture Series was created to inspire the general public and to highlight the amazing fish and wildlife of our region,” say organizers.

Lectures are free. Park in the upper parking lot at Camp Orkila. Shuttle service from the parking lot to the talk is available before and after the lecture.