Welcome to the Q3 2026 issue of Tula Quarterly.
Some things only become visible when you stay in one place long enough to notice them. A humpback photographed around Calvert Island more than a decade ago turns up there again. A faint trace of European green crab DNA surfaces in a sample of seawater collected for an entirely different purpose. An instrument rides the same column of water up and down, thousands of times, catching changes that occasional measurements would miss. This issue is about what comes from paying close attention to a place over time.
In this issue:
The Whales Who Know Fitz Hugh. A five-day survey documents 78 individual humpbacks along the Central Coast, including whales first photographed around Calvert Island more than a decade ago, adding to a growing picture of how individual humpbacks return to particular stretches of coast.
Before the Crabs Take Hold. European green crabs are appearing around Calvert Island in small numbers. Hakai and Heiltsuk are combining trapping, local knowledge and environmental DNA to understand an invasion while its signals are still faint.
Same Questions, New Ways. From a new landing craft to wave-powered Wirewalkers, Hakai's oceanography team is building a more flexible way to observe coastal waters, changing how often, where and at what scale long-standing questions can be asked.
Whether recognizing a returning whale, detecting a few molecules of crab DNA, or repeatedly tracing the same column of water, observations accumulated over time build a deeper knowledge of a coast and a better chance of recognizing when it changes.