Meet Blue Moon and Eddy Fitz: WWU students get to name a pair of the Salish Sea’s Humpback Whales

Swimming through the water at a leisurely pace, two beautiful humpback whales surface to let out an explosive breath before elegantly descending back down into the waters of the Salish Sea. These two whales, like many other whales in the Humpback Whales of the Salish Sea database, have names: meet Blue Moon and Eddy Fitz.

During the 2025 fall session of SALI490, the Salish Sea Studies Community Seminar, taught by WWU Salish Sea Institute Director Ginny Broadhurst and Associate Director Cindy Elliser, the class of Western students was given the delightful opportunity to name two whales that had been newly identified by the Humpback Whales of the Salish Sea (HWSS) project. Tasli Shaw, a marine naturalist and artist, is the co-founder and project lead for the database. Shaw presented the students with the naming opportunity after she was invited to speak to the class about the return of humpback whales to the waters of the Salish Sea.

Broadhurst said the SALI490 course showcases environmental success stories to the students to emphasize the positive trends resulting from work currently being done in the region.

“The humpbacks are recovering because the International Whaling Commission declared a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982,” said Broadhurst. “And today we’re seeing what a difference that made.”

After much deliberation and many scrapped ideas, the students eventually landed on the names Blue Moon (BCX 2321), a name inspired by the whale’s distinctive moon-shaped tail markings, and Eddy Fitz (BCY 1338), a name referencing the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. Both whales are catalogued in the HWSS and HappyWhale databases and can be tracked by both their nicknames and alphanumeric names.

“It's citizen science. It gets the people interested in protecting our whales, our waterways. Once you learn how to identify a whale, that’s an individual,” said Sy Jones, one of the SALI490 students who helped name the whales. “Getting the public engaged in science, even if they’re not going to be scientists, makes them more likely to support measures to protect our oceans.”

The Humpback Whales of the Salish Sea project has been photographing and cataloging humpback whales in the Pacific Northwest since 2022, identifying over 1,000 individual whales. Humpbacks have been slowly returning to their former ranges within the Salish Sea after being exploited by commercial whaling in the early 1900s. Identifying and naming specific whales allows marine scientists to track their feeding and migration patterns, social associations, and how they’ve been impacted by human activity.

“People want to help. We feel like we have no place to start,” said Anna Marsh, another student who helped name the whales. “These efforts involve the public, making it feel like it’s not just a scientific effort we have no say in.”

“Big Mama,” a female humpback whale, was one of the first whales spotted regularly returning to the waters of the Salish Sea. Her initial return sighting in 1997, along with her first returning calf, “Divot,” in 2003, sparked a surge of public support for the return of humpback whales. 

Now, the tradition of naming newly identified whales continues to garner encouragement and attention for marine conservation efforts.

People will conserve what they love, Elliser said, and effective communication is essential when gathering public support for conservation efforts.

“Conservation isn’t just about science, it’s about connection,” said Elliser. “Conservation happens because people care and work together for a better future. That happens when people are connected to the environment and each other.”

The HWSS project interfaces with HappyWhale, another whale identification database, and other marine scientists to ensure an identified whale doesn’t already have a name. The HappyWhale database has been broadly naming and cataloging humpback whales since 2015, and has since expanded to track many other species, including penguins and dolphins.

The HWSS project allows the public to vote on the nicknames of newly identified whales. HappyWhale also allows the public to adopt and name newly identified whales.

So the next time you catch the enormous tail fin of a humpback whale splashing back down into the Salish Sea, snap a photo. You might be the first person to give it a name.

Ava Nicholas is the 2025-26 Tahlequah Intern, a paid internship made possible by a generous gift through The Foundation for WWU & Alumni and overseen by the Salish Sea Institute and the Office of University Communications. She is a Journalism-Public Relations and Theatre major, with an Honors minor.