Read The Swarm for Free Online Page B

where the coast is rocky, they stay in the water, but in South America they’ll haul themselves on to the beach to hunt seals and other animals. It’s amazing to watch.’
    He paused, but she didn’t speak so he went on: ‘The third type lives in the waters around the island in large family groups. How well do you know the island?’
    â€˜A little.’
    â€˜To the east there’s the Johnstone Strait, a channel of water separating it from the mainland. Resident orcas live there all year round. They only eat salmon. We’ve been monitoring their social behaviour since the 1970s—’ He stopped. ‘Why am I telling you all this?’
    She laughed. ‘I’m sorry, I got you sidetracked. And I’m curious. You were trying to explain which whales have vanished and which are still here.’
    â€˜That’s right. But—’
    â€˜You’re busy.’
    Anawak glanced at his notebook and laptop. His paper had to be finished by tomorrow but…‘Are you staying at the Wickaninnish Inn?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Do you have plans for the evening?’
    â€˜Oh!’ She grinned. ‘The last time anyone asked me that was ten years ago.’
    He grinned back. ‘I was thinking of my belly. I thought we could talk more over dinner.’
    â€˜Good plan.’ She slid off the tree-trunk, stubbed out her cigarette anddropped the butt into her pocket. ‘I warn you, I always talk with my mouth full. By the way,’ she held out her hand, ‘I’m Samantha Crowe. Call me Sam.’
    â€˜Leon Anawak.’
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    Situated on a rocky promontory at the front of the hotel, the restaurant commanded an impressive view of Clayoquot Sound and the islands, with the bay and the temperate rainforest behind it. Anawak and Crowe sat at a table by the window - which would have been perfect for whale-watching, if there’d been anything to see.
    â€˜The problem,’ Anawak said, ‘is that the transients and the offshore orcas haven’t shown up. There are still large numbers of residents, but they don’t like the west of the island, even though living in the Johnstone Strait is starting to get uncomfortable for them.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜How would you feel if you had to share your home with ferries, cargo ships, liners and sport-fishing vessels? Besides, the region lives off the timber industry and entire forests are being transported to Asia. Once the trees are gone, the rivers fill with silt, the salmon lose their spawning grounds and the resident orcas have nothing to eat.’
    â€˜It’s not just the orcas you’re worried about, though, is it?’
    â€˜The grey whales and humpbacks are a major headache. They usually reach Vancouver at the beginning of March by which stage they won’t have eaten for months. During the winter, in Baja California, they live off their blubber, but they can’t do that for ever. It’s only when they get here that they eat again.’
    â€˜Maybe they’ve gone further out to sea.’
    â€˜There’s not enough for them to eat out there either. Here in Wickaninnish Bay, for instance, the grey whales find a key source of nutrition that they can’t get in the ocean. Onuphis elegans .’
    â€˜ Elegans? Sounds lovely.’
    Anawak smiled.
    â€˜It’s a long, thin worm. The bay is nice and sandy, which suits the worms, and the grey whales love them. Without little snacks like that they’d never make it to the Arctic.’ He took a sip of his water. ‘In the mid-1980s things were so bad that the whales didn’t stop here. But that was because hardly any were left - they’d been hunted almost to extinction. Since then we’ve managed to raise their numbers but thereare only about twenty thousand grey whales in the world, and you should find most of them here.’
    â€˜But this year they haven’t