September 18th - A foggy day spent with Orca and Humpbacks!

On the 18th of September our boats left the harbour and headed out into the fog. the visibility was low but despite that the boat still managed to find both orca and humpback whales on their trip! the orca, found first, were two pods travelling together: the T065Bs and the T123s! Together the two pods had 7 whales travelling with them, including one large male T123 Stanley! These two pods were being social and travelling together in the middle of the Strait of Georgia. Pods will often be found travelling together in the area, partly due to the social nature of the animals and because of the general make-up of their pods. Since pods are actually family groups which are lead by the matriarch grouping up with others means socialization outside of your family and, in some cases, breeding opportunities. On todays tour it seemed like more of a social meeting as no breeding behaviours were observed. The social nature of these animals is very apparent when watching them, even when we just catch them travelling from point to point. They are often seen surfacing very close to each other, close enough to be touching. Touch is an important aspect of socialization in these animals. Calves and mothers are the best example of this as a young whale won’t stray too far from their mothers side.

After watching the orca travelling along through the fog we left in search of other wildlife, and that’s when we came across the Humpback Whales! It was a group of two travelling and feeding together. The two whales were Anvil and Graze. These two humpbacks were doing long dives while we watched them, diving down to about 200m to find their food and gulp it up in huge mouthfuls. These dives can last for up to 30 minutes but typically we see dive times of between 5-10 minutes. It is an amazing sight to see their large flukes rising out of the water propelling them down into the water.

Overall it was an amazing day on the water filled with a ton of whales and other wildlife along the way! Enjoy the photos from the day taken by Marine Naturalist Rebeka Pirker.

Humpback Whale Anvil.

Humpback whale Graze.