September 5th - 5 humpbacks 20 minutes from our harbour!

On September 5th our open boats Keta and Cascadia headed out to find some whales. We found Heather (BCY0160), her 2020 calf Neowise, Divot (BCX1057), and Split Fluke (BCX1068) Just off of Gabriola Island only 20 minutes outside the Nanaimo Harbour. This isn’t the first time we’ve come across this particular group of Humpbacks. These ladies and little Neowise have been making their rounds near Gabriola, slowly moving North, for the last week or so.

This group of Humpbacks is particularly interesting, not just because it is 3 adult females and a calf together, but because Heather is also the mom of SplitFluke. Split Fluke is getting to know her new half brother quite well.

Humpback behaviour is still vastly unknown. For the most party they seem to travel alone, or with their calf, and occasionally in small feeding groups. However we’ve begun to see trends in adult females hanging out together, and no we are seeing adults spending time with their moms. Heather spent almost all summer last year with Raptor, another adult female, and both of them have calves this year. Do pregnant females congregate and spend their pregnancy together? Learning humpback behaviour can take years, as we have to develop patterns, and this is where Photo Identification becomes very important. Knowing these girls are hanging out together, we can watch next year to see if Split Fluke or Divot comes back with a calf and start to keep track of this behaviour.

We also found a lone humpback traveling in the area, but were unable to ID this one.

Check out the photos below that our marine naturalists got during the tour.

Heather and Neowise - Photo by Ryan Uslu

Jilann LechnerSeptember 13, 2020Comment