April 14th - Double species day in the Salish Sea!

What a gorgeous day! It was a little breezy but the sun was shining and the Salish Sea was teeming with life. Our 12pm open boat headed out of downtown Nanaimo and found some curious sea lions swimming in lush emerald seas. These guys exhibit so much personality and the funniest facial expressions!

We continued on our journey and found a small humpback whale. Humpback whales are migratory species that spend their winters down south in the warm waters and their summers up north in the cold, productive feeding grounds. There aren’t too many humpbacks in our area yet but we have had several in the Salish Sea this week. It is crazy to think how many are mid-journey right now; somewhere in the deep Pacific and many with a calf in tow!

We encountered this particular humpback whale on April 3rd in the same general area. We can identify it because of the unique white and black markings on its fluke, as well as the jagged trailing edge. We watched it milling and searching for food in the flowing currents between the Gulf Islands.

Afterwards, when we thought the majority of the adventure was over, we encountered a pod of Bigg’s killer whales! This specific ecotype feeds exclusively on marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, porpoises, and dolphins. They are nick named the ‘Wolves of the Sea’ because of their pack-like pods and stealth hunting behaviours.

The two killer whales that we encountered were T77A and T49A2, both adults and from different familiar pods. T77A is a large bull who has a very tall dorsal fin with two notches about half way down. These features make him a pretty easy one to identify, whereas females and juveniles can be much trickier. To identify T49A2 we noticed that she has a small notch in the top of her dorsal fin, as well as some pretty dark scarring in her white saddle patch. We watched these two milling near Active Pass before making our short journey home.

Here are some of the best photos taken that day by marine naturalist Rebeka Pirker. If you’d like to join us on one of our adventures you can book directly through our website or give our office a call! We’ve got lots of wildlife to show you!