May 22nd - An exciting double species day in Nanaimo's backyard!

May 22nd was a beautiful day as we headed out in our two vessels Cascadia and Kula. We had a report of a humpback whale near the Hudson Rocks Ecological Reserve close to home. The humpback was first travelling slowly around the ecological reserve. We watched the humpback from a safe distance from the Ecological Reserve as it travelled near the reserve as motorized vehicles aren’t allowed in there to protect sensitive habitat and wildlife. As we were watching this humpback slowly swim around we saw the humpback start breach out of nowhere. We saw this humpback breach multiple times which was an amazing sight. The humpback was doing lots of tail slaps as well. After spending about an hour with this humpback, we headed out to see what else we could find.

We got a report of Transient Killer Whales as we were heading out near Northumberland Channel which is close by Duke Point. We found the T46B’s here who were moving quite fast. After a while of moving fairly fast the five of them split up into two groups. Three of them went near the coastline while the other two stuck with their coarse. All of the sudden, the three killer whales near the shore started breaching out of the water. They were hunting a Dall’s porpoise. Dall’s porpoises can travel quite fast racing up to 55 km/h. But Killer Whales can travel a little faster with a maximum speed of 56 km/h. It was an exciting hunt that ended with the killer whales victorious. After feeding, the Killer Whales started to breach! It was an exhilarating day with lots of whale action. Check out some of the photos taken by our Marine Naturalists below:

Jilann LechnerMay 24, 2021Comment