May 23rd - Incognito near Porlier Pass
May 23rd was a sunny day with a slight chop when we headed out in search of whales. After searching for a little while, we came across a humpback called “Incognito” near Porlier Pass. Incognito was identified by the Marine Education and Research Society (MERS) and the only other known sighting of this humpback from MERS was in May 2020, around Northeast Vancouver Island.
We use a combination of the dorsal fin, the pattern and the trailing edge of the fluke to identify individual humpback whales. These beautiful animals were hunted to the brink of extinction and it’s only been in the past 5-10 years that we’ve seen a tremendous exponential growth of the population locally in the Salish Sea. Keta Coastal Conservation is a local non-profit that has been researching the return of these humpbacks to the Salish Sea. Like MERS, Keta catalogues individuals, and this will be a new whale to add to their catalogue this year!
While we watched this whale, Incognito was travelling and doing some deep dives. Humpbacks travel from the breeding grounds of Mexico, Hawaii and Central Asia to the feeding grounds in Canada and Alaska every spring. Their spring migration from the breeding grounds to the feeding grounds usually takes 4-8 weeks. Sometimes we have humpbacks who stay over the winter or they come back really early. It’s still unknown why some may choose to stay the winter but it could be that they have no reason to go south and would rather stay here with the food. Young humpbacks who are not yet sexually mature can be seen doing this occasionally, and this could be the case for this young humpback.
Check out the pictures our naturalist Cheyenne Brewster got below:
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Animation photos by Cheyenne Brewster.