May 2nd - A lone humpback near Thetis Island

On May 2nd, our open boat Cascadia and our semi-covered Kula set off in search of whales. The weather was sunny and the water was super smooth making it a perfect day for whale watching. Cascadia found a young humpback called Hammer hanging around Thetis Island. Hammer was born in 2019, making him two years old. Humpback calves stick close to their mom for the first year of their life and after that, they set out on their own. Hammer has been around this area for a while feeding. Hammer’s mom is a humpback called “Claw” (BCX0749) and she was first seen in 2011. Female humpbacks usually start breeding around the ages of 5-10. They usually have calves evert 2-3 years, so its possible that Claw might come back with a calf. The gestation period for humpback whales is about a year.

During our hour with Hammer, they were surfacing very frequently as they were doing pec slaps, tail lobs and lots of flukes. After our time with Hammer, we found lots of other wildlife including harbour seals, bald eagles, Steller sea lions, blue herons, cormorants and a peregrine falcon. Check out the pictures our naturalists Rebeka Pirker and Ryan Uslu took below:

Jilann LechnerMay 4, 2021Comment