July 8th - the T046s right outside Nanaimo

It was another beautiful day out on the water when our semi-covered vessel Kula left the dock in the morning! They headed out searching of some of the whales that have been found in our waters lately and were lucky enough to find the T046s! This is a pod of transient orca that usually consists of 5 members: Wake (T046), Centeki (T122), Strider (T046D), Thor (T046E), and Loki (T046F). Today there was only four of them found as Strider wasn’t with them.

We found them travelling north just past Snake Island off of Nanaimo. They were travelling pretty fast up north but we managed to stick with them and get some really nice looks. The big boy of the group there was Thor. He is a 18 year old male meaning that he has already gone through puberty and developed the large dorsal fins that the male orca are known for. Did you know that the dorsals on the males can reach up to 6 feet tall? That’s taller than most of our staff here at Vancouver Island Whale Watch!

Loki is also a male but is only 9 years old (born in 2012) so he has yet to develop the large dorsal fin. When it first starts to grow we call it “sprouting” as the dorsal undergoes a huge change in a relatively short period of time. Small nicks out of the dorsal fin that happen pre-sprouting can become quite large and stretched out over time. That is likely the case with Thor’s obvious nick out of his dorsal. you can see the stretch and the small piece of skin that used to be able to cover that entire space. In our transient orca population there are quite a few examples of these large nicks found in males. This can also be helpful to us as the large dorsals are easier to spot and when the notches are large it can be used to identify them more easily.

Please enjoy the rest of the photos from the trip taken by Marine Naturalist Ryan Uslu.