We had an action-packed day on July 23rd with lots of killer whales and humpbacks around in the Salish Sea!

Our morning boats headed northeast towards the city of Vancouver to discover an active pod of orcas hunting in Howe Sound. There were three whales working together, T49A2, T77C and T77D. We saw them porpoising out of the water, slapping their tails, lobbing their tails, doing headstands, and then try to catch some lunch.

This ecotype of killer whales feed on exclusively marine mammals, and during this tour they had themselves a harbour seal in the mix. We could see them toying with the seal, trying to slam their bodies on top of it, circling it, and then letting it come up for air. While our engines were shut off the seal suddenly surfaced next to our boat and quickly realized we could be the life raft it needed to save its life!

The seal swam to our stern and climbed out of the water onto our boat, out of the hungry killer whales’ reach. The whales spent some time circling our boat and trying to intimidate and splash the seal off, but it looked pretty comfortable being out of the water. Eventually the whales gave up and swam away, and the seal got to live another day!

In the afternoon our boats set out at 3:30 and headed south through Dodd Narrows and into the Gulf Islands. Less than an hour into the search and we came across a large group of Bigg’s killer whales! There were 8-10 in this group and they were traveling and foraging near Thetis Island. We were able to identify some of the whales based off of their dorsal fins and saddle patches. They were the T37s and T37As!

T37 is a matriarch with a very triangular fin and she was born in 1979. She travels with her daughter T37B who was born in 1998, and her two grand-whales T037B1 and T037B2 who were born in 2012 and 2017 respectively. They were traveling with another large family group led by matriarch T037A “Volker”, who was born in 1994. She has five living offspring who usually travel with her, the newest edition being T037A5 who was born in 2019!

On our way back we also found a humpback whale milling near Entrance Island. We’ve been so lucky to have so many of these gentle giants feeding in the northern Strait of Georgia this early in the season!

Overall, what a great day on the water! Please enjoy our photos taken by marine naturalists Cheyenne and Rebeka.