July 31st 10:30 - what a whale of a day!

On a beautiful Saturday morning our 3 boats headed out into the Strait of Georgia to find some whales. As usual our boats took slightly different routes to cover more ground while searching for wildlife. One of our boats came across some familiar faces, Slate and her calf, near Porlier Pass. These 2 did what they normally do, and gave our boat cascadia a good show, as the calf rolled through the waters playing and saying high to us. At the same time our other 2 boats had found an orca T-party near the Washington boarder. 3 pods of familiar orcas were playing and socializing with each other.

Here are some of the best photos from our tour this morning taken by Marine Naturalists Val Watson and Brad Farrow

These 3 pods of orcas have been traveling together on and off for a few weeks now. The T137s, T37A’s, T65A’s and at least 1 member of the T36A pod, little T36A2, Kailas born in 2012.
These pods are made up of 16 whales in total.

137 - Loon (1984)
137A - Jack (2002)
137B - Tempest (2006)
137D - Wright (2012)

T37A - Volker (1994)
T37A1 - Inyo (2007)
T37A2 - Inky (2009)
T37A3 - Spinnaker (2013)
T37A4 - Crinkle (2015)
T37A5 (2019)

T656A - Artemis (1986)
T65A2 - Ooxjaa (2004)
T65A3 - Amira (2007)
T65A4 - Ellifrit (2011)
T65A5 - Elsie (2014)
T65A6 - Cllisto (2018)

The 3 pods spent all day splashing and rolling over each other, with Jack spending a lot of time very close to Volker. We’ll be keeping a close eye on Volker late next year to see if there is a new member in the pod! Orcas are pregnant for 18 months before they give brith to a single calf, and with what we’ve seen we may have a new T37A on the way. But only time will tell. We also won’t ever know if Jack is the father of the calf, as male orcas do not help raise their calves, as far as we are aware.

T36A2, Kailas, with some new notches that aren’t visible in their ID photo. Photo by Val Watson

Matriarch T37A Volker. Photo by Val Watson

Orcas aren’t big fans of personal space. They prefer being right on top of each other! Above you can see one of the younger whales, likely T37A5, right on top of mom, T37A Volker.

Volkers second youngest, Crinkle (T37A4) has a prominent bend in his find, hence the name crinkle, We aren’t sure what caused this bend but it doesn’t seem to impact little Crinkle at all. They are full of energy and constantly playing and rolling around their older siblings.

Our big boy Jack T137A. Hard to believe he’s not done growing yet! Photo by Val Watson

Little baby Slate love showing off for boats and rolling over so we can see his belly. It’s such a treat to see how much Slate trusts us, as she often lets her calf roll around and play with our boats while she goes to feed. For such an intelligent animal to leave her baby in our care is a huge sign of trust!

Jilann LechnerJuly 31, 2021Comment