May 19th 3:30 PM - Valiant and friends at Active Pass
Today we had a full boat heading out looking for whales out in the Southern Gulf Island. As we made our way south we received reports of a Humpback whale spotted near Active Pass. As our vessel approached we could see the blows rising from the water as the humpbacks surfaced to breathe.
We were able to quickly ID one of these humpbacks as the young whale, Valiant. Valiant has many scars on his fluke, or tail fin, that help us ID him out on the water, As frequent readers of the blog may know, we ID orca by looking at their dorsal fins and saddle patches, and while you can ID a humpback by their dorsal fin it is more common to do it using their tail fin, or the fluke.
Valiant has a unique and distinct dorsal fin as well as his fluke, making them one of the easiest humpbacks to ID on the water.
As you can see above, Valiant has many scars on their fin, and they are missing quite a few chunks. These scars are the result of battles with orca! Bigg’s orca hunt marine mammals, and that includes whales much larger than themselves. While adult humpbacks are usually safe from the orca, calves on the other hand are not. Valiant bears the scars of a battle won, his mom was likely a big help in that. Female humpbacks are very protective of their little babies, as they should be. A female humpback will give birth to a single calf every 2-4 years, after a 12-month gestation, she will raise that calf for one full year, nursing it and teaching it how to feed on its own, as well as teaching them the migration route they will use every year for the rest of their life. They put a lot of time and energy into their calves, it would make sense that they would defend them ferociously against any would-be predators. Often putting themselves between their calf and the predators.
Valiant’s gender is unknown to us as of yet, and it might be some time before we know for sure. The only way to gender a humpback whale is to get a clear photo of its genital region. A female will have what is called a hemispherical lobe whereas a male will not. The other way to gender them is to be patient and wait and see if they ever show up with a calf!
While we did get a fluke from Valiant’s friend, we’ve been unable to match this whale to any in our catalogues. This happens from time to time because humpbacks can have tricky tails. This particular whale has a nearly all-black fin, and no distinct notches along the trailing edge to help us ID them. We’ve uploaded a photo to a non-profit called Happy whale, which helps to track humpbacks all over the world. Using software it can match whales and help us ID them. Last year we found out that one of our unknown humpbacks was actually a calf from an Alaska humpback. So while this whale may not be in any of our catalogues, we are hoping that someone, somewhere, has seen this whale before.
You can check out the catalogue we use during the trips here: Keta Humpback Whale Catalogue
Valiant (left) and friend.
At one point our 2 whales dove deep, leaving us waiting at the surface for a while. Humpbacks are known to dive deep and resurface somewhere completely different. So when 2 whales surfaced some distance off we started slowly moving over to keep up with them. As we did, Valiant and their friend surfaced off to our side some distance. We had new whales joining the party. These new whales were a group of 3 that kept their distance and made its tricky to get ID photos of them. One whale did fluke, but we only got photos of the top of their fin. This makes it hard, but not impossible, to id them. In situations like this, where you have the top side of the tail, we can use photoshop to flip the tail and we can trace all the little bumps along the trailing edge. Using this technique we were able to ID one of the new whales as Trinity, or Zigzag, as she also goes by.
Our catalogue also has photos of dorsal fins, which can be used to ID our whales - sometimes. We don’t have dorsal photos of all the whales in the Salish Sea - yet! But for many of our whales it can be helpful as dorsal fins often have many scratches, scars or noticeable notches and chunks taken out. Sadly many of our humpbacks also bare the scars of boat strikes, but these can also be helpful in IDing our whales as well.
After viewing our whales we travelled back towards Nanaimo, stopping to see Pacific harbour seals at Norway Island and then again at Harmac to see California sea lions.
Enjoy the photos taken of our marine wildlife by naturalist Janine Van Der Linden.
We are happy to be offering daily tours at 10:30 am and 3:30 pm on both our semi-covered vessel and our open zodiacs.
To book your tour you can call us at 250-667-5177, visit us in person at our waterfront office #5 Front Street Nanaimo, or book right through our website.