May 29th 3:30 PM - T060's & T109C's around Gabriola Island

As we left the docks on the 29th of May we had reports of a large group of orca hanging out south of False Narrows near Gabriola Island. We made our way there, traveling through Dodd Narrows and Ruxton Pass to find the whales splashing about. These whales were having quite the T-party and the excitement was tangible. These 8 whales belonged to two different pods, the T060’s and the T109C’s.

T060’s
T060 - Panthera (42)
T060C - Yelnats
T060F - Tigris (10)
T060G (3)

T109C’s
T109C - Boca (20)
T109C1 (10)
T109C2 (5)
T109C3 (<1)

These whales were clearly very excited to be hanging out together, as there was plenty of tail lobbing, spy hopping, back surfing, head-stands and cartwheels. These whales travelled, playing and splashing, through Gabriola Passage out towards Breakwater Island. Once through the fast-moving waters, the whales seemed to calm for a moment, before deciding to travel back through Gabriola Pass again and resume their playful behaviour.

Some interesting facts about these pods:

In 2019 Panthera gave birth to T060G. The “G” in their name means that this little one is Panthera’s 7th documented calf. This was a pretty big deal as, to our knowledge, none of our orca have ever had 7 documented calves.

Pathera travels with her son Yelnats and two daughters Tigris and T060G, while her other two sons, Orca and Lynx are known to travel separately from mom.

The T109C’s have never been sighted in our range! We have never seen this pod before, nor are there any recorded sightings of them on the East side of Vancouver Island in the 2019 Photo-identification catalogue by Towers et al. The furthest south they have come on the east side looks like a single sighting near Campbell River.
This pod was extra tricky to ID because one of the members, T109C1, has a large new notch in their dorsal fin, one that closely resembles a well-known whale in the area. To confirm the ID of these whales we had to use their eye-patch!

We hope the T109C’s stick around so we can continue to watch them through the season, and hopefully the T060’s will stick around too!

After the left our whales to continue their splash-fest we traveled to Saturnina Island, a new nature-reserve, to see some Pacific harbour seals hauled out. Saturnina was purchased in the summer of 2021 by the BC parks foundation after a generous donation by the Wilson 5. This island will now remain protected from future development so our seals, eagles, vultures, and other wildlife can continue to live there in peace.

We also stopped by the UM buoy, located just south of Saturnina Island, to see the Steller sea lions that were fighting for the perfect napping spot.
On our way home we travelled back through Dodd Narrows and stopped at Harmac to see some rather sleepy California sea lions, as well as a quick stop at Gabriola Island to see the nesting cormorants, before returning to harbour.

Photos by Marine Naturalist Rebecca Stirling.