The T-party never ends as the T124A2’s, Elkugu and her kids, continue traveling around with T049A2, Jude, through our Gulf Islands.

Jude was full of energy, as were the other members of the party, as they traveled from Lantzville south towards Nanaimo. The group was breaching, spy-hopping, tail slapping, and in general acting very excited.
This is quite common for orca during social gathers or after a successful hunt. We didn’t see any hunting while we were with the whales this morning, but they could have had a late breakfast just before we joined them. Jude was leaping from the waters, giving everyone a good look at just how big he is getting. at only 15 years old Jude still has a few years of growing to do, but he’s already a very large male. It will be interesting to see just how big he gets in the next 5-7 years.
We are also curious to see if and when he will return to his own moms side, or if he will decide to keep traveling the Salish Sea as a tag-along to any pod that’s in the area.

After watching our whale splashing through the Strait of Georgia we also stopped to see some seals and found one who likely had some damage done to their eye. One eye appears completely blind, but otherwise they seem very healthy. Seals use their eyes to see in dark waters and help them hunt, however, they can survive completely blind because their whiskers are more important than their eyes when it comes to finding food. Their sensitive whiskers pick up small vibrations in the water that can tell them where a fish is, how fast it’s swimming and what direction it’s moving, allowing them to hunt in dark waters, or while completely blind.

Enjoy the photos of our wildlife taken by marine naturalists Ryan Uslu and Janine Van Der Linden.

The seal is blind in one eye. we aren’t sure what caused it, but they look pretty fat and healthy otherwise! Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

Jude was practicing his take-offs today. Learning to fly is difficult when you weigh several tons.

June 26th 10:30 AM - T124A2's and Jude

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