The afternoon trip on June 26th was an amazing humpback show from a young whale, Neowise! Neowise has been a common sight in our frequented waters, making his presence known with his very distinguishable tail flukes. Below I have a photo of his tail now (left) and when his ID shot was first taken in 2020 (right).

You can see the big difference that time makes with our humpback fluke! The tail flukes of humpback whales do change over time, especially when the young humpbacks go through the first couple of years of their lives. You can see how the slightly cloudy colouration on the flukes when they were a calf has become a more bold white colour now that he’s a bit older. We sometimes see the opposite happen, where a fluke looks quite white when they’re young then the white fades away leaving a nearly all-dark fluke.

Not all of the changes are just pigment changes on Neowise’s fluke. We have also seen the addition of a bunch of new scars, the most noticeable of those are the large white lines on the left side of the tail flukes, near the leading edge. We often see the scars on the bottom of the flukes, and it seems that often when the scar forms on the black part of their fluke it will turn white, and when it’s on the white part it will turn dark. You can see examples of both types of scaring on this young whale’s flukes.

There are many things that can cause scars on our humpbacks from inter-species interactions to encounters with their environment, or to man-made issues. They may also come from predation attempts from orca, but those interactions usually result in a type of scarring known as rake marks, which are a bunch of parallel scars left by the orca’s sharp teeth dragging along the humpbacks skin.

Interestingly, the year of Neowise was born was the last year his mother, Heather, was seen in the Salish sea. With her calf coming back with so much scarring we wonder if the two of them had issues when they were travelling together. Mother humpbacks are known to put up a big fight if they think that their calves are in danger, often breaching, tail slapping, and other movements to fight back against orca if they are attacking. We are hopeful that Heather has just been migrating to other feeding grounds the last couple of years, but being a regular in the Salish sea since the early 2000’s it is unlikely.

We also saw another young humpback whale during this trip, Scorch, who has an interesting fluke as well. We didn’t manage to snap any good photos of it but the first time we saw Scorch they had a huge scar forming on the left side of their tail flukes which looked almost like a burn to us, hence the name. Over time that scar is healing and turning from the initial pinkish-orange to white. The very centre of this scar is the only part that hasn’t fully healed. In addition to these humpback whales, we also saw seals, sea lions, and lots of sea birds! It was a great trip!

Humpback Whale Neowise Tail Nanaimo Whale Watching — Check out the little bunch of barnacles attached to the fluke here! Photo by Janine Van Der Linden.

Neowise slipping beneath the waters surface. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

Steller Sea Lion yelling at our guests. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

A nice stretch from our Sea Lion. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

Harbour Seal Saturnina Island Nanaimo — A happy seal drinking in the sunshine. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

More seals at their haul-out. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden

Neowise creating a beautiful humpback waterfall. Photo by Rya Uslu

Lift that tail high to the sky! Photo by Rya Uslu

Neowise was very playful today! Photo by Rya Uslu

Another beautiful look at Neowise’s fluke! Look at all the scaring. Photo by Rya Uslu

Neowise’s fluke with the coastal mountains in the background. Photo by Rya Uslu

Humpback Whale Neowise Dive Mountains Coastal BC Nanaimo Whale Watching — Neowise going for a dive. Photo by Rya Uslu

June 26th 3:30 PM - Neowise and Scorch the humpbacks!

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