July 6th - A family gathering with an out of town guest!

July 6th was a fantastic day on the water with a large group of orca. We found ourselves at a T-party with a few pods and several orca who are known to be lone-whales

T034 Grace
T034A Pachamama
T034B Sonder

T037 - Rocky III
T037B - Harold
T037B1 - Lance

T037A1 - Inyo
T065A5 - Elsie
T072 - Young

T-parties are not uncommon in our waters, as orca are highly social animals. T-parties are a way for whales to gather, share information, meet their social needs, and present mating opportunities for unrelated whales. An interesting thing about this t-party is that all but 2 of these whales are actually related!

T034 Grace is mother to Pachamama and Sonder, but she is also believed to be Rocky III’s mother as well. Making Grace Harold’s grandmother and Lance’s great grandmother.

Inyo is a lone female who has traveled apart from her mom for many years now, but even Inyo is here with family today. Rocky III has another daughter, Volker, who is Inyo’s mom, making Rocky Inyo’s grandmother. Volker travels with the rest of her kids separately, and occasionally joins these family gathers, however Rocky III and Grace are with each other frequently. We don’t often see Inyo, as she prefers to do her own thing, but for whatever reason she has decided to join her aunt Harold, grandmother Rocky, and grandmother Grace. Orca family ties are very strong and last an entire lifetime. Grace and Rocky will likely continue to travel with each other on and off for the rest of their lives, joined by Volker whenever she feels like it.

The other whales here are little T065A5 Elsie, an 8 year old male orca known to travel by himself away from his family, often getting into trouble. As well as T072 Young, a large lone-bull orca. Young is known to hang out in Juneau Alaska most of the year, so we are curious to know what has brought him all the way down to our southern waters. We’ve have many “Alaskan” pods in the Salish Sea this year. Transient orca roam the seas from the tips of Alaska to the warm waters of California, however they are split into 3 “populations”. There is an “Alaskan” population, a “BC/Washington” population, and a “Californian” population. These distinctions are in place simply because it’s where those pods spend the majority of their time, there is nothing stopping a Californian pod from spending time in Alaska, or vice versa.

We found this T-party in the morning traveling through Active Pass and re-acquired them again in the afternoon as they headed out to the Strait of Georgia. The most easy to ID whale of this group was Young, given the size of his dorsal and it’s unique shape. His fin curls at the tip, from the right angle giving him a flat top appearance. This sometimes happens as large males age, the fins weight becomes to much for it to stand straight. Young, unlike his name may suggest, is actually the second oldest member of this gathering. Born somewhere around 1974 he’s about 48 years old. Male orca typically live into their 50’s, or 60’s, so Young is actually nearing a full life for a male orca. We’re grateful we were able to see this unique whale, as this is the first time we’ve ever had the chance to see him. Hopefully he doesn’t run off to Alaska too soon and we get to see his magnificent fin once again.

Below are the photos of our wildlife taken by marine naturalists Cheyenne Brewster, Carmen Murphy, and Rebeka Pirker.

Jilann LechnerJuly 6, 2022Comment