July 19th - The T065As and the T077s travel south

Our whole day was filled with the T065As who were travelling with the T077s. These two families travelled south through the southern gulf islands, eating and playing along the way. We first heard of the whales being around from one of our guests who had seen them from their deck before heading to our office for their whale watching trip. We got an updated report of them being not far from the harbour so we headed this way and found these two pods travelling together.

The pods consist of:

T065As

T065A Fingers/Artemis
T065A2 Ooxjaa
T065A3 Amir (who is currently travelling away from the pod)
T065A4 Ellifrit
T065A5 Indy/Elsie
T065A6 Callisto

T077s

T077 Asja
T077C Neftali
T077D Alycon
T077E Misneach

While it can be a mixed bag of what we see our whales doing throughout the day, today we got lucky and got lots of action out of them most of the time we were watching them. They travelled south in the morning, through Dodd narrows, and then they came across a harbour seal. Harbour seals are the main source of prey for our transient orca, and a large group of whales like this will have to hunt quite often since each whale needs to have an average of 500 pounds of food every day, This means a group this size needs to eat about 4500 pounds of food a day, or about 15 harbour seals.

During hunts is when we will see lots of action from our whales as they use their massive bodies to stun the prey and let younger members of the pod practice on it. Although it’s sad to see a seal go up against a pod of orca, it is all part of the circle of life!

During the afternoon we saw the same whales together, and they looked to be socializing with lots of surface behaviour again! They had made it further south, down close to Chemainus in Stuart Channel. Although they weren’t hunting this time we think they were likely still celebrating, or just having fun socializing with each other. Orca are very social animals and like spending time with each other and with pods outside their own.

It’s actually a great opportunity for the orca since it can be a time to breed. Since pods of orca are family groups, usually a mother travelling with her kids, meeting with another pod means you are interacting with another orca which isn’t related to you. By the time our hour with the whales was up, we left them in Sansum narrows, west of Saltspring island! It was a total of 50km that our whales travelled between where we found them in the morning and where we left them in the afternoon. This is a pretty average travel time for the whales, as they can cover up to 100 miles every single day! This means that even if we see them within our range one day there is no guarantee they will be around the next!

We managed to get a lot of great photos from the day, check them out below!

T077D Alycon surfacing. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

Mid cartwheel! Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

T077. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

The big fin is T065A2 Ooxjaa with the rest of the gang. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

T065A6 Callisto on the left. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

Callisto (left) and Misneach (right). Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

T065A6 Callisto. Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

T077E Misneach. They must have got in a tussle with a sea lion, look at those claw marks on its eye patch! Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

Ooxjaa and a sibling followed by their mom, Fingers. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

From left to right: T077 Asja, T065A Fingers, T065A4 Ellifrit, and T077E Misneach. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Ooxjaa with his huge dorsal fin. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

the matriarch of the T077s, Asja! Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Ooxjaa and his mom have very similar notches on their dorsal fins, which you can see by this nice side-by-side. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

A great example of surface tension. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Hunting Orca Killer Whale Nanaimo BC — The hunting commences! Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Orca Killer Whale Hunting T065As T077s Nanaimo — The poor seal amongst the group of orca. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Orca VS Seal — Here you can get a better idea of the size difference between the two animals. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Ooxjaa T065A2 orca killer whale tail lob — Ooxjaa tail lobbing. Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

It’s Aly the alopecia seal! Photo by Val Watson, 10:30 am.

Photo by Janine Van Der Linden, 10:30 am.

Jilann LechnerJuly 19, 20221 Comment