Why is Big Mama so special to us?

She was the first humpback to return to the Salish Sea! What does this mean…to fully understand this we need to take a trip back in time to the middle of the 19th century. It all started with stories of large whales in abundance during the summer and fall. The legends of the local Coast Salish people were that of so many humpbacks you could step on their backs to get across to the islands. These stories travelled fast, and to our humpbacks’ dismay, they soon fell apon the ears of whalers. This began the whaling boom of British Columbia, it happened in two waves in the Strait of Georgia. One occurred from 1866 to 1873, the second ran from 1907 to 1908. What the whalers were after was the oil, which is made from the blubber. One humpback could yield about 4500 litres of oil. Whaling did come to an end in the Salish Sea in 1908, but continued on the outer coast of the island until 1967 with the last station shutting down. Whaling lasted a total of 101 years decimating the prime target, the humpback whale. They were gone, not a single one remained.

That’s where Big Mama comes in! Although by the mid-1990s whaling was gone, still no humpbacks? Whaling had reduced numbers drastically from an estimated 15,000 to as few as 1000. By eliminating the humpbacks from the Salish sea a wealth of cultural knowledge of these rich feeding grounds spread down by generations of humpbacks was lost. For nearly 100 years, humpbacks were not found in the Salish Sea. There were a couple of sightings in 1976 and 1978, but no regular returns. Fast forward to the fall of 1997, when a single large whale was spotted just west of Victoria! This whale was Big Mama.

Big Mama migrates between Hawaii and the Strait of Georgia, with Hawaii being her breeding ground and the Strait of Georgia her feeding ground.

Humpback whales give birth to a single calf every 2 - 3 years and Big Mama has given birth to at least 7 calves:

2003 calf
2006 calf known as Split Fin
2010 calf known as Canuck
2012 calf known as Tulip
2014 calf known as Beak
2016 calf known as Poptart
2022 calf

The gestation period of Humpback whales is 11 - 11.5 months and the calves are nursed for almost a year. At around 6 months of age, the calves likely start feeding independently. During their migration baby whales are preyed upon by sharks and Transient killer whales. Many of the scars on the flukes we use to identify them are received during their early years, usually during the whale’s first year of life. The scars are left by killer whale teeth and this indicates that they survived a past attack. Once they reach maturity they are generally safe from predators such as killer whales who will focus their attacks on calves. Humpback females will fiercely protect their calves by slashing at the predators using their flukes and pectoral fins. Humpback whales can cause some damage during these attacks as they have barnacles growing on their pectoral fins which are hard and sharp.

Other than seeing Big Mama we were also lucky enough to see a pod of Transient Orca during the trip as well, the T036A’s! This is a group of 5 whales, the Matriarch travelling with four of her kids.

Enjoy the photos taken by our naturalists Janine Van Der Linden and Vanessa Vereschahen.

June 29th 10:30 AM - Big Mama + Calf + T036A's

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