Our afternoon trip on June 30th heard the news that there was orca in Trincomali Channel travelling along the west side of Galiano Island. Not just any orca, but an interesting pair; T128 Flotsam and T125A Jetsam!

These two are what we call “exotics” meaning they aren’t commonly seen in our area. Or at least that’s how they used to be. They are being seen more and more frequently in the Salish Sea as time goes on. They used to not be around much at all with years between sightings, then they made a yearly appearance, and this year they spent a few months patrolling the interior waters of Vancouver Island, socializing with lots of our more commonly seen pods.

These two brothers are an interesting pair. Typically, male orca will typically stay with their mothers their whole lives, but these two have ditched their mom with their other brother, T127 Hacksaw. Their mother, T125, seemed to only have sons, with three of them still alive, and one, unfortunately, passed away. This means that she will not have her pod name carried on, as only the mothers of our orca can be fully known since breeding takes place outside the pod. Breeding behaviour also happens most often under the water so seeing the activity take place is very rare. Since it’s hard to observe, usually the father of the orca is never known. It makes sense then, to only have orca populations tracked through the mothers.

Not only does this leads to orca being Matrilineal, but also because the ladies are the ones who are in charge! They are longer-lived than the males, leading to more of a collection of knowledge that they pass along to their offspring. They also tell their pod where to go, how best to hunt, and sometimes even encourage their sons into breeding situations.

But today it was just the two boys, which is still great to watch. Actually, people often like watching male orca more than females since they are physically larger than the females are. Not only are they generally more robust, but the main thing you see, their dorsal fin, is 2-3 times the height on the males than the females at a staggering 6 feet tall! Wow!

Our marine naturalists from the trip, Vanessa and Janine, snapped some great photos from the trip, which you can view below!