We are so lucky to be able to see the large abundance of humpbacks that we do on our tours, as it wasn’t too long ago that they were hardly seen in the waters off of British Columbia. The humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, was a species that hasn’t had very positive interactions with humans in the past. With their large size, valuable resources, and slow nature, they were one of the main species that was targeted by whaling in the area while it was still legal. In the Northern Hemisphere, it was estimated that in the 20th century, there were 28,000 humpback whales removed from the North Pacific. This huge loss was felt heavily in the Salish Sea, as there weren’t any humpback sightings here for nearly 40 years until we had one special whale, Big Momma, spotted near Victoria in 1997. Since then there have been more and more being seen here, and hopefully, that trend will continue!

Today those years without humpbacks were really a distant memory, as we found ourselves surrounded by the distinct blows while our vessels floated near the Sunshine Coast. Even with the rain pouring down, the whales still managed to take our breath away! We first came across a pair of humpback whales that seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. It was Eros (KEX0070) with BCX1965. We saw them interacting, taking turns slapping their pectoral fins against the water, doing very short dives, and sticking right beside each other the entire time we spent watching them. At one point they even seemed to forget we were there, sitting with our engines turned off since they weren’t really travelling anywhere. They swam up next to our boat before continuing their time together further away. Sometimes whales approach the boat with curiosity, but his time it was just a coincidence we think since they seemed too enthralled with each other to pay us much mind.

We didn’t notice it at the time, but looking at our photos, it seemed that there was an extra animal there than we had thought, a couple of series of photos show something dangling off of the right tail fluke of BCX1965, which we IDed as a Pacific Lamprey, Entosphenus tridentatus, thanks to the body and fin shapes. Pretty cool!

After leaving these two behind, we tried to locate some of the other, more distant blows that we had seen. While we didn’t have much luck there, on the way back, closer to Entrance Island we did end up finding another group of humpback whales travelling together. This time there were three whales present: Schooner (BCX1193calf2021), Dandelion (BCY1107), and Hendrix (BCY1278). These three were a bit more shy, but luckily we got enough from a very shallow fluke to ID Schooner, along with his very scarred-up dorsal fin. Dandelion also has a very distinct dorsal fin, with a small piece protruding up from the tip. The final whale we got a small fluke from as they dove, giving us just enough to ID them as Hendrix. Unfortunately, in that photo, there was another thing we could see that was less exciting for us.

Even though whaling no longer happens here there are other human-caused impacts on our wildlife, and one of the most concerning ones for our humpback whales is entanglement. In the last photo included below, you can see the fresh pink flesh on the leading edge of Hendrix’s tail from having line wrapped around it. It’s a sad fact to say that over 80% of our humpback whales in the area have evidence of scarring from entanglement. Lucky for Hendrix he is a survivor, which isn’t always the case.

Most of the time post entanglement doesn’t have lasting impacts, and we know whales which much worse scars that are living happy and healthy lives, so we wish that for Hendrix as he heals! Even while watching them, we didn’t notice this so his behaviour doesn’t seem to be impacted by the injury.

After watching this final group of whales it was time to return to the harbour and dry off! What a fantastic day!

Photos from the trip taken by Naturalist Des Poier onboard Kula can all be viewed below.