May 30, 2023 - T-party in the Strait!

The day began with a trip close to home, heading out into the middle of the Strait of Georgia just northeast of Gabriola Island. All three of our boats got to experience multiple different pods of orca on the scene this day. Our vessels today spent time with a T-party of about 17 whales. A T-party occurs when multiple transient orca pods spend time together, often hunting and mating with the other groups of orca to increase the genetic diversity of their offspring. Led by the oldest female, each individual pod is matriarchal, with the matriarch’s offspring spending time learning from her. The matriarch is responsible for teaching her children how to speak their pod’s unique dialect and how to hunt. Today’s pods consisted of all different ages of matriarchs and offspring. Female transient orcas have a lifespan of 80-90 years and male orcas can live to 40-60 years. Female orcas give birth to their first calf around the age of 10-13 years old and can have one calf every 3-5 years until they are almost 50 years old.

Today’s T-party consisted of 4 matrilines and a lone female, for a grand total of 17 whales present:

T018 Esperanza ♀ (≤1955)
T019 Nootka ♀ (≤1965)
T019B Galiano ♂ (1995)
T019C Spouter ♂ (2001)

T023 Janice ♀ (≤1964)
T023D Axle ♀ (1993)
T023D3 Robin ♂ (2012)
T023D4 Sixx (2015)
T023D5 (2019)

T100 Hutchins ♀ (~1979)
T100C Laurel ♂ (2002)
T100E Tharaya ♀ (2009)
T100F Estrella (2014)

T101 Reef ♀ (≤1969)
T101A Rush ♂ (1993)
T101B Lagoon ♂ (1997)

T124A1 Bonapartes ♀ (1996)

After our hour with the orca T-party, we headed northwest up the straight of Georgia. North of Nanaimo, we spotted 4 different humpback whales. As a company, we saw our first humpback of the season on April 28th and have been seeing more whales than usual for this time of year returning from their warm water breeding grounds. During the winter and early spring, our population of humpbacks stay in Mexico, Hawaii or California to breed with one another. While the humpbacks are down south, there is little to no food for them to eat. When the humpbacks return back to the Salish Sea in late spring or summer, they eat up to 3000 lbs of food, while pregnant females can eat up to 5000 lbs of food daily. Humpback whales are part of the Baleen whale family and feed on plankton, krill and small fish by taking giant mouthfuls of water and filtering the water out of their closed mouths through their baleen to keep their food source inside.

Humpbacks seen on this day were:
Graze (BCY0253)’s 2019 calf, Kelpie (KEZ0009), Lorax (BCX1602) and 1 Unknown.

To end the day, we stopped off at the Gabriola Island bluffs in Northumberland Channel. There are a couple of reasons that we spend time along the bluffs: the first being the sandstone on the cliffside is the oldest on Gabriola Island at 74 million years old and the second being the cormorants nesting on the cliffside. The sandstone of the bluffs has been eroded by waves over the past 74 million years creating a mosaic of bubbling within the sandstone. As for the cormorants, they add to the magnificence of the bluffs, building a nest in any nook they can find. Currently, the cormorants are in the midst of laying their eggs or preparing the nest for laying their eggs, grabbing any seaweed, grass or twigs they can find in the area.

A nearby eagle nest made for an interesting sight as two adult eagles were guarding their recently-hatched young. Bald eagles mate for life and will often use the same nesting area year after year, but this nest is a new sighting to us this year and we are very excited to see it so close to home!

South of the Gabriola bluffs is Harmas Pacific, a pulp mill that has log booms transported by tug boats floating in the water next to the mill. The Stellar and California sea lions of the area really enjoy laying on the logs, as it gives them direct access to deeper water, where they can catch their food and don’t have to spend a large amount of time in the water feeding, decreasing their chance of being in the water when there are orcas nearby. Transient orcas feed on harbour seals, sea lions and harbour porpoises, so the more time the sea lions can spend out of the water, the better. Sea lions prefer to do their hunting at night, as sleeping fish make for an easier target. During the day, sea lions are often seen sleeping up to 12 hours a day and today was no exception!

Today’s photos were taken by Marine Naturalists Carmen Murphy, Des Poier, and Aly Kohlman.

T023D Axle and T023D3 Robin. Photo by Carmen Murphy.

Crashing through the waves. Photo by Carmen Murphy.

T023D Axle and friends. Photo by Carmen Murphy.

T023D4 Sixx and T023D3 Robin. Photo by Carmen Murphy.

T019 Nootka and T018 Esperanza. Photo by Des Poier.

T023 Janice and a friend in the background. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Kelpie (KEZ0009) and a friend. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Graze (BCY0253)’s 2019 calf. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Waiting for lunch! Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Jilann LechnerMay 30, 2023WhalesComment