On the morning of June 28th, we were lucky enough to know already that there was a pod of orca spotted in the Strait of Georgia as we left the dock, so we headed in that direction. Of course, we kept our eyes out along the way just in case we came across something else, but in the end, we didn’t spot any other whales before the T099s. One of our boats did stop at a lovely area we call “Stinky Rocks” since it’s a known sea lion haul-out site. Today the boat was also lucky in that there was a large group of Harbour Seals spending time on the rocks not too far away.

After getting a look at these two species they also continued over to the T099s.

T099 Bella ♀ (~1984)
T099B Holly ♀ (2007)
T099C Barakat ♂ (2009)
T099D Puck ♂ (2015)
T099E ♀ (2021)

The T099s are known for their hunting prowess in the area, being seen hunting arguably the most out of the commonly seen Biggs orca pods in the area. Today our first boat saw them finish off a harbour seal before doing a quick celebration and continuing their scavenging in the area. As we watched them spread out over about 1/2 a mile they were likely on the prowl again. They continued in this formation for the next 40 minutes, until they came across something else. This time it was an unfortunate harbour porpoise that was face-to-face with this pod, and it didn’t stand a chance. We know it was a harbour porpoise since the Matriarch Bella stunned it by throwing her body into it from below, throwing the unfortunate porpoise skyward. Usually hunting their larger and faster prey like a porpoise takes much longer, but this morning it was fast. From time stamps on the photos, we know that from the time of impact of the porpoise to the time of a critical amount of blood in the water was a staggering 2 minutes. Past hunts of porpoises with different groups have taken closer to 40 minutes to an hour.

As mentioned before, this isn’t the first time a tour got to witness the T099s hunting abilities. In October of last year, they were recorded along with members of the T065As, successfully hunting a minke whale in the San Juan Islands. Again this hunt was recorded to take only about half an hour, much less time than you would normally expect from such a large, intense prey.

After leaving these expert hunters to continue on with their day we continued on with ours, with one boat making a stop at Sticky Rocks for their wildlife viewing while the other headed right back to port. Both vessels ended up back at the harbour with happy guests who got to witness not only the excitement of our orca but lots of other interesting things along the way!

Please enjoy all the photos from the day below taken by marine naturalists Cheyenne Brewster and Val Watson.

WARNING:

Some photos from today include graphic content (Seal tumours, blood, gore)