Today was a spotlight for everyone’s favourite superstar. The star of this morning’s tour was:

T065A5 Indy ♂ (2014)

Indy is a 9-year-old male orca that spends most of his time by himself playing. In the rare case that he is hanging around other transient orcas, he keeps up his playful attitude and tends to bring out the playful spirit in others around him. Today, he was flying solo and playing amongst his own personal playground of crab traps off of Richmond. At first, he was hesitant in playing with the ropes, but as he discovered that it was fun and safe, he kept dragging the ropes in his mouth. Of course, all we could see was the bright buoys at the surface disappear for a good amount of time and then reappear at the surface in a flash. He showed a particular liking for a large pink bulb buoy. We determined that Indy has very good oral hygiene, flossing his teeth in the ropes like that for nearly 30 minutes! And then, he got bored of that and went to see what a nearby sailboat was up to, before heading back out into the strait to eventually join up with his family the very next day near Nanaimo.

Typically, male orcas will spend their whole lives with their mothers, though there are some exceptions. When male orcas lose their mothers, we have seen them travel by themselves or join other family pods temporarily. Transient orcas are quite emotionally intelligent and welcome any others of their kind to hunt, play and mate within their family group. Orcas have the second largest brain of any animal in the world, after sperm whales. Scientists believe this size and the extra lobe of their brain have to do with processing emotion and cognitive thinking.

Also spotted on our trip today were numerous harbour porpoises, who are normally incredibly shy but have days where they may come closer to the boat than we expect. Around the Halibut Bank buoy, there has been a great abundance of them travelling in groups of about three. Harbour porpoises are another prey item of transient orcas, though Indy seemed a little preoccupied with his playing today to be seen hunting.

The Stellar sea lions were especially photogenic today on Stinky Rock. Around this time of year, the Steller Sea Lions begin their journey back up to Alaska for their breeding season, though we haven’t seen many of them make the journey back yet this season. When up in Alaska, the larger males will hold down their mating rock and fight off other males who dare to challenge them for a place on their rock. The prize for being the largest most dominant male sea lion is access to females to mate with on their rock.

Photos taken by Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman, Vanessa Vereschahen, and Carmen Murphy.

July 9, 2023, 10:30 - T065A5 Indy the Goofball

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