August 3, 2023, 3:30 - Spectacular Orcas and Humpback Mugging!

During the afternoon tour, we found a T-Party of transient orca! A lot of the behaviour we were seeing from our vessels was high-energy behaviour. This tends to happen either after they make a kill or when the different pods meet up! We were seeing tail slapping, where the orca will lift their tail out of the water and slap it repeatedly on the surface of the water, full breaches, and hunting behaviour east of Porlier Pass! This is thought to be an enthusiasm to see other matrilines and pod members like a big celebration. This kind of activity is uncommon for orcas, and to see them breaching and playing in the water was truly an experience. Many marine mammals don’t engage in this behaviour unless they are suspecting to gain something from it. Since using more energy means hunting more frequently to make up for the energy loss. Luckily transient orcas’ favourite snack, the harbour seal also happens to be the most abundant marine mammal along British Columbia Coast. Each orca will eat about 300 pounds of red meat a day so to feed this group you’ll need 18 harbour seals (each can weigh up to 300 lbs.), or about 32 harbour porpoises (usually weigh around 168 lbs.)! These transients will have a hard time hunting as a group of 18 individuals and that’s why the time these four matrilines spend together (and Indy of course) will be for communication between pods, mating and playing! Once they decided to hunt they will split up into their smaller groups and oftentimes follow the coastlines for harbour seals, or follow the channels for porpoises.

T002C Tasu (1989)
T002C Rocky (2002)
T002C2 Tumbo (2005)
T002C3 Lucy/Helena (2011)
T002C5 (2020)

T034 Grace (≤1969)
T034A Pachamama (2007)
T034B Sonder (2017)

T037 Rocky III (1979)
T037B Harald (1998)
T037B1 Lance (2012)
T037B3 (2022)

T065A5 Indy (2014)

T137 Loon (~1984)
T137A Jack (2002)
T137B Tempest (2006)
T137D Wright (2012)

Later in the trip, we spotted humpbacks by Halibut Bank! We identified them as Europa (BCX0854), her 2023 calf, Nuage (BCX1606), Geometry (BCZ0338), Schooner (BCX1193 calf 2021), Niagara (BCY0057), Raptor (BCY0458), Split Fin (BCZ0298), and one unknown humpback. Once we made it on site there were some beautiful low and high fluking dives. A high/ low fluking dive is when we can see the tail of the marine mammal come out of the water before the humpback goes for a dive. A high fluking dive means the entire bottom of the fluke is visible, while a low fluking dive is not completely showing the bottom of the tail. The more of the fluke visible the longer they are likely to be underwater! Luckily for us, they usually go underwater for about 4-7 minutes before surfacing again. The boats even got mugged by Europa’s calf! Since humpbacks are extremely curious they may examine our vessels and even peer up at us! You can’t tell from greater distances away but on the skin of the humpback, you’ll see barnacles and maybe even whale lice! These organisms which live on the whale’s skin actually don’t harm the whale in any way. It’s what we call commensalism, a type of relationship where it doesn’t negatively affect either species. The barnacles get a free ride and lots of nutrient-rich water since the humpbacks make extremely long migrations and the whale lice eat algae from the whale’s skin.

We were very lucky to see so much activity and have the wildlife come so close to our boats, all the photos for the afternoon tours are below and they were photographed by Val Watson and Aly Kohlman!

T036B Tattertip travelling along. Photo by Val Watson.

T036B2 Greenfelder beside a friend. Photo by Val Watson.

One of the young orca breaching! Photo by Val Watson.

Coming in for a landing! Photo by Val Watson.

You can see lots of little scratches all over this orca’s body. Photo by Val Watson.

T065A5 Indy by himself. Photo by Val Watson.

A big dive from one of our humpbacks. Photo by Val Watson.

A humpback fluke slicing through the waters. Photo by Val Watson.

Europa and her little calf, side by side. Photo by Val Watson.

Mom and baby diving time! Photo by Val Watson.

Split Fin’s fabulous flukes. Photo by Val Watson.

Schooner’s spotted dorsal - it appears that Schooner may have been entangled at some point. Photo by Val Watson.

Niagara’s picture perfect fluke. Photo by Val Watson.

Schooner going for a dive. Photo by Val Watson.

Look at the size of those barnacles! Photo by Val Watson.

A little peek from a cheeky humpback. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

One big bunch of snoozing Harbour seals. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Our sleepy sea lions.Photo by Aly Kohlman.

A Gull soaring past. Photo by Val Watson.

A juvenile Gull in flight. Photo by Val Watson.

Jilann LechnerAugust 3, 2023WhalesComment