August 27, 2023, 10:30 - A Chainsaw T-Party, and a pair of Hawaiian Humpbacks
We headed out towards Gabriola Island, where there were reports of a large pod of Orcas heading North. When we get reports of larger groups of Orca, it’s really important that we are able to confirm whether they are transients or southern residents. We don’t watch southern residents, as they are an endangered ecotype here in the Salish Sea, and we make every effort to protect them! This is an important part of the job for our onboard Marine Naturalists, to differentiate between the two ecotypes. There are a couple of different things we look for when arriving on scene. The number of animals can be a good indication, but is not always the case. Because the Southern Residents have so few numbers left in their population (75 this year), they tend to travel in very large groups, so we are always wary when we see multiple pods together. Besides behaviours and association, there are some physical characteristics we look for to compare and contrast the two. The shapes of the dorsal vary slightly, with the Southern Residents having a slightly more rounded tip than our pointy Transients. The saddle patch, or white spot behind the dorsal, is another excellent indication. In the Southern Residents, their patch is considered “open”, meaning there is some black pigmentation that is not present in the Transients “closed” saddle patch. Because of their different diets (mammal-eating transients vs. fish-eating Southern Residents), there is naturally more scarring on the Transients, something else that can be useful for ID’ing.
So we came on scene, with our keen-eyed Naturalists ready to ID. However, this was a very easy day for us, because not only were they Transients, but one of the most recognizable transients in the Salish Sea was present, T063 Chainsaw! All of the whales present today include:
T037A Volker ♀ (1994)
T037A2 Inky ♂ (2009)
T037A3 Spinnaker ♂ (2013)
T037A4 Crinkle ♀ (2015)
T065 Whidbey ♀ (<1968)
T063 Chainsaw ♂ (1978)
T101 Reef ♀ (<1969)
T101A Rush ♂ (1993)
T101B Lagoon ♂ (1997)
These guys were moving pretty quickly, but hanging out close together. Orcas have been known to travel up to 160km in a day, so it’s super common to see them quickly travelling through our waters through their wide range. Chainsaw is an especially exciting animal to watch, because of his distinctive dorsal- check with out in the photos below! But he usually spends his time in the southern waters of the Salish Sea, and much farther north, only passing through our waters for short periods of time, so a Chainsaw sighting is always an unexpected surprise! After watching them for a bit, we continued our trek south to see who else was around.
It wasn’t long before we found a pair of Humpbacks. It was BCZ0338 Geometry and BCX1704 Vivaldi! Both these animals return to our food-rich waters from the much warmer breeding grounds of Hawaii. The way we ID our Humpbacks is a little different to our Orca, which have nice tall dorsals, the primary ID reference. Instead, we are looking for a nice clear photo of the underside of the tail, also known as the fluke. Humpbacks (generally) bring their flukes out of the water when they are going on a longer dive, so we take the opportunity to snap a photo and compare it to our Catalogs. Geometry gave us a nice clear picture of the underside of that tail, and because the patterns are distinctive to individuals, we are able to figure out who it is pretty quickly! Vivaldi wasn’t quite as easy, and when we don’t get a great picture, we can also use the much smaller dorsal of the Humpback, which is exactly what we did in this case!
After our time with the Humpbacks, we kept sailing south until we hit Stinky Rocks, a great place to watch the Stelar Sea lions and check out the much quieter Harbour Seals that lounge nearby.
Photos taken by Marine Naturalist Aly Kohlman.
T037A2 Inky gliding beside one of the older males.
T101 Reef and T037A Volker - a pair of matriarchs!
T065 Whidbey II, mother of Chainsaw!
T037A4 Crinkle with her signature kinked dorsal.
T101A Rush.
T101B Lagoon.
T037A3 Spinnaker.
Big pile of whales! Left to right: T065 Whidbey II, T063 Chainsaw, a friend, and T101 Reef.
T101A Rush rocking some new scratches near the tip of his dorsal.
T063 Chainsaw, also sporting new scarring.
The scarring on the tip of T063 Chainsaw’s dorsal appeared very fresh - it was still a bit pink.
T063 Chainsaw with his eyepatch visible.
T101A Rush - his dorsal is becoming significantly rounder than his brother’s.
T037A2 Inky. While much younger than the T101s, Inky is already catching up to them size-wise.
T101A Rush with his new scarring highly visible.
BCZ0338 Geometry.
BCX1704 Vivaldi - she was being extra fluke shy today.
BCZ0338 Geometry’s gorgeous fluke.
A young Gull practicing its yoga poses.
Sea lions grumbling to eachother.
Our sea lions regularly wake up on the ‘wrong side’ of the rock.
Someone looks grumpy!
A curious harbour seal peeks above the rocks.