This afternoon’s tour took us to a different spot than the morning since those whales had gone out into the Strait of Georgia and out of our range. Luckily for us, there was another pod of orca spotted not too far from our Harbour! We were lucky enough to catch up with the T037As travelling together inside of the Southern Gulf Islands, in Trincomali Channel! The T037As are the following whales:

T037A Volker ♀ (1994)
T037A2 Inky ♂ (2009)
T037A3 Spinnaker ♂ (2013)
T037A4 Crinkle ♀ (2015)

These guys were travelling north, and ended up actually passing through Dodd Narrows after we had left them! During our time with the whales, we got to see a huge variety of behaviours from travel to hunting, and then a celebration where they even jumped out of the water! It’s not very common to see whales jump fully out of the water like this since it comes at the expense of a huge amount of energy. Each one of these orca are between 5-8 meters in length, weighing up to a ton! To get that amount of weight airborne means you have to be moving very quickly to do it.

When they hunt it can be more common, since the amount of force behind the impact with the water is huge! If you are an unfortunate seal who has an orca land on you, or even smack you with their tail, you aren’t going to be doing too well afterwards. And if you can still move, the shock of the initial impact is used by the other members of the pod to grab you while you recover. It’s a pretty brutal but effective strategy.

Since our pods of orca are composed of tight-knit family groups, all of the members of the pod who helped with the hunt will get to partake in the spoils. That means that the “little” 300-pound seal that was most likely hunted here got divided up into 4 pieces and shared between the members of the pod.

Sometimes they will go after larger and faster prey than the seals as well, and this strategy becomes even more important.

We were extra lucky today and were able to make this trip a Double Species day! We don’t commonly see both species in a single trip so it is always extra fun any time we are lucky. Today we saw one humpback travelling by themself:

Squirrel/Smoke/Scorch (KEX0066)

Squirrel is very quickly becoming a fan-favourite humpback. This resilient young whale suffered extreme damage to their fluke a couple of years ago. We do not know what caused these injuries, but we are happy Squirrel is now healed up and appears to be doing well. Squirrel’s mother, Flame, is an Alaskan humpback with no known sightings in BC. It is very curious that little Squirrel seems to love spending their time in our area now, as this is not a place their mother would have told them about. Maybe Squirrel made friends down here? Maybe they don’t want to go so far north? We will likely never know for sure, but it is always fun to speculate!

We had an interesting encounter on this trip at the Gabriola Bluffs. Amongst the Turkey Vultures, we saw a funny-looking individual. It didn’t have a red head, but it looked very Turkey Vulture-shaped. It turns out this was a Juvenile Turkey Vulture - they don’t get their signature red heads until they are roughly 1 year old!

Photos today were taken by Marine Naturalists Cheyenne Brewster, Vanessa Vereschahen, and Aly Kohlman.

August 23, 2023, 3:30 - The T037As and Squirrel the humpback!

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