We began the day by heading into our current favourite area of the Salish Sea - exiting the harbour and turning Northeast, pointing towards Sechelt. We didn’t have to go far before we spotted blows and located our first group of humpback whales! The first two were cooperative and gave us clear fluke shots so we were able to identify them right away - these whales were Lorax (BCX1602) and Two Spot (BCZ0432). Their friend, however, was being a bit more tail-shy leading us to be unable to ID them while we were out on the water. After carefully reviewing our photos, we cross-matched this partial fluke (combined with dorsal shots) to identify our third humpback as Moray (BCY1176)! Humpback ID-ing can be very tricky, so we are always very excited when we identify whales we haven’t seen before!

These 3 seemed to be very curious as they turned towards us and approached the boats. When this happens we must turn our engines off until the whales are once again at a safe distance. After shutting down, these whales began “mugging” the boats. Mugging is the term used to describe when whales will go out of their way to investigate and check out vessels. Humpbacks are very intelligent beings, and sometimes they appear to enjoy people-watching as much as we enjoy whalewatching! While we can never encourage this behaviour, it is always exciting when it happens, as this is a rare and unpredictable occurrence.

After departing the trio, one of our boats stumbled onto another gathering of Humpbacks closer to Sechelt. This group consisted of 5 individuals, all of which cooperated and gave us good ID Fluke shots: Big Mama (BCY0324), Scuba (BCY1225), Pepper (BCX1706), Crackle (BCY1227) + 1 Unknown. While we have flukes for all 5 whales, one of them has still yet to be identified. As young whales grow and mature their fluke patterns can change. We suspect this Unknown is between 1-2 years old. Many calves start with soft milky-white colourations that either eventually fade or become bolder, potentially leading to dramatic changes in patterns. A good example of this is Neowise (BCY1228) as shown below:

Not only did much of his milky colouration solidify, he also got quite a few new scratches along the bottom of his left fluke. These dramatic changes in fluke patterns are important to note, and are one of the big reasons why it is important that our ID catalogues stay up to date!

Once our time with our Humpbacks was up we carried on in search of other wildlife. We headed towards the White Islets, a common haulout location for our Steller sea lions and our Harbour seals. Generally, our seals and sea lions do not associate - it is common to see one species on one end of the island and the other on the far end. However, today we saw a seal and sea lion face-to-face! These two seemed to find each other amicable though, because after a few glances the sea lion lay back down and got ready for a nap.

After, we departed our pinnipeds and started making the journey back across the Strait of Georgia. The day had been wonderful and full of whales… but there was even more to come! After catching word of an Orca sighting close to Gabriola Island, we zipped over and started scanning once more. It wasn’t long before we saw a large, straight dorsal fin cutting through the surf, with a couple of smaller fins nearby. We quickly snapped some photos and identified this pod as the T002Cs:

T002C Tasu ♀ (1989)
T002C1 Rocky ♂ (2002)
T002C3 Lucy ♀ (2011)
T002C5 Zippy (2020)

The T002Cs are an interesting pod with a sombre history. One of their former pod mates, T002C2 Tumbo, had severe scoliosis (curvature to the spine). In most species, a life-threatening condition such as this would be deadly. However, Tasu and Tumbo’s siblings made sure to care for him regardless of his condition. Tumbo was unable to hunt and keep up with his pod, so it was common to watch the pod dash ahead to get food, and then bring back his portion for him. It is suspected he passed away in 2020 at the age of 15.

Today the pod was meandering along Gabriola’s coastline. They may have been looking for their next prey - they were doing longer dives and changing directions. Gabriola’s shorelines are home to many haulouts just like the White Islets which are essentially “buffets” for our mammal-eating Bigg’s orcas.

Once we said our goodbyes to the T002Cs we turned back to the harbour, and it was another amazing day out on the Salish Sea!

Please enjoy these photos taken by Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Vanessa Vereschahen.

June 23, 2024 - Humpbacks and the T002Cs!

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