July 27, 2024, 10:30 am - Humpbacks and Orca in the Strait

It was a beautiful day on the morning of the 27th as we had all three of our vessels leaving the Nanaimo Harbour and heading out into the Strait of Georgia. When we have all three boats out, our usual course of action is to spread out to increase the area where we can search and find wildlife. That’s exactly what we did today, with two of our boats heading slightly more north, with the third going south.

Typically when this happens the boats would be close enough together that when one finds a group of whales they can let the others know and all end up seeing that whale, but unfortunately today that wasn’t the case. The boats that headed North ended up finding a group of humpbacks socializing and spending time in a group, while the boat that went south ended up finding a group of Orca that were heading even further south, and fast.

Let’s start by talking about the humpback encounter that our semi-covered vessel Kula and one of our open boats, Cascadia, had! As they were travelling through the beautiful, calm waters of the Strait, they saw a blow in the distance! Wait, it seems like there was more than one blow here. It turned out to be a pair of Humpback whales travelling together: Big Mama (BCY0324) and Valiant (BCX1773). These two were travelling closely together, seemingly socializing. It wasn’t long before three more humpback whales rolled up and joined the party! The other whales we were able to determine were Olympus (BCX2075), Hendrix (BCY1278), and Velvet (BCY1186).

It wasn’t long ago that people thought that humpbacks weren’t social animals, as they would primarily be seen travelling solo. The main exception to this pattern was when a calf would be seen travelling with their mother during the first year of their lives, but after that, there didn’t seem to be much interaction between individuals. This has changed drastically in the last few years. It is now more common to see the humpbacks travelling in pairs or even larger groups like this, although they still tend to like their alone time. Associations in large numbers like we saw today tend to not happen early in the season when we whales have just returned from their migration down south to their breeding and calving grounds. Those southern waters don’t have the same amount of food available for the humpback whales and therefore they are reliant on their fat reserves while they are down there and travelling, so when we first see them they are very focused on getting food and building those reserves again. As the season carries on, we might see more social behaviour starting around September and October in large groups like this, but for whatever reason this season has been kicking off early with lots of excitement from our large humpbacks.

Watching the whales interacting within this group really makes us wonder how people could have ever thought that they were solitary animals. Looking back, it is probably more likely that the whales were just so low in numbers that it was more difficult to find each other and be able to socialize in the feeding grounds and instead it all happened in the more southern waters. Lucky for us that it’s changing though!

While the two boats enjoyed watching these very social whales, our other open boat was spending time with two pods of orca that are usually seen travelling together: the T034s and T037s!

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

T037 Rocky III / Pizza Fin ♀ (1979)
T037B Harald ♀ (1998)
T037B1 Lance ♂ (2012)
T037B3 (2022)

You might not know it by looking at the numbers, but it is believed that T037 Pizza Fin is the eldest daughter of T034 Grace. The Biggs or transient orca that we watch are ambush predators, so they rely on stealth to be able to surprise their prey and keep a very high success rate that they have. When pod sizes get too large, you are easier to detect by the seals and sea lions that are their main prey source. This might be why Pizza Fin has her own pod designation. When she started having calves of her own, she would have dispersed from Grace and started her own pod. Once she had her own children disperse, her pod was then small enough to rejoin her mother, at least it seems like they travel together the vast majority of the time. If the whales didn’t disperse and form their own separate pods, this family of whales would be 12 individuals. That’s a big group of orca! More often, they keep their pod size down to around 3-6.

This group, being 7, would be on the larger side when they are all travelling together, but it doesn’t seem to cause them any issues as they are all healthy and still travelling together. Today, these whales were travelling together south, moving quite quickly as they did. We travelled south with them until they were nearly at the border, heading into Washington State! We ended up leaving them to their travels, and we started the trip back home.

Keta made a quick stop at a Harbour Seal haul-out, just inside Active Pass before making the long journey home through the Southern Gulf Islands. Our other vessels stopped in at Stinky Rocks to view the Harbour Seals and Steller Sea Lion that are typically found there. After that, they continued travelling towards Nanaimo with a final wildlife stop at the Gabriola Bluffs.

Please enjoy all of the photos captured throughout the trips by the onboard marine naturalists Aly Kohlman (Kula), Vanessa Vereschahen (Cascadia), and Lucy Willis (Keta).

The blowholes of a humpback! Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Hendrix fluking - unfortunately they have new entanglement wounds as seen here. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Big Mama (back) and Valiant (front). Photo by Aly Kohlman.

A waterfall off Valiant’s fluke. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Valiant’s fluke. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Big Mama preparing to dive. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Valiant diving. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Big Mama’s fluke. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Olympus’ dorsal and Velvet diving beside her. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

T037 Pizzafin/Rocky III and T034A Pachamama. Photo by Lucy Willis.

T037B Harald and T037B3. Photo by Lucy Willis.

T037 Pizzafin/Rocky III. Photo by Lucy Willis.

A cozy Harbour seal mother and pup. Photo by Lucy Willis.

A Harbour seal with an eye injury. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Surfing sea lions are sometimes mistaken for orca when they have their flippers up like this. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Squabbling in the shallows. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

It’s not always rest and relaxation when there’s a gathering of sea lions all together. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

A resting Steller sea lion. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

A little snack in the beak of a Pigeon Guillemot. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Cormorants at the Bluffs with their chicks. Photo by Aly Kohlman.

Baby Gulls look like little dinosaurs! Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Up close and personal with a Gull. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

A beautiful adult Bald Eagle. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Someone looks comfy! Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.

Jilann LechnerJuly 27, 2024Whales1 Comment