After a very successful morning, we were eager to get back out there to see if we could replicate it! Orca can cover a lot of ground in a day, so anytime we are able to see the same group twice in one day we are very thankful. So we headed out to the strait, with high hopes and high spirits. As we were cruising past the eastern side of Gabriola, we started seeing blows. One of our boats found a pair of humpbacks! These two were a bit of a mystery at first, not giving us very good flukes. Luckily, we got some clear photos of the dorsals and a partial fluke and were able to ID them later on as Graze (BCY0523) and Mantis (BCX0936). These two were travelling together, casually meandering around the Salish Sea. We left them to their excursion and continued on our way.

Nearby, our open boat found another pair on their way south, Sage (BCX2073) and Crackle (BCY1227). Both these whales are younger animals, born in 2020. These two were having a pretty good time together, and guests were treated to some pec slapping and even a breach! These pecs aren’t even full grown, as these whales aren’t full size until they are around ten years old. We can’t wait to see how large these two kiddos get!

We were in for a bit more excitement as Kula glided into the Flat Top islands. Blows blows blows! But belonging to whom? We headed over and came across the family we spotted earlier in the day, the T002Cs. This pod consists of:

T002C Tasu ♀ (1989)
T002C1 Rocky ♂ (2002)
T002C3 Lucy ♀ (2011)
T002C5 “Zippy” (2021)

We watched this family glide along for a little bit, enjoying the sight of big boy Rocky next to his mom and younger siblings. But wait! More blows? That’s right, we quickly came upon a well-known trio at this point, three juvenile Humpbacks who have been glued at the hip the last two weeks. It was "Mow" (BCY0523 calf 2023), Wisp (BCX1333 calf 2021), and Malachite (BCX1210 calf 2021). These rambunctious kiddos have been seen galavanting around our waters together, taking small breaks to feed, but eventually meeting up together again. Today was no different, with the youngsters hanging out close together. Soon, their peace was disturbed, as the two youngest members of our orca pod set their sights on our rag-tag crew. As Tasu and Rocky decided to continue on their way near Kula, Lucy and “Zippy” darted over to the humpbacks.

While humpbacks have size on their side, Orca love to harass and bully the humpbacks here in the Salish Sea. In many places, Orca are the only predators of the humpback whale and may target yearlings (such as Mow!) or cow-calf pairs as a food source. While these young orca had no real chance of taking down these humpbacks alone, they sure weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to pick on them! While the adults decided to stay out of it, we had a bit of a baby brawl on our hands! Our young humpbacks made their displeasure known, loudly trumpeting at each other and the young orca as they swam within their group. After bothering the humpbacks for what they deemed was long enough, the two youngest T002Cs left them to rejoin with mom Tasu and big brother Rocky as they carried on. When our zodiac met up with them later on, they appeared to be back on a hunt, seemingly satisfied with their bout of bullying.

While our to was just lightly harassed today, sometimes Orca can be a bit more aggressive. It’s not that common to see these two species interacting on our tours, because they tend to avoid each other. However, the several times we’ve seen them harassing each other usually involves big activity from the humpbacks. Like said before, these gentle giants have about 30,000 lbs on the orca, and use their weight and size to their advantage. Breaching and pec slapping are some of the ways that these massive whales can tell the orca to effectively “go away”, as no one wants to risk getting hit by a 16-foot fin! Occasionally the humpbacks will call in reinforcements, and we may see other animals come over to help out if there is a large group. One particular whale is notorious for chasing after the Orca in the area, the ever-courageous Valiant (BCX1773)! If you take a look at Valiant’s fluke, you’ll notice rake marks along the edge. This is because when she was a kiddo, the orca went after her tail, but she got away, mostly unscathed! Check out this photo of her below to see for yourself.

Nowadays, Valiant is much larger and unafraid of the Orca, and is often seen charging at them in double species altercations. Funnily enough, this photo is from exactly this situation, when we saw a massive Orca/Humpback brawl earlier this summer. Check out the blog from this day to read more about it! Ironically, the T002C’s are no saints themselves, as they have been seen harassing humpbacks before as well. There’s never a dull moment in the Salish Sea!

On our way home, we ran into another young whale, Grizzly BCY1330. This year we’ve seen a lot of animals of a similar age associating with each other, so who’s to say they weren’t on their way to join up with our group of kiddos nearby? I guess we’ll never know!

We finished up our day by checking out some other wildlife nearby, including the Steller Sea Lions, Harbour Seals and the Cormorants. Enjoy pictures from the day taken by our onboard naturalists Aly Kohlman and Lucy Willis!

August 15, 2024, 3:30 pm - Baby Brawl!

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