Center for Whale Research logs first encounter of the new year

EncSummary: Mark received an early report of four killer whales spotted from shore between Trial Island and Clover Point heading east towards Oak Bay. After a walk with Fin, keeping a casual lookout and a scan from the shoreline in front of his place without any more sightings, he and George mobilized Mike 1 and left Victoria at ~1000.

They received another report from a spotter at Ten Mile Point that the whales had been seen heading northeast in Haro Strait on a line for Henry Island. With flat light under overcast skies, they stopped to do a binocular scan just south of the Kelp Reef marker… Within a minute, Mark started to laugh when a dorsal fin filled the frame of his binoculars, as a killer whale passed within 60 metres of the team, heading northwest. “Good start to the New Year!”

For the next several minutes, they saw only a pair of sub-adults loosely traveling together, occasionally joining as they zig-zagged their way toward Kelp Reef. Both were distinctively notched along the trailing edges of their dorsal fins, and Mark was able to identify 15-year-old T073A2, but the second individual remained a mystery. After sending pictures from the back of the camera to a few of his colleagues, Gary and Tasli from Bay Cetology finally confirmed the second individual was 13-year-old T166A1 with new notches. This sighting marks only the second time this individual has been documented in the Salish Sea, with the first being around four years ago in Puget Sound, when it was traveling with members of the T068 line.

As Mark and George approached Kelp Reef, Mark finally spotted a bull to the east of them, which he confirmed to be T073A1. He disappeared after a surfacing sequence, and close to 15 minutes later, George spotted more animals approaching from the west, closer to D’arcy Island. This group of six included the original pair, T073A2 and T166A1, along with the other two members of the T073As – T073A and her youngest offspring, T073A3 – and the T075Cs.

These six were now grouped, appeared to have made a quick meal of (likely) harbor seal at the west edge of Kelp Reef, and were now making tracks quickly northeast, likely headed toward the 20-year-old bull, T073A1. Mark and George relocated him near Battleship Island as he was milling about while the rest of the group caught up and eventually joined them.

With hopes they were going to predate one of the many stellar sea lions in the area, the Mike 1 crew shadowed them at a distance for the next 30 minutes as the whales sauntered east in Speiden Channel along the shoreline of Speiden Island. No predation was observed, and they ended the encounter at 1331 as the whales continued east after crossing to the San Juan Island side of the channel.

Note: The entire T166 line is poorly known along the coast, often going years between documentation. We do know that T166A1 split from his/her mother sometime before the aforementioned 2021 appearance in Puget Sound. Mother T166A is still alive and was recently observed off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island (July 2025) for the first time since she and T166A1 were last documented together a decade prior, along BC’s central coast in July 2015.