Center for Whale Research reports encounters with Bigg’s Killer Whales

||| FROM CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH |||

The team was working in the office when we decided to go out on a group of Bigg’s that had been found north of Skipjack Island. The team headed down to Snug Harbor and left in “KCB3” at 1455. We arrived on scene on the east side of Skipjack Island and the encounter began at 1525.

We could see a single male milling near Skipjack Island while a tight group of six was heading east a couple of hundred yards to the east of the island. The group consisted of T101, T101A, and the T65Bs and they went on a long dive before we could get too close to them. T101B was the single male foraging closer to Skipjack Island. When the group came up again, they had moved to the north but were non-directional while at the surface. They went down on another long dive and we launched the drone. After a few minutes, T101A surfaced nearby and began milling by himself. A minute or two later, the other members of the group surfaced in the middle of an active seal kill. The attack was a bit prolonged and, at one point when the whales moved off a bit before roaring back to the scene, we thought they may have caught a second seal and were making a double kill. However, the drone footage revealed that there was only one taken in this kill. While only one seal was killed in the last attack, the drone also revealed that one or two whales were still carrying remains from a previous kill.

The group headed southeast towards Bare Island and began circumnavigating the island as they foraged around it. T101B also headed over to the area before he headed south into President Channel. The group circumnavigating Bare Island began fast traveling south, following T101B by a couple of hundred yards. We ended the encounter at 1619 off Point Hammond with the group of Bigg’s following T101B down the Waldron Island side of President Channel.