CWR | A sunny encounter with Bigg’s

||| FROM CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH |||

Full Encounter Report

• ObservBegin: 10:50 AM
• ObservEnd: 11:30 AM
• Vessel: KCB III
• Staff: Dave Ellifrit, Michael Weiss, Katie Jones
• Pods: Bigg’s killer whales
• IDsEncountered: T34A, T34A2, T34B, T37, T37B, T37B1, and T37B3
• LocationDescr: Satellite Channel

EncSummary: After receiving a report of a large group of whales heading west in Boundary Pass north of Turn Point, the team met at Snug Harbor and left in “KCB3” at 0930. We headed north up Haro Strait and then up Swanson Channel. By this point, we had heard that the whales were confirmed as Bigg’s, and they had been seen heading up the Pender bluffs earlier, so we knew they were ahead of us somewhere. We made it up to the mouth of Navy Channel and took a scan. We did not see anything in the Enterprise Reef area, and the timing had us in the right area if they had continued towards Active Pass. We decided to head southwest past the bottom of Prevost Island and were doing that when blows were seen ahead of us off the southeast corner of Saltspring Island.

We made it over to the eastern Satellite Channel area, where a fin had been seen, but no whales were now visible. We looked around for several minutes without seeing anything before the whales finally surfaced in a tight group just a little south of Russell Island. The encounter began at 1050. The whales were the T34s, T37, and the T37Bs, and they had apparently made a kill right before we arrived and were feeding. We saw at least one whale, maybe two, with a chunk of meat in its mouth, and there were a few interested gulls in the area. T34, herself, would not be present today. The whales soon finished feeding and grouped up tight in what appeared to be a resting formation and were slowly moving west. At about 1115, the whales began a vigorous milling, and it soon became apparent that they had something. A short time later, a Stellar sea lion appeared in the middle of them. They briefly harassed and tested the sea lion before giving up and grouping back up in a resting formation. The whales turned north and headed very slowly into Fulford Harbor. We ended the encounter there at 1130.