CWR documents fantastic encounter with J Pod

||| FROM CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH |||

Full Encounter Report

ObservBegin: 09:29 AM
ObservEnd: 16:28 PM
Vessel: KCB III
Staff: Michael Weiss, Darren Croft, Katie Jones
Other Observers: Rachel John, Taylor Redmond
Pods: Southern Resident: J Pod

IDsEncountered:
J16, J19, J22, J26, J27, J31, J36, J37, J38, J39, J40, J41, J42, J44, J45, J46, J47, J49, J51, J53, J56, J57, J58, J59, J62, J63

Location Description: Haro Strait

Encounter Summary:
With an early morning report of a large group of killer whales off Pile Point, the team made a plan to meet at Snug, soon getting off the dock at 9:13. The team started to see many distant backlit blows as we approached Pile Point where we began the encounter at 9:29. With Js and Ls being around the previous day for a photo-ID encounter, today’s focus was on drone work, especially with the glassy conditions forecasted for the day.

The lead whales included the J19s and J42 as well as J39 offshore, but we could see many more fins spread past Eagle Point. We decided to focus on flying the drone over foraging whales, first flying over J26, but with him doing longer dives we eventually switched to J44 and J57 who were chasing a fish. The J31s and J40s were in the vicinity as well but flipped down island. J57 soon split off from J44, heading down island, but J44 continued to forage in the same location where he would catch another salmon. Satisfied with the chase we got on the drone, the team decided to continue down island to find more individuals. We found the J41s once again, with J51 babysitting J62 while J41 looked to be foraging. The J41s made an inshore turn pointing back up island and aiming for where J19 looked to be.

With the whales all seeming to make the turn up island, the team decided to head offshore to check out a male in the distance that we were assuming to be J27. As we approached we could confirm that the male was J27 who looked to be foraging. J27 continued a northerly track with two sequences of a cartwheel followed by an inverted tail lob. After documenting J27 we decided to head back inshore to fly over new whales.

The team started seeing more fins near False Bay who turned out to be the J22s and J37s (minus J59) allokelping in their matriline pairs. Further offshore of them, the J31s popped up, also allokelping. We continued along with the J22s and J37s for a bit as they headed up island before switching to J46 and J53 who were foraging off of Pile Point. The whales soon flipped back to heading down island and we found J40, J63, and J62 socializing. There were many whales from various matrilines spread inshore of us all quickly heading down island as well. After leaving the group of J40 and the two calves we would soon find the rest of the J19s again, who J62 would join up with. The team decided to head further inshore next to document two tight groups consisting of the J16s, J40s, J45, and J53. J63 was very surface active, breaching and tail slapping many times, with J16, J42, and J53 eventually getting in on the action with some breaches and tail slaps as well. Trailing behind this group were the J22s and J37s, still traveling together, as well as the J31s nearby. With all the drone batteries used up we decided to end the encounter off of Lime Kiln at 16:28.