CWR encounter • Bigg’s Killer Whales

EncSummary: As Mark was departing the T019s (see Encounter #81) he received a report of a single male killer whale travelling east along the Vancouver Island shoreline at Sooke Bay. Only four nautical miles away, it was worth taking a few minutes to follow up.

Mark headed for the entrance to the Sooke Basin and stopped for a binocular scan. He wondered if the inbound bull could be 48-year-old T011A “Rainy”,  who has regularly been seen going into Sooke Basin for years, although other Bigg’s families and individuals also are known to go in there on occasion.

After several minutes of scanning and no sign of a killer whale, Mark decided to idle slowly west toward Sooke Bay in case the whale had stalled out, perhaps hunting in the massive kelp bed along the Sooke Bluffs. He soon caught a medium-sized dorsal out of the corner of his eye just at the edge of his periphery, sliding eastward in the kelp bed off the Bluffs.

He knew immediately that it was not the massive dorsal of “Rainy”, and it was likely the 22-year-old dispersee T069E. T069E has been seen several times in the last two months wandering solo along the coast, the most recent CWR encounter with him being on July 9th near Pachena Point (Encounter #55).

Mark backtracked toward the entrance to Sooke Harbour and confirmed that it was indeed T069E on a line for the tip of Whiffin Spit and appeared to be heading into the harbour. On the next breath sequence, it became clear that the whale was indeed committed to the harbour, rounding the end of the spit along shore. Though he no longer consistently travels with his mother and brothers, they too are known to visit the Basin from time to time.

Mark decided to end the encounter here and continue his westward trek out the Juan de Fuca.