CWR encounter with J Pod

EncSummary: Mark left Victoria on Mike 1 at 0830 and headed west out on the Juan de Fuca Strait, favouring the Vancouver Island shoreline. He came across a large aggregation of humpbacks near Sombrio Point and spent close to an hour collecting tail fluke identification photographs of them. He took a final binocular scan to the west before heading offshore to search the middle of the Strait on his return trip to Victoria. As he was nearly four miles south of Sombrio, he spotted an eastbound bull killer whale just a mile off of his bow. As he approached, he spotted a cow with a juvenile and a second smaller bull slightly north of the larger bull. At first, Mark assumed he had a group of Bigg’s, but as he was looping around behind the group to get better lighting on their right sides, he saw the distinctive fin and saddle patch of J27!

He got a proof-of-presence shot of him before moving over to the cow and juvenile. When they surfaced, Mark could clearly see that the cow was carrying a dead neonate and confirmed that it was J27’s younger sister, 31-year-old J31, with her 7-year-old daughter J56. This was heartbreaking to see, and is unfortunately the second time Mark has come across a Southern Resident female carrying a dead neonate, the first being J35 in 2018. He has also seen calves in their last stages of life being cared for, such as in October 2024 when L83 was trying to revive L128, L90’s first calf, born roughly a month prior. In that case, the calf was severely emaciated, lumpy, and struggling to breathe; it was not seen in subsequent encounters with the group. This day, Mark shadowed J31 for a few moments as she carried her dead calf and saw her at one point let it go to briefly forage before retrieving it and continuing on eastward with her daughter J56 at her side.

The second and smaller bull was J31’s 23-year-old brother, J39, and Mark concluded after having a good look around during the encounter that this group of four J11s were the only whales present, so he ended the encounter with a heavy heart and headed east towards Victoria.

Note: J31 has been observed with a dead calf once before, in 2016, and has had several failed pregnancies. J56 is her only surviving offspring.