CWR encounters Bigg’s killer whales and humpbacks

EncSummary: The team was working in the office when we heard reports of a group of Bigg’s southwest of Hein Bank. The group was said to include T30A and T30C, two whales that are not as common in the area as they used to be, so we thought we would go take a look. The team headed down to Snug Harbor and left in “KCB3” at 1146. After heading down the west side of San Juan Island, we eventually got on scene southwest of Hein Bank by 1239.

T30A, T30C, along with the T75Bs seemed to be socializing as there was a lot of rolling around and tactile behavior. The whales were mostly non-directional, but they moved a little to the south. We got the drone up for one flight but there was just enough lump to the water to make flying uncomfortable, so we quit after the first flight. The group split into two groups of three that were loosely spread apart. T30A, T30C, and T75B3 were still socializing with one another while T75B, T75B2, and T75B4 were in the other group and were either just ahead or a little to the side. We ended the encounter at 1336, not too far south of where the encounter started.

On the way home, we encountered two humpback whales at the south end of Mitchell Bay at 1445. The pair were heading slowly north, and they both fluked for us. These two individuals would later be identified from their fluke shots as BCY1473 and BCY1482. These two just happened to be siblings who were traveling together.