CWR logs another Bigg’s encounter

EncSummary: Mark left Victoria on Mike 1 at 0930 en route to Galiano Island with hopes to find some Bigg’s along the way. Shortly after departing, he received a report of a group of killer whales southbound near Crofton, BC. He felt that with the last of the ebb current, he would likely find them in Sansum Narrows, perhaps south of Maple Bay. A subsequent report suggested they had entered Maple Bay just before Mark reached the Narrows, so at 1115, he stopped for a binocular scan just south of Maple Bay and saw them approaching a half mile ahead in a tight group.

He was quickly able to confirm that it was the distinctive fin of the 48-year-old bull T011A travelling alongside T046Bs, for a total of 10 individuals.

T011A had been reported a day earlier, travelling with the T046Bs in the Strait of Georgia, somewhat to Mark’s surprise, as T011A is known to spend much of his time west of Victoria on the outer coast of Vancouver Island, often by himself, and rarely venturing farther inshore than the Sooke Basin. The T046Bs are, however, a familiar group to T011A, and he is occasionally seen associating with them in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where they also spend time on patrol. In the last month, the T046Bs have been seen several times in the inside waters of the Salish Sea, moving back and forth between Saanich Inlet and Nanaimo, sometimes beyond.

The large group continued south in the Narrows and rounded Sansum Point as a new flood current arrived ahead of them, slowing them and pushing them across the channel towards the Salt Spring Island side.

Mark was getting ready to depart after shadowing them for 30 minutes when at 1156 he noticed they started to pursue a California sea lion just north of Burial Island. For the next 38 minutes, there was a frenzy of activity as the T046Bs rushed at the sea lion and leapt about. The flood current was now building, and they got carried back to the north as they continued tormenting it. They ended up in a back eddy in the small bay on the Vancouver Island shoreline between Octopus Point and Sansum Point while they continued to circle the now exhausted sealion before they finally drowned it at 1234.

The entire time the family of nine Bigg’s were on the sea lion, T011A was on the periphery doing the occasional tail lob and also seen swimming on his side against the shoreline pec slapping. Interestingly, adult males are often at the periphery of sea lion hunts, perhaps concerned they will get in the way of the much more agile and skilled females? This was at least the third sea lion hunt observed with the T046Bs locally in the last three weeks; April 28th in Saanich Inlet and May 2nd south of Discovery Island were the others.

Mark did not observe any prey sharing with T011A before ending the encounter at 1248 as the whales continued to get pushed north back into Maple Bay with the now roaring flood current.