Encounter #42 • Bigg’s killer whales T46Bs + T100s

EncSummary: The team had been paying attention to reports all morning of two groups of Bigg’s in the San Juan Islands while working in the office. The two groups, the T46Bs and the T100s, met and joined up in the middle of the islands before heading up San Juan Channel past Friday Harbor. After the whales had made it past Friday Harbor, we headed down to Snug Harbor and left in “KCB3” around 1405.

We got on scene, mid-San Juan Channel, a little over a mile northwest of Point Caution, and the encounter started at 1430. T100 and most of the T46Bs were in a tight group heading northwest up the channel. T100C, T100F, and T46B4 were several whale lengths behind the others and seemed to be socializing with one another. We got the drone up for the first of multiple flights over the whales thaa day. The whales continued heading up San Juan Channel in the two groups, loosely spread from one another. We made a couple of forays in for ID photos but generally stayed back while the drone was in the air.

As the whales passed Jones Island, they spread out and began foraging in the area east of Spieden and Flattop Islands. Most of the T46Bs spread out to the west part of this area while the T100s and T46B3s spread out in the east part of the area. T46B6 came very quickly from the west towards where the T46B3s were. From the drone, we could see that the whales spread out to the east of Green Point had killed a harbor porpoise, and parts of it were being handled by both T46B and her newest calf, T46B8, and the T46B2s. While we were filming the kill and feeding event with the drone, we noticed a floating set of lungs a couple hundred yards to the east of us. The T46B3s had killed a second harbor porpoise. The lungs were still attached to the ribcage, and T46B3 soon came back to collect the carcass with T46B3A in tow. We moved back west towards the first kill where whales were feeding in two smaall groups. We had T46B2, with T46B2B and T46B4 nearby, bring a large part of that kill over to the boat to show us.

After feeding, the whales grouped back up into the same formation they were in before, with T100 and the bulk of the T46Bs in a tight group in front and then T100C, T100F, and T46B4 socializing a few whale lengths behind them. The whales entered Spieden Channel and continued heading west, and we were able to get some more ID photos on them. The whales reached the west end of Spieden Channel and began to point northwest towards Stuart Island. We ended the encounter about a half mile west of Spieden Island at 1658 with the whales beginning to split up again. We heard later that the two groups split not long after we left, with the T100s heading west and the T46Bs heading northwest up Stuart Island.

T46B’s newest calf, T46B8, was present and looking healthy. Fetal folds are still visible on this calf. There was concern for this calf this day as we had all heard the reports that some of the T68s were down in Budd Inlet and that the male, T68A, was carrying around a dead calf…again. People were worried because, apparently, the T46Bs had been down in Puget Sound recently and T46B had lost a calf once before (T46B5) to T68A and his mother in the only known case of infanticide (witnessed by Jared Towers) documented during the study. Luckily, T46B’s newest calf is doing fine, but we are still unsure of the identity of the dead calf that T68A was pushing around down there.