Written by: Megan – Lead Naturalist
4th April 2024
Humpback calf
FIRST TRIP OF THE SEASON!! We were super excited to set off on Thursday! And it did not disappoint, our first whale of the year was a 2022 calf BCY0876! This most likely would have been the calf’s first time making the big migration journey. We are super excited to see they made it back this year and we look forward to hopefully seeing it every year from now on! We’ve submitted this data to Happy Whale to reconfirm our ID and also to let them know this little one made it up here!
5th April 2024
On Friday we had our first Killer Whale sighting of the season, and on day two! We first came across T087. T087 is one of the original catalogue members and he was first sighted in 1962! That makes him at least 62 years old! Whilst female killer whales have been documented living well into their 80’s and 90’s it’s thought that the males die younger around their 60’s and 70’s. That means this old man could be in his final years. However, sightings data just like this will help us gain more understanding about male life expectancy and so every sighting of him is crucial. We made sure to report it to all the relevant organisations, as we do with every sighting!
Before we had identified him, I knew instinctively he was older based on his Dorsal fin. It’s curled at the top. Dorsal fins are made purely of cartilage and whilst there can be many reasons why a dorsal could be floppy, its often a sign of age, particularly in the males.
After we spent some time with this distinguished gentleman, we had a report there was another pod on our way back home. So, we set off to see who they were! It was a family pod, the T100’s! There we saw Mum (T100) her son (T100C) and her youngest daughter (T100F). Mum has had a total of 6 children, one of them (T100B) has gone off to have 3 of her own calves and so has started a new pod. Sadly, two are missing, presumed dead (T100A & T100D). This is a sad part of getting to know these Orca families, offspring pass away for numerous reasons, sometimes natural and sometimes not. That’s why we constantly report our data to the right organisations because they can look at trends that could lead to discoveries about preventable deaths, changing species protection and legislation. During this encounter T100E was not present. This is the first sign that they could be missing. We have done a little research and they were last seen in February. It is not unusual for orcas to temporarily leave their families; it’s thought they are just like us and need a little break from mum every once in a while. T100E is also around 15 years old and therefore could even be temporarily missing because she’s off having a calf! Only time will tell and we will definitely be keeping an eye out for her in the future!
6th April 2024
Big boys plus family again
Saturday was another killer whale filled trip! We started with two big boys, identified as T101A and T101B. These brothers hang out with their mum, we didn’t see her but researches told us afterwards she was photographed in the area so looks like she was just getting some peace and quiet!
It’s always super cool to see males, those dorsal fins reach up to 6-7foot tall and these two boys were playing with us, sometimes together sometimes one either side of the boat. They certainly got the guests excited!
Then they almost led us straight to another group… and it was the T100’s from yesterday! Still no sign of T100E but we’re still not panicking just yet! We logged the sightings making sure to note that T100E was not seen for a second day, and we’ll keep checking in for more news.
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