Date: 31-Dec-17

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number: 110

Enc Start Time: 09:15

Enc End Time: 10:52

Vessel: Orcinus

Observers: Dave Ellifrit

Pods or ecotype: Transients

Location: Boundary Pass

Begin Lat/Long: 48 41.23/123 14.25

End Lat/Long: 48 43.00/123 09.47

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Encounter Summary:

Jeanne Hyde heard transients before dawn talking loudly on the OrcaSound hydrophone and let CWR know with a couple of early morning emails and a call to Ken. Not long after it started getting light, Jane Cogan called Dave to let him know that the transients were still loud on the hydrophone. Dave grabbed his gear and headed for the boat while Ken scanned from the CWR deck. When Dave arrived at Snug Harbor, Tom Cogan was also jumping in his boat “Morning Star” to go look for the whales and we soon made a plan for our search. Both boats left Snug Harbor at about 0830 with “Morning Star” taking the Canadian Side of Haro Strait and “Orcinus” heading north up the American side.
Dave eventually found the whales at 0915 just south of Turn Point. It was a tight group of females and younger whales and they passed Turn Point, heading north, right on the rocks. The whales turned out to be the T49As, T75Bs, and T75Cs and they then traveled slowly northeast up Boundary Pass on a direct line for Blunden Island. T49A, T75B, and T75C all had their new calves traveling with them. We will call the new calves T49A5, T75B3, and T75C1, respectively, unless Jared Towers tells us differently. Sometimes a new calf gets seen somewhere else on the coast but dies before we see it in our area so we always check with Jared to be sure we are calling a new calf the right name. T75C’s calf looked the youngest as it had not filled out (fattened up) yet and was still lumpy looking with a wavy newborn fin-probably less than two weeks old. T75C1 also had a scratched up nose but it did not look too serious. The other two calves were a bit fatter but all three calves still had remains of fetal folds. T75B3 was quite active and breached a couple of times. The whales were easy to track on their long dives as at least one of the calves would have to come up early halfway through the long dive and gave them all away. The whales traveled in one tight group although it occasionally loosened up a little with the T49As in the lead. There was some occasional milling and the T49A juveniles dropped back a short way a few times to be social with the T75Bs and T75Cs. Dave left the group still heading northeast up Boundary Pass at 1052 about a mile east of Blunden Island.