Date: 04-Oct-18

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number :87

Enc Start Time: 15:25

Enc End Time: 17:57

Vessel: Orcinus

Observers: Dave Ellifrit, Kelley Balcomb-Bartok, and Stacey Aronson

Pods or ecotype: T123s

Location: Haro Strait and eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca

Begin Lat/Long: 48 28.45/123 07.50

End Lat/Long: 48 21.34/123 18.21

 

Encounter Summary:

While working in the CWR office, we heard reports over the radio of the T123s with a new calf heading northwest up Haro Strait. We met at Snug Harbor, left in the boat around 1510, and arrived on scene a couple miles off Hannah Heights at 1525. The T123s were traveling slowly northwest up Haro Strait but soon took a hard left and began traveling south-southwest toward Beaumont Shoal and Seabird Point. T123A occasionally moved away from the others for a brief time but he kept coming back and the group moved as a tight foursome for most of the encounter. On at least three occasions between Beaumont Shoal and south of Discovery Island, the whales milled around and appeared to make an inconspicuous kill. While we never saw exactly what they got, we repeatedly saw chunks of something in their mouths, saw birds diving to collect bits, and smelled blubber oil in the air. Once the T123s were past Seabird Point, they turned more southwest and we left them a few minutes before 1800 about 2 miles south of Trial Island pointed toward Albert and William Heads.