Date: 28-April-2019

Sequence: 1

Encounter Number: 29

Enc Start Time: 10:32

Enc End Time: 11:35

Vessel: Mike 1

Observers: Mark Malleson, Hanna Magnusson

Pods or ecotype: Transients

Location:South west of Constance Bank

Begin Lat/Long:48 17.6/123 23.7

End Lat/Long:48 17.1/123 20.8

 

Encounter Summary:

At 0800 I received a report from a halibut fisherman that he had seen killer whales a few miles south of Trial Island (48 17/123 18) at ~0600. We departed Victoria harbour at 0900 and received a call that he resighted them in the same area and thought they may have been on a kill. We worked our way out towards the waypoints where he was anchored and spoke with him as we hadn't spotted them. He said he last saw them well to the south of him. We scanned with binoculars as we worked our way to the south west. We asked another halibut fisherman at anchor if he had seen any killer whales and he pointed us in the direction of Pedder Bay to the north west as he had seen them 20 minutes earlier. We then spotted them feeding in the distance as their was a large group of gulls hovering above them (48 17.6/123 23.7). T065A and T063 were slightly to the north west of the rest of the feeding group. They all milled around for a few minutes before they started to travel back to the south east towards where they were initially spotted with T063 and T065A .5nm to the north east of the group. We left them at 1135 as several commercial whale boats had arrived on scene (48 17.1/123 20.8).