2021 Encounters

EncDate: 27/10/21

EncSeq: 1

Enc#: 84

ObservBegin: 04:10 PM

ObservEnd: 05:35 PM

Other Vessel: Taku

Staff: Dave Ellifrit

Other Observers: Kelley Balcomb-Bartok

Pods: J

LocationDescr: Boundary Pass

Start Latitude: 48 42.51

Start Longitude: 123 09.15

End Latitude: 48 40.28

End Longitude: 123 14.60

EncSummary:

After receiving several calls from Jane Cogan and Katie Jones relaying reports of J pod making their way down Georgia Strait toward Boundary Pass, Dave and Kelley met at Snug Harbor and left in the “new” boat “Taku” at 1530. We headed up Haro Strait toward Turn Point and were expecting to meet the whales somewhere near Stuart Island. After rounding Turn Point and not seeing anything, we began heading in the direction of Skipjack Island.

Around 1605, whales were spotted and the encounter began at 1610 about midway between Johns Pass and Blunden Island. The whales were spread out in groups and singles and were all heading down Boundary Pass toward Turn Point. The first group we saw included J31, J56, J37, J40, J46, and J57. J35 was about a hundred and fifty yards ahead of the group and J45 and J47 were traveling together about a hundred yards behind them. J56 and J57 were very active and playing with each other and with J46. J57 did numerous half breaches as he and J56 gambled along. J45 and J47 caught up to the group although they remained slightly peripheral to it. A few hundred yards behind the first group was another group that included J41, J58, J42, J49, and J53. J22 also showed up and joined and J37 dropped back from the first group to join this one too. J38 could be seen a good third of a mile to the southeast and another male was another half mile or more to the east of him. Once we were done with this second group, we moved over to get a better proof of presence shot on J38 and hopefully spot some whales to the east of us. We were getting shots of J38 when we noticed that the group with his mom in it had stalled out and were now milling nearby. J38 joined the group and they all lined up briefly before a couple members spread back out a little. While we were taking left sides of this line up, we finally saw a few other whales to the northwest of us.

We moved about a third of a mile to the northwest to a pair that turned out to be J44 and J51 traveling together. Another third of a mile to the west of them was J39 traveling southwest by himself. We were still hoping to find J36 to see if she had had her calf but we couldn’t find any whales on the horizon we hadn’t been on yet. After a little looking we saw a male a half mile east of Turn Point near the Stuart Island shoreline. This was J27 and he followed the groups ahead of him around Turn Point and into Haro Strait. We were not seeing any other whales in Boundary Pass so we decided to head down Haro toward home and see if any whales we were looking for had joined the leaders. We re-found the leaders about a half mile south of Turn Point. The whales had moved offshore a bit into some tidal slop. The whales were loosely spread out and heading south. We did see J19 who we hadn’t seen yet and she spyhopped to look at us. Since we did not know where to go to find J36, it was getting dark, and the clouds were threatening rain, we ended the encounter there at 1735. We made it back to Snug Harbor right as the rain began to fall and it was starting to get really dark

Photos taken under Federal Permits

NMFS PERMIT: 21238/ DFO SARA 388