EncDate*:24/05/22 

EncSeq*:1

Enc#*:27

ObservBegin:08:37 AM

ObservEnd:05:05 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Staff:Michael Weiss

Other Observers:Mia Lybkær Kronborg Nielsen, Rachel John

Pods:J

LocationDescr:Georgia Strait/Boundary Pass

Start Latitude:48 54.178

Start Longitude:123 16.643

End Latitude:48 38.926

End Longitude:123 13.102

 

EncSummary:

Early in the morning, Michael received reports from several people that members of J pod had been seen heading north through Swanson Channel towards Active Pass. The team got off the dock at 8:37, and went north towards Active.

As the team came out of Active Pass, they saw a single adult male in the distance. This adult male turned out to be J26, foraging all alone. The team stayed with him for several minutes, scanning the horizon for the rest of the pod to no success. After several minutes, the team left J26 to search for the rest of the pod. Over the next two hours, the team ran several transect lines around J26, dropping the hydrophone several times, but never detected any other whales visually or acoustically.

At 12:05, the team headed south to fuel up the boat and check in with the sightings networks to see if they could get any clues as to what direction the rest of J pod travelled. They received reports that the whales were near East Point, looking like they were going to go down Boundary Pass.

At 15:16, the team caught back up with the whales along the Saturna Island shoreline in Boundary Pass. They first came across the J37s, with new calf J59 in tow. Offshore of this group was J39, who the team paralleled for a few surfacings. Next, the team moved in shore and backwards in the group, finding J46 travelling near J42 and J53.

The team worked their way back through the group, and came across the J16s very spread out. Behind and offshore of the J16s, pair of young males J45 and J44 travelled quickly and tight together.

As the whales approached Turn Point, the team broke away from the whales and tried to get towards more of the leaders. As they rounded Turn, they found a group of spread out whales composed of J40, J46, J31, and J56. At this point the weather started to turn fairly ugly, so the team quickly got proof of presence shots on this group before calling the encounter and heading home at 17:05.

Later that night, Dave got shots of the Js as they passed Lime Kiln, including the J19s and J35s. The whales eventually flipped and grouped up, heading north. Michael and Mia watched all of J pod pass the Center for Whale Research as they went back north a bit past 21:00.