EncDate:14/06/22 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:32

ObservBegin:07:10 PM

ObservEnd:08:47 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Staff:Dave Ellifrit

Pods:Transients

LocationDescr:Haro Strait

Start Latitude:48 36.52

Start Longitude:123 12.21

End Latitude:48 37.84

End Longitude:123 17.33

 

EncSummary:

Dave was at home when Jane Cogan called to say that she had been working outside and had seen a male killer whale disappearing around Kellett Bluff. Since it was a nice evening, Dave decided to give it a go and headed to Snug Harbor. “Orcinus” left the harbor at 1910 and got on scene just north of Kellett Bluff with the encounter starting at 1922. The T75Bs and T75Cs were milling near Henry Island while a male and female had been reported closer to Battleship Island. The male showed up a few minutes later. This was T75A and he headed slowly south toward the milling T75Bs and T75Cs. Shortly after T75A joined the others, the whales began traveling north up Haro Strait. T75 appeared near Battleship and headed west toward her family members and soon joined them. 

After two series of surfacing’s, T75 and T75A stayed down for some extra time on a long dive and finally came up a couple of hundred yards to the west of where the others had been. On the next series, all the whales turned west towards Mandarte Island with T75 and T75A trailing the others by about 150 yards. All the whales took one zag to the southwest before turning west again and entering Miners Channel. The whales then split into three tight groups and spread out. The T75Bs moved closer to Mandarte Island while the T75Cs moved several hundred yards to the south of them. T75 and T75A were still behind the others and moved over to the Mandarte side of the channel. The encounter ended at 2047 with T75 and T75A traveling slowly west on the south side of Mandarte Island and trailing the T75Bs by a couple of hundreds of yards.