EncDate:05/09/22 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:54

ObservBegin:01:45 PM

ObservEnd:04:07 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Staff:Dave Ellifrit

Other Observers:Mia Lybkaer Kronborg Nielsen, Sam Mundorff, Federica Spina

Pods:Transients

LocationDescr:Alden Bank

Start Latitude:48 49.35

Start Longitude:122 53.42

End Latitude:48 43.18

End Longitude:122 46.11

 

EncSummary:

September 5th was a big Transient day. The team was working in the photo-ID office when we heard over the radio about a group of transients coming up the westside of San Juan Island. This group almost snuck past us but they were found just north of CWR around 1045. We ran down to the deck to see if we could get some pictures. The whales were about three quarters of a mile offshore and outside of the salvage barge and tug working at the sight of the sunken fishing boat “Aleutian Isle”. The whales were just far enough away to be heat-hazy in photos but we were able to identify them as the T49As minus T49A1 and T49A2. After the T49As moved off to the north, the team headed back up the hill to the office only to hear over the radio that another group of transients were inside of Sunset Point. So we ran back down to the porch to see more whales appearing from behind Sunset Point. This was all six of the T60s (including T60D and T60E) plus T2B and they went inside the reef in front of CWR and inside of the salvage barge. It was a nice pass and we got some good photos of the group as they headed north.

Not long after we again made our way back up the hill, Dave got a text from John Durban saying that their research team had found a large number of transients north of Patos Island. We then headed down to Snug Harbor and left in the boat at 1250. “Orcinus” arrived on scene about 4-5 miles north of Patos at 1345. We saw one tight group and several other singles and a pair or two spread out to the east. All the whales were moving southeast. The group included T100, T100C, T100E, T100F, T137A, and T65A5. Another loose trio was on the far side of this group and we later identified these three as T124A4, T124A4A and T137D. A spread out threesome was to the southeast of the group and this was T101, T137, and T137B. There was another pair of males about a third of a mile to the northeast and this was the brothers T101A and T101B. We moved from group to group to make sure we got a good photograph of everyone. Once we neared the south end of Alden Bank, the whales pointed in a more southerly direction toward Barnes and Clark. After we got photos of T101A and T101B, we could not find any more whales that we had not seen already. We did see more whales behind us but this turned out to be our original group that had stalled out. We got more picture of them before the T100s split off and headed southeast toward the north tip of Lummi Island. The T101s plus T137 and T137B were spread out to the southwest of us in the direction of Matia Island. We worked our way back west and, eventually, the T100s showed up again and the whales began coming back together south of the Y “CA” buoy. A tug and barge with an extra tug were heading south to the east of us and put up a big wake. Several whales got excited and active when the wake finally made it to us. The T124A4s splashed around together and T137D did three big breaches. Several other whales surfed the wake a small ways to the southwest. All fourteen whales present were in a single loose group heading south when we ended the encounter at 1607 about a mile north of Barnes and Clark Islands.