EncDate:11/02/23 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:03

ObservBegin:10:35 AM

ObservEnd:12:40 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Other Vessel:

Staff:Dave Ellifrit, Michael Weiss

Other Observers:Darren Croft

Pods:J

LocationDescr:Strait of Georgia

Start Latitude:48 58.56

Start Longitude:123 24.60

End Latitude:49 03.13

End Longitude:123 19. 17

 

EncSummary:

After hearing a report of a bunch of whales coming in the Strait of Juan de Fuca the previous evening, the team was ready for an early start if whales were around. We received an early report of J pod exiting Active Pass. Since the weather report was favorable, the team met at Snug Harbor and left in the boat at about 0845. The SR3 research team were also heading out aboard their boat “Helen” and we coordinated with them throughout the day. They took Boundary Pass up to the Strait of Georgia while we took Swanson Channel and Active pass in case there were any trailing groups of whales. We exited Active Pass at the same time “Helen” was passing by. Since they were faster than us, we let them continue northwest off the Galiano Island shoreline. We headed due north for a ways and then stopped and dropped the hydrophone and took a good scan with binocs. After about 10-15 minutes we got a call on the radio from “Helen” saying they had found whales heading northerly about midway up Galiano Island. We headed that direction and got on scene at 1035.

It was J pod and they were very spread out from closer to the Galiano shoreline to mid-Georgia Strait. We first headed toward the biggest concentration of whales we could find which happened to be two individuals spread out by a hundred and fifty yards. One of these whales was J46. Both were foraging and milling while taking some long dives. J27 showed up west of these two and we spent a little time getting a good look at him as he headed slowly northwest up Georgia Strait. J27 still looks a little thin but not nearly as bad as he looked during the Summer of 2022. A smaller whale appeared somewhat nearby J27 and this was J56. A female also showed up to the north of these two. J56 left J27 and joined J31 and the two of them continued northwest. We then worked our way toward mid-strait looking for more whales. J40 and J46 were milling together before they turned north and started charging toward the Frasier River mouth. Several hundred yards from these two was J38 who was also heading north. J22 was paralleling him about three to four hundred yards to the northwest. More whales began appearing and most of them remained spread out and heading north toward the river. We saw J36 and then J37 with J59. J49 was a couple hundred yards north of them. J16 appeared to the north of the J37s and joined J37 and J59. This threesome then began charging toward the river mouth. After getting good photos of these whales, we looked around to see if we could find anymore new whales for the day before it was time to head home. We found J45 by himself angling toward the coal docks. J45 now looks like a sprouter from a distance. To the north of J45, we saw an adult male in the distance. This turned out to be J26 and, after he slid down the length of a tug with a double barge, we got some good shots of him. J26 continues to look robust but he had a lot of peeling skin at the moment. J26 was north of the coal docks and heading south when we saw him. J45 was also last seen pointed south but they could have just been foraging. We ended the encounter at 1245 a little over mid-way between mid-Galiano Island and the Fraser River mouth.