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EncDate:15/12/23 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:74

ObservBegin:03:17 PM

ObservEnd:04:17 PM

Vessel:Mike 1

Staff:Mark Malleson

Other Observers:Joe Zelwietro, Brendon Bissonnette

Pods:Transients

LocationDescr:south of Constance Bank

Start Latitude:48 16.47

Start Longitude:123 20.16

End Latitude:48 17.91

End Longitude:123 23.10

EncSummary:

Joe, Mark, Brendon and Fin departed Victoria just after 1430, hoping for a quick encounter with some rarely seen outer-coastal Bigg's killer whales, aka "High T's" that Mark had found on a morning whale-watch tour. The animals were left moving east, well south of Race Rocks. Outer-coastal Bigg’s killer whales are more rarely encountered than their inner-coastal counterparts – sometimes years pass between successive documentations of individuals or even entire matrilines – and we are still learning about their social dynamics and population structure. Due to their frequent interaction and shared acoustic repertoire, both inner- and outer-coastal Bigg’s are considered part of one continuous population of mammal-hunting killer whales, ranging from SE Alaska to California and generally encountered inshore of the continental margin.

With light fading, the guys weren’t sure they’d be able to reacquire the whales, but given it could be a year before these individuals appeared again, they forged on. After stopping for a fruitless scan in the gloom, they opted to turn south, putting them approximately three miles ahead of where the animals were last seen. After another five minutes, Joe spotted a single male killer whale travelling west nearly two miles south of Mike 1. They slowed to a stop when they reached the area where Joe's estimate of where he had seen him and after a couple minutes of all three crew anxiously scanning, Mark reacquired the bull's trailing edge on his last dive through his binoculars moving westward ~ a half mile west of them. After several more what seemed like long minutes Brendon reacquired him ~ a quarter mile to the north east. 

They began the encounter at 1517 with T251, a regular winter visitor to the Salish Sea who is rarely observed anywhere else along the coast. He typically travels near his presumed mother and sister, T252 and T253, though there were no other whales in view. The crew followed T251 for another breath cycle, before pausing to scan for the others. Mark finally spotted them over a mile astern of the westbound bull and, through his trusty Swarovskis, thought they may be exhibiting predation behaviour. By the time Mike 1 arrived in their vicinity, the large group of females and juveniles was treading water and rolling playfully. It appeared they were finishing off a meal, but the CWR team was unable to confirm this.

As they dove, the whales grouped up and aimed west, so Mike 1 putted along the same way. Some of the Bigg’s were familiar, T252, T253 and T241A among them, but the remaining 4-5 animals took some work. They were eventually confirmed to be the remaining T241s and a wandering female, T254, who has previously been documented twice off the west coast of Vancouver Island, but this is her first confirmed presence in the Salish Sea!  

T253A was also present, a whale that CWR has documented every year since his/her birth in 2019, along with a youngster that appears to be an approximately one- to two-year-old offspring of T241A. If confirmed, it would be her first documented calf, but given amount of time between sightings, and the behaviour observed today, it will take subsequent documentation to confirm this relationship. 

The team paced the eight Bigg’s slowly west for a few more minutes, documenting each individual present, and left them heading toward Race Rocks with dusk approaching at 1615 and headed north to Victoria. They did not see T251 again, but presume he had continued west as the others plodded along in that direction.

Photos taken under Federal Permits

NMFS PERMIT: 27038/ DFO SARA 388