EncDate:19/12/23 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:76

ObservBegin:12:41 PM

ObservEnd:12:57 PM

Vessel:Mike 1

Staff:Mark Malleson

Other Observers:George Hamilton

Pods:Transients

LocationDescr:East Sooke Park

Start Latitude:48 18.80

Start Longitude:123 41.66

End Latitude:48 18.74

End Longitude:123 40.96

EncSummary:

The day started off with a sighting of a single westbound bull killer whale south of Race Rocks seen from a sailing vessel at 0846, followed by a shore sighting of 2 killer whales between Albert Head and William Head heading southwest for Race Rocks at 0940. This motivated George to get on the Race Rocks web camera to test his already proven superb skills of navigating the remote-controlled camera and lock onto some Blackfish.
Sure enough, at 0940, he spotted "lots" of spread-out killer whales to the south of Race Rocks heading west with a couple of groups passing through the kelp at the southeast edge of R.R. reserve. He immediately called Mark to let him know of his sighting of what seemed most likely to be Resident killer whales. Mark suggested meeting down at the dock, but I let him know they would have to wait until some mechanical work on Mike 1 was completed. This delay would at least allow for better water conditions as the moderate outflow winds were forecasted to abate by early afternoon.
Mark and George departed the dock at Victoria harbour at 1145 and made their way west out the Juan de Fuca. With a building ebb, Mark calculated that they would likely have to go at least to Otter Point before they would come across the animals that George had seen from the R.R. camera.

At 1241, as the Mike 1 crew were approaching Secretary Island at the west end of East Sooke Park, Mark spotted a pair of killer whales coming towards them directly off their bow. His instinct was they would turn out to be Bigg's as there was no sign of any others, and he expected that the likely Residents that George saw would be well west of that location continuing west. The well marked Bigg's T137D appeared abeam of them within a couple of minutes while they sat and waited for a re-sight and moments later her brother, a mature bull, T137A, surfaced within 50 metres of her.

T137A and T137D travelled apart from their mother and sister for just over a month this past summer, from August 28 through October 2. They spent much of that time in the company of T037A3 and T037A4. T137 and T137B were only encountered sparingly in that month but may have been travelling around the Strait of Georgia or the Discovery Islands archipelago just north.
As far as we know, the matriline has been together since reforming in early October, though they have not been encountered anywhere since Mark saw them travelling west in the Juan de Fuca Strait on a commercial whale watch trip in late November.

Mike 1 trolled east with the pair for the next 15 minutes while Mark and George scanned around, looking for any others. With no sign of any, they ended the encounter at 1257 and pushed on westward with hopes of catching up to the big group that George had seen that morning from the Race Rocks camera.

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