This afternoon Five Star Charter's Fastcat departed the Victoria Harbour at 1400 and headed east into the Strait of Juan De Fuca across the Victoria waterfront and Haro Strait to Stuart Island just north of San Juan Island. When we arrived we saw members of J pod in the Southern Resident 'fish eating' killer whale (Orcinus orca) community travelling northbound in loose groups. When we first arrived we saw the elders of J pod (J1, Ruffles, estimated to be 58 years old; J2, Granny, estimated to be in her 90s and J8, Speiden, estimated to be in her 70s) travelling north and very active! We also saw another female from J pod travelling with this group J19, Schachi and her 4 year old daughter J41, Eclipse.
After watching J pod for a while we left them just north of Turn Point, Stuart Island and headed back into Canadian waters to Pender Island where we had a report that K and L pod whales were heading down towards J pod. We travelled to just south of Mouat Pt, Pender Island and saw the rest of the whales travelling very fast, many of the whales were porpoising, south to meet up with J pod! It was great to sit and watch the parade of group after group of the matrilines of K and L pod heading (seemingly quite excited!) to J and the L12 subpod who were with the Js. There were so many whales and it was so great to see and identify members from most of the matrilines in the 3 pods (Center For Whale Research matrilines, Friday Harbour Whale Museum adoption pages)!
J1, Ruffles, male estimated to be about 58 years old
Above 2 photos: being pushed around in the currents
K25, Scoter, 18 year old male
L72, Racer (23 years) and her son, Fluke (5 years)
L83, Moonlight (18 years) travelling with the rest of her matriline
L47, Marina (35 years), the mother of L83, Moonlight
L90, Ballena, a 16 year old female
L27, Ophelia, a 44 year old female
L86, Surprise, an 18 year old female with the newest calf in L pod, L112, who was born in January this year!
L74, Saanich, a 23 year old male
No comments:
Post a Comment