We left Victoria harbour and headed south towards Race Rocks Ecological reserve and then west in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. It ended up being quite the search and we travelled mid-strait as far west as Sheringham Point on Vancouver Island. The conditions were good for spotting but we still had a bit of a tricky time finding the animals especially as it was over 2 hours since they were last seen from the Victoria waterfront. At one point in the trip I thought I saw a male dorsal fin going down but doubted myself because there were so many logs and other debris in the water. Shortly after we turned around in the strait to head back to the east Mark spotted blows to the south of us and they were roughly in the area where I thought I saw a male's dorsal fin.
We headed towards them and sure enough it was the T30s and T172 again and when we arrived we noticed they were lunging around a harbour seal. We were expecting to see the poor thing become lunch but after about 15 minutes of the females lunging around the seal they left and joined T30A who'd been travelling away from them to the west. That was a very lucky seal indeed! It was a great sighting and we were very lucky to see the group again despite especially since it took a while to find them!
T172 and one of the T30s in the Strait of Juan De Fuca
One of the T30s surfacing near the lucky harbour seal...they left it after pushing it around for about 10 or 15 minutes!
T172 a 21 year old female "Transient" mammal eating killer whale
T30B a 17 year old female with T172
The lucky harbour seal!
Two of the whales lunging under the water and pushing the seal around
T30B
Here you can see the seal behind the whale's head
T30B
T172
T30A the 24 year old male
Possibly T172 with T30A
T30A
T30B and T172
T30B and T172
T30C the five year old younger sibling of T30A and T30B
Related Links
Center for Whale Research killer whale fact page
Orca Sightings Network Transient page
Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans Transient info
No comments:
Post a Comment