April 15, 2014: Secretary Island Otter...again!

365 Project, Day 171

Here is my day 171 submission to my 365Project:

Once again the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) who has been hanging around Secretary Island off Sooke was spotted during our afternoon whale watch trip. It seems this otter has found herself a good spot and is sticking to it!  

This afternoon I worked another whale watching trip, this time on Five Star Charters boat the Supercat. I've been working with Five Star since 2000 (more casually in recent years) and it was great to be back with my old crew today. Despite the fact we had no reports to go on when we left the dock, we had a great trip and I was happy they called me to work! 

After departing Victoria Harbour we cruised south in the Strait of Juan De Fuca to head to one of our favourite wildlife viewing areas, Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. Race Rocks has an interesting history and is abundant in wildlife viewing opportunities. On previous trips to Race Rocks a great variety of cetaceans have been observed in the area including: Biggs (formerly Transient) mammal-eating and Resident fish-eating killer whales (Orcinus orca), minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) and harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides Dalli). 

In addition to all the cetacean species taking advantage of the rich habitat of Race Rocks, four pinniped species use the area as a haul out including: harbour seal (Phoca vitulina), Steller sea lions (Eumatopia jubatus), California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) and northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). There is also a great variety of bird life with one of the highlights being the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). 

Indeed this was another great visit to Race Rocks with sightings of both juvenile and adult bald eagles, harbour seals, Steller and California sea lions and the elephant seals. We then cruised further west in the Strait of Juan De Fuca towards the waters off Sooke, a small community west of Victoria, to see what might be lingering out there. Just near Sooke lies Secretary Island where we decided to see if we could find the same otter seen during the whale watching trip I worked April 10. To our delight the sea otter was once again bobbing around in the waters at Secretary Island and we had a very nice look at her (I say 'her' due to the scratching on her nose...which is caused by males while mating!). 

After the lovely sea otter sighting we traveled back east towards Race Rocks and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, the we spotted a blow ahead of us. Once we reached the location of the sighting and the animal surfaced again we discovered it was a Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in travel mode. Initially we were a bit confused as we were having trouble tracking the whale's surfacings...but soon enough we discovered that there were actually two animals! Although they were fairly close to each other, they were surfacing at different times creating the confusion as to where they were going to come up next. 

I was so excited to see these two gray whales as, due to the nature of the MMO/PAM work I have been doing the last few years, I haven't worked in areas with gray whales so haven't seen them much recently. What a great day...we had a nice sighting of the Secretary Island sea otter and two gray whales. I especially love it when whale watching trips work out so nicely when we don't have sightings reports at the time of departure!

Here are some more photos from today's whale watching trip:

This gull doesn't look to sure about me snapping it's photo!

Juvenile Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

Steller sea lions (Eumatopia jubatus) thermoregulating as many of the pinniped species do

Steller sea lions (Eumatopia jubatus) thermoregulating with a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

Adult Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) with Olympic Mountains

sea otter (Enhydra lutris) hanging out off Secretary Island, Sooke

sea otter (Enhydra lutris) hanging out off Secretary Island, Sooke

One of two gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) we observed just west of Race Rocks 

One of two gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) we observed just west of Race Rocks 

One of two gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) we observed just west of Race Rocks - you can see the different pigmentation colours on the flank of the whale which are used to for photo-ID research

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

April 10, 2014: This Otter Be Good!

365 Project, Day 166
Here is my day 166 submission to my 365Project:

As I've been hanging around Victoria waiting for my next offshore Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) and/or Passive Acoustic Monitor (PAM) contract, and I haven't worked for a while, I made myself available to work as a naturalist for the whale watching companies here and today was the first time I'd worked for a whale watching company different from Five Star Charters. 

This afternoon I worked a trip aboard the Ocean Magic at Prince Of Whales. It's still early in the season now so we don't usually expect to see a lot of whales even though it's always possible. The killer whales should only just be starting to come back into the waters of the Salish Sea to feed on the salmon moving through to their natal spawning streams. Instead, we typically do what we call 'wildlife' tours at this time of the year. 

Although killer whales (Orcinus orca) and other whale species are the main attraction to whale watchers here, we have a lot more wildlife to see including harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), Steller (Eumatopias jubatus) and California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), Elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and other sea birds and much more!


Today we got to see some of the 'much more'! Through the 1900's sea otters (Enhydra lutris) were hunted extensively throughout the BC coast including the waters of Vancouver Island. As a result this species was 'extirpated' from these waters. To try to recover the population around Vancouver island 89 sea otters from Alaska were introduced off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1969 and since that time the population has grown to an estimated 3000 individuals! 

With an increasing population size the range of these guys has also increased with more sightings further south and north around Vancouver Island now. In recent years sea otters have increasingly been seen in the waters around southern Vancouver Island with one individual observed fairly regularly around Secretary Island near the community of Sooke just west of Victoria. 

Although we thought there might be a chance this otter was around today we weren't too sure we'd actually find it. Lucky for us, as we were circumnavigating Secretary Island there it was bobbing around just off the rocks. This is not something we normally see on our whale watching trips out of Victoria but looks like we'll be seeing more and more of these guys in the future!