EncDate:14/08/23 

EncSeq:1

Enc#:40

ObservBegin:01:40 PM

ObservEnd:02:35 PM

Vessel:Orcinus

Other Vessel:

Staff:Michael Weiss

Other Observers:Darren Croft, Alyssa Kelley

Pods:Transients

LocationDescr:Haro Strait

Start Latitude:48 20.35

Start Longitude:123 09.53

End Latitude:48 28.46

End Longitude:123 09.04

 

EncSummary:

The team had received reports of multiple groups of Bigg's killer whales in the San Juan Islands. One group, the T18s, hadn't been observed by CWR researchers since March, and was south of San Juan Island, but between Snug and the T18s were the T137s in Haro Strait. The team decided to quickly document the T137s before continuing south to the T18s.

After getting off the dock at 13:22, the team arrived on scene with the whales off Landbank at 14:35. Initially, the team only found T137A, who was taking long dives but was being cooperative while he was at the surface. The team eventually did see the remaining three whales off shore. These whales were taking even longer dives, with big direction changes between surfacing sequences.

The team decided to stay parallel with T137A, but stay off shore and ahead of him with the hope of slowly honing in on the other three whales. The whales stayed out of sight for several minutes, before finally surfacing closer to T137A. The team was able to get some quick proof of presence shots on T137, T137B, and T137D before they took another dive an disappeared.

The team got reports that the T18s had made their way east and were entering Rosario Strait. Having at least documented the whole group, the team decided to end the encounter at 14:35 and head for the T18s before they got too far away (see Encounter 41 and Aerial Encounter 8).