(April 27, 2017) Our guests today were treated to an encounter with “Big Mama,” a school bus-sized member of the baleen whale family. Just a few decades ago, humpback whales such as Big Mama were on track to becoming locally extinct in the northeast Pacific. After a moratorium was placed on commercial whaling, several whale species began to recover their populations. Today there are estimated to be about 20,000 humpbacks in this part of the world.
In some parts of the world, humpback whales make a 10,000-mile annual migration between tropical breeding waters and subarctic feeding waters. The humpbacks that we see gorging on krill and bait fish from the Salish Sea north to Alaska make a shorter trip to Hawaiian breeding grounds, a mere 3,000 miles that they may cover in just four weeks!
Big Mama is a pioneer. She was one of the first humpbacks to explore the Salish Sea, ten years after commercial whaling was banned. Whereas humpbacks congregate en masse at the all-you-can-eat buffets off British Columbia and Alaska, BM leads a more solitary existence on the southern frontier. Considered a “resident,” the marine mammal has been returning to the San Juan Islands each year since 1997, often bringing a calf with her. Her most recent calf was introduced to the inland waters in 2016, and with a two to three year break between giving birth, we here in the islands are hoping to meet her next progeny as soon as next summer.
Andrew Munson
Naturalist, M/V Sea Lion
San Juan Safaris